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Third Sunday in Lent, 02/28/2016
Sermon on Luke 13:1-9, by Ryan Mills
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’
6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” 8He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son +, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Well there is nothing that grabs our attention like a “special news bulletin”, or an urgent “push-alert” chiming on our phone, or the sound of an emergency siren growing closer and louder. They rouse us from our routines, they wake us up to an unexpected crisis at hand, and they force us to respond in ways we would never have dreamt of moments before. On this Third Sunday in Lent, in the midst of these forty days to turn from the disaster of our sin to the arms of our loving Heavenly Father, Jesus sounds the alarm about how precarious our situation is. He alerts us to the dire necessity of repentance in the face of our human fragility and vulnerability, and to repent before this brief candle of our little life is blown out.
In the midst of the disasters that have claimed so much of our attention in these last years—9/11, the Newtown school shooting, the attacks in Paris, let alone all the other unremarked-upon disasters, including the daily heartaches and disasters and confusions of our own lives—Jesus brings up in conversation today a couple of headlines from the Jerusalem newspapers that everyone would have been talking about. This is Jesus talking about current events around the watercooler! He begins by saying, “Did you hear about the slaying of the Galilean pilgrims, the worshipers who had come to Jerusalem to pray, only to have been killed by Pontius Pilate, to have had their own blood mixed in with the offerings they brought?” It’s a terrible story of faithful folks killed by the government in church, one more instance of unfair and unjust violence, of innocent blood shed with cruel relish, so it’s no wonder people talked about it.
But perhaps Jesus also sees in this disaster a foretaste of what will happen to him, of how he too will suffer under Pontius Pilate, of how he, a perfectly innocent man, will be made to suffer, and of how his blood will be mingled with every drop of blood shed unjustly on our streets, in this neighborhood, and all around this world. Jesus knows he will become an offering for all the sins of the world, and have his own precious blood shed under Pontius Pilate, and suffer death and be buried--just like these poor nameless victims from Jerusalem, and just like the innocent victims we know and love.
And if that’s not enough disasters for us this morning, Jesus continues, “Did you also hear about that tower of Siloam collapsing down?” A structural building collapse that killed 18 people. Like a crane that falls six-hundred feet onto the streets of Manhattan, or like a car or bike crash that takes one we love--a random, meaningless, senseless tragedy. Jesus asks us, “Do you think any of them were worse sinners than you?” “Of course not,” we say, “there’s no way!” We know God did not specially punish them, or why would he have not have specially punished us?! God does not desire the death of sinners, but rather that they turn to him and live. But on the flip side, does it make us extra special that we are still here? Do we have extra divine favor because we weren’t hit by a bus this morning? No. Jesus wants us to see how vulnerable our little life is, how short our time in this earthly life is, he warns us not to wait for big things to come to our senses, but to instead see how every moment is the right time to realize we are walking in the sight of God, and to awake to the riches of his grace. That now and every moment he calls to us to return to him and believe in the Good News. That now and every moment he calls and commands us to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Look how fragile we all are! Look how lovingly and strongly God calls to us. Look at the time we don’t have! So don’t wait, who knows when our time will be? So now is the time to turn and believe, come to your senses and come home, turn and live, Jesus says. And if we don’t, Jesus says, won’t we perish like them? For what does it mean for us to choose to live without God forever, to lock the door against him from our own side in obstinate unfaith, except to perish eternally?
Jesus then tells a parable: a story about waiting, about patience, about love, and about hoping. He tells of a landowner expecting good things from his fig tree, and his waiting for that sweet, luscious, lovely fruit, but finding none. “Get rid of the tree, cut it down,” he says! “But Lord,” says the gardener, “let it alone for one more year, let me dig around it, fertilize it, care for it, do everything I can for it. Next year, if it bears fruit how wonderful!—but if not, you can cut it down!”
What will happen to us, the planting of the Lord, whom God calls to bear fruit: the fruit of faith he has planted within us, the fruit of love our neighbors need? How much more can God do for us? What more do we need or want that he hasn’t already generously provided? What is there he hasn’t given—even his own Son, his own life, his own body and blood, broken and shed for you? Like a cliffhanger, the parable leaves us in mid-air with a desperate question: Will you and I hear in time? Will we bear fruit, according to our callings, before our time is up?
Thanks be to God who gave his only Son for us to nourish us, fertilize us, and water us by his innocent suffering and death under Pontius Pilate, so that by his death we might live and have life eternal! So now is the right time, before it’s too late: Believe in the Good News, come to your senses and into the Loving Arms that already hold you close and tight. For our loving gardener has planted and grown in you good sweet fruit: pleasing to God, and useful for your suffering neighbor.
And the Peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Zusätzliche Medien:
i I am indebted to Matt Skinner, “Commentary on Luke 13:1-9”, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2789, for his incisive commentary used in the preparation of this sermon.