Hope Full

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.