A Sermon Based Upon Luke 13: 1-9
Preached by Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Lent 3, March 3, 2013
“If
it bears fruit next year, well and good; if not, you can cut it down.” Luke 13: 9, NRSV.
At first glance, today’s Bible text
seems to be anything but hopeful. It opens
with the telling of two tragic events; a terrible murder of innocents by a
governor Pilate and a tragic accident of an unstable tower falling on
unsuspecting people. Such tragic news
has a place in the gospel, because this is the kind of world we all know. This is the kind of bad news we hear most
every day: An Islamic extremist murders people in the name of Allah, terrible
storms slam people around like toys; someone in your neighborhood is injured or
killed. Just to reflect upon the bad
news that comes in the period of a lifetime can leave the most optimistic among
us feeling depressed, alarmed, numb, and much less than hopeful.
The other part of this passage today
does not, at first glance, seem to help matters much. Upon
hearing the questions people raise to try to reason why bad things happen, Jesus
challenges these answer seekers with a stern warning, saying: ‘unless’ you
change your ways worse will happen to you.
Now, that’s quite a stern word for a world people who are already
overwhelmed. Is this any way to be the Lord
of faith, hope and love?
Now Jesus is certainly telling us the truth. If we want to face facts, just by being born
we are indeed constantly threatened with difficulty, death and
destruction. The reality of death and
the possibility of destruction hover over each one of us every day, some days
more obvious than others. There have even
been times in human history when it would have been better not to have been
born. Jesus said that himself, on the way to the
cross as women along the road were weeping over him: "…Daughters of Jerusalem,” he said, “do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your
children. For the days are surely coming
when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and
the breasts that never nursed.' Then
they will begin to say to the mountains, 'Fall on us'; and to the hills, 'Cover
us.' (Luke 23:28-30, NRS)
The odds in that world and in ours, are in favor of bad news. Who knows when a big bully will try to hurt
us? Who knows when a deranged person
will pull out a gun and start shooting?
Who knows when we will get sick, be in an accident, or come to realize
that our days are numbered? As human beings, whose lives are temporal and
transitory, if we are in our right mind, we know this. But if we want to remain in our right mind,
we need to somehow hear it, but also we must put it into the back of our mind, get
on with life, and try to find some kind of hope. Like in the humorous Jim Carey movie LIAR,
LIAR, the ‘whole truth, and nothing but the truth” can be an awful big burden
to bear in ‘real’ life.
After telling the hard and difficult
truth about his own day, Jesus offers his listeners a parable of hope. Jesus wisely does not offer any hard and fast
answers as to why bad things happen.
Jesus does not allow them or us to point any fingers, except at
ourselves. But Jesus does want to temper
this ‘dose’ of reality with a word of hope.
His words could help them and us deal with the daily pressures and
perplexity of life.
The hopeful story Jesus tells is about a
man who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. Already, we can see that the person in this
parable is better off than most people because he has a piece of land and has
the means to hire a gardener to work for him.
But even with all his wealth, resources, and know-how, even after three
years of effort have gone by the fig tree is still not fruit-bearing. Perhaps the obvious point is that even people
who seem to have everything, will one day be threatened with loss and
disappointment. The privileged and
blessed can insulate themselves, but one day they too will feel the threat of
ending up with nothing.
The passage we must consider today is both
sobering and serious. At its very heart
is something most people don’t want to have to consider, and probably won’t
consider, until threatened with loss and difficulty. Most of us tend to have much better things
to do than to consider Jesus’ twice given warning: “Unless you repent, you will likewise perish!” If people can find any way to wiggle out of
responding to these challenging words, most will try. If we can find any way to deny the seriousness
of our own situations, or to distract ourselves with other things, we tend to
do that. In our own age, many prefer to
watch reality on TV (which is anything but reality) than to face the reality of
their own lives. We‘d rather stand by
and be entertained by with what we see is wrong in other, rather than do the
hard work of taking an honest, painful look at ourselves.
The awful cycle of hopelessness,
despair, with all its positioning, faultfinding, blaming and name calling can
still threaten us. But who might consider,
with this biblical word from Jesus, that real hope--the kind of hope that is
most needed in our world--still begins today where it always has, and always will
begin. Only when we take a serious look
into our own hearts, and take a dose of our own reality, can we find the hope,
the peace and the promise we need. True
hope begins, not by finding all the right answers to all the questions, nor by
figuring out who should be blamed, or has gotten us into the mess. No, true hope comes from hearing God’s truth
and responding to God’s warning. Before
we can deal with the ‘bad news’ in the world and find hope, we must come to
grip with the bad news that gets into us---any of us, even the best of us.
To regain hope in our lives, even in the
most difficult moments, let me first speak about what we must not do. If we want to have hope, regain hope, bring
hope into our world, we must not get caught up in the blaming and shaming game
that demands answers to everything that happens. Isn’t this where Jesus starts? When Jesus was told about the tragedies
around him, he knew what his disciples where thinking and asked: “Do you think that because these Galileans
suffered this way, they were worse sinners than all others?” Then without waiting for their answer,
Jesus continues: “Of those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on
them, do you think they were worse offenders than the all others living in
Jerusalem?”
In both instances, Jesus does not wait
for simple answers. Jesus does not allow
his disciples to fall into the trap of blaming and shaming—each other or the
world. Jesus wants his disciples to rise
above their personal desire to seek an easy answer or to find fault. But this is not easy, even for the best of
us. Remember, when the towers fell in
2001, it was Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberson who came out saying that it was
more than terrorism, but it was caused by God’s wrath. Falwell blamed both the ACLU, the
abortionists, the pagans, the feminists, the gays and the lesbians, not to
mention People for the American Way.
There was no doubt in his mind, he had it all figured out, and Roberson
agreed.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans,
John Hagee, pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, was quick to jump in
and declare that what happened to New Orleans ‘looked like the curse of
God.’ Following these extreme and
popular views, it wasn’t long until political candidates and even fringe news
reporters got on the bandwagon, suggesting that hurricanes on the east coast
and earthquakes in Hati and Japan, were hitting parts of the world where people
were worst sinners than others (See Washington Post’s Sally Quinn: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/did-god-plan-isaac-to-punish-republicans/2012/08/28/80ead6a0-f139-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html).
It was, and always is easy to easy to get in
on the blame wagon when it happens to someone else. But once you get on that band wagon, how do
you get off? It’s always easy hitch a
ride when it happens to someone else, but how are you going to get off that
‘bandwagon’ when, God forbid, the tragic finally comes to you?
This may be why Jesus recommends another
wagon to ride on. Jesus not only tells
his disciples what they should not do, he wants to instruct them about what
they must do, if they really want to have hope in this world that can seem hopeless. Even with these very hard, reality facing,
direct words or warning, repentance and this promise of judgment, Jesus puts
them and us all in this together. Jesus
sees nothing to be accomplished by placing blame or by claiming to have figured
out exactly what God is up to in this world, or by claiming to know exactly is
being judged by God. As Jesus sees it, none of us will escape the
sure and true Judgments of God. And
understanding this, taking it into our minds, hearts and into our actions, is
not meant to terrorize us, but it is meant to warn us, and strangely enough, to
bring us hope.
Jesus’ call to repentance, can bring us
hope because even in a bad news world, there is still good that we can do. And this good we can do must begin with an
acknowledgement of our own participation and responsibility with what goes on
in this world. Isn’t this part of what
made Abraham Lincoln to come to be admired by both south and north? When the north clearly had the advantage,
and people where asking him to come and pray that God be on their side, level
headed Lincoln said no, “Let us pray that we are on God’s side.” And as the war came to a close, when Lee
Surrendered at Appomattox Court house, Lincoln refused to take punish the south
any further and he commanded that General Lee be treated with the upmost
respect, even when he was wrong. Two of
the most moving moments in Steven Spielberg’s depiction of that time in
Lincoln’s history, was not only when he succeeded in freeing the slaves; but
also when he freed the south which was also ‘enslaved’ in the slavery of their
sin. Lincoln let God speak for himself
as he let the defeat and the humiliation of the south’s surrender speak for
itself. The greatness of Lincoln’s
legacy is that he never ceased to recognize the weaknesses, the struggles, and
need of every person, including his own, instead of capitalizing on laying
blame and bringing more shame. It was
not just the greatness of some, but flaws of all that should “unite” us for
aiming for the greater good.
Hope can be found, even in the worst
situations, when people, refrain from easy answers and take their own
shortcomings seriously. If we do feel blessed and spared from tragedy,
Jesus’s sobering words of warning about God’s ultimate judgment should still steer
us away from laying blame and call us to sharing in the responsibility of how
things are. Hope comes, both from what
we don’t do (in placing unnecessary blame on each other) and in what we are still
called to do (seeking to change our situation by first changing ourselves).
But the final part of Jesus’ message
reminds us of our greatest source of hope.
When the owner of the vineyard
discovers that his fig tree is still not producing fruit after three years of
investing in it, he is ready to cut it down.
But it is the servant who intervenes.
The owner says strongly and sternly, “Why should I let it keep wasting
my soil?” This is the ultimate “God” question;
it is not ‘who done it’, and not always ‘what can be done’, but the
ultimate question of life is when will God draw the line or let down the final curtain? Our greatest question of faith is not about
‘if’ but about ‘when’ will God’s true judgment come---to prove what needs to be
lifted up that is righteous and true, and to cut down all that is wrong---with
Jerusalem, with Washington, or with us?
It will not come, this parable would say,
as long as the servants of God, appeal to God’s grace and goodness. Jesus wants us to know, that even in the
most fruitless situation, God’s constant desire and will is to give Jerusalem, Washington,
and to give us, another chance, another year, and another moment. If God’s servants of righteousness still
appeal for grace, God is willing to fertilize us one more time with hope.
Just the other day, when experimenting
with my new chickens and my dog, I put myself into jeopardy. I wanted to let my three chickens free-range
and I dared to let my dog free in hopes that she would not bother the
chickens. They seemed friendly with each
other, and I was outside working, so I let them go. In one
moment, I got distracted and looked up to see no chickens and no dog. I thought to myself, what have I done? I quickly left my work and moved toward the
back of the yard to see if the chickens were safe and where in the world the
dog had gone. When I peek around the
building, my eye first came upon the three chickens. There was the roosters surrounded by the two
hens. Then I noticed that their eyes
were on the dog, who had entered the lot with them. Interestingly, the dog’s desire was not for the
chickens, but on eating their manure in the lot. I found myself strangely warmed by the sight
of my dog eating chicken manure.
Our eyes should be on the manure in this
passage too. The fertilizing of the fruit
tree is where God wants our energy to find its focus. In difficult times, in fruitless times, in
barren times, even in evil times and in hard times of any kind, we are always
faced with a choice. We can blame
someone. We can cut each other down, and
we can close up shop in our hearts, bringing relationships, hopes and dreams to
a close. Or, when we find nothing—no fruit
that we wish or need, we could fertilize that tree with all the good we can
give it and grant it another chance.
Jesus would like for us, his disciples to set their minds and hearts on
this approach. He wants us to find hope
by giving hope another chance, as we focus on what we can change within
ourselves while we leave the judgment, the cutting down, and the final closing
date to God.
And God, according to Jesus, always does
whatever he can, to give us ‘one more year’ and one more chance. But,
as this text soberly reminds us, ‘there is wideness to God’s mercy, but is
also a limit to his patience.’ (Quoted
from David
Garland in Luke: Exegetical Commentary on
the N.T., page 534).
God is still expecting to find fruit on our
tree. God is still filled with hope, but the answer God
awaits is this; are we? What are we doing with our tree of hope? Are we still fertilizing it? Are we still feeding it? Do we still want to see it grow? For Israel to find hope in their moment, they
had to stop being the Israel they wanted to be and submit to being the Israel
God wanted them to be (N.T. Wright).
This was the repentance God was calling for in them, or they would
perish. What is the repentance; the change
or the turn around, God is calling for in us?
Are we willing to fertilize that tree?
Are we willing to seek more than the growth and fruit we want, but to
seek, hunger for, and even hurt for the fruit God desires and demands? The Galileans who died in this passage, died
of human hate not because of any fault of their own. The people of Jerusalem, died when a tower fell on them by accident, also because of no fault of their own. But those who hear Jesus’ words will be held
responsible unless they bear the fruit of repentance
God seeks---and still seeks, also in us. Amen.
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