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Lent 3, 03/24/2019
Sermon on Luke 13:1-9, by Paul Bieber
Luke 13:1-9 Revised Standard Version
13 There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? 3 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. 9 And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
also
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
I Corinthians 10:1-13
The Fig Tree and the Vinedresser
Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.
Job’s so-called “comforters” would have been right at home with those who told Jesus about Pilate sending his troops into the temple area to murder Galilean Jews while they were slaughtering their lambs for the Passover Seder—the only time lay people would be offering sacrifices—their blood mixed with the blood of the lambs. Because Job’s comforters believed that bad things happen to bad sinners.
At least some of Jesus’ disciples must have been attentive during the second part of the current affairs discussion, about the Tower of Siloam falling on and killing eighteen people in Jerusalem—those disciples, that is, who asked Jesus at the beginning of John 9 who sinned, the man born blind or his parents, that he was born that way.
If there’s an effect, there must be a cause, that’s what they thought. And that’s what we think, too. We might not go immediately to the sinfulness of the sufferers as the “comforters” and the disciples did, but we do look to the wickedness of our enemies, at least as bad as that Roman oppressor Pilate, or to pure chance in the toppling of a tower (although this is California, and so the question of negligence in construction and who to sue would also be a natural move for us).
But Jesus doesn’t take the current events lesson in the direction of the failures and sins of the sufferers, nor the wickedness of the enemy, nor chance or destiny. He doesn’t seem to be interested in the theological-philosophical question of theodicy, the question of why suffering exists in God’s world. Instead, Jesus points to the brokenness of the fallen world and our participation in it. “Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
Now, it is surely not Jesus’ point that, if you do repent, you won’t die. Even being sinless doesn’t bring that outcome. Jesus has been saying, since he began his preaching ministry, that the time is fulfilled, God’s kingdom has broken into this troubled world, and the response to that is to repent and trust God. Since his inaugural sermon in Nazareth he has been saying that his ministry is one of áphesis: forgiving, releasing, letting be, setting free all who are in bondage to sin, death, and the devil’s empty promises.
And now Jesus offers us an illustration of this teaching, a little parable as we continue on our Lenten pilgrimage: the barren fig tree, a fig tree planted in a vineyard. A fig tree and a vineyard are both signs of God’s blessings, according to the prophet Joel (2:22), but this fig tree hasn’t borne fruit for three years. If we wanted to engage in the kind of allegorical interpretation that St. Paul offers us in today’s epistle, we might look at those three years as three covenants: one with Abraham, one through Moses, and one with David—Isaiah refers to that one in the first reading.
The owner of the vineyard is ready to cut down the barren fig tree after three years of failure, but the vinedresser intercedes for it. Let it alone—áphes!—for this one more year. I’ll dig around it, fertilize it; maybe it will bear fruit and if so, well and good. But if this last year of grace doesn’t bring fruit, then cut it down. This Christlike vinedresser is offering grace. John the Baptist had said that even now the axe is laid at the root of fruitless trees. This vinedresser is offering one more year.
Every year when we begin our Lenten journey once again we pray for time for amendment of life. Maybe this Lent will bring fruit worthy of repentance, as John the Baptist called for. Indeed, every week we come to the Liturgy at least in part to regroup before returning to the weekly, the daily round of meeting expectations, satisfying needs, and gratifying wants. But in a fallen and broken world—the only one we have to work with—we find ourselves seeking things that can never finally satisfy. Even though we are bombarded with enticements for all manner of material and spiritual solutions to our thirst, what we really need to slake it is nothing other than God, nothing other than the blood of the Lamb.
Lent is the grace-filled time offered to receive this. Pilgrims through a barren land encounter a divine rock that follows us in our wilderness wanderings offering us the waters of Holy Baptism, the feast of Holy Communion, the means through which God’s Word of grace will accomplish his purpose.
We live as the fig tree lives, under the threat of judgment and death. It can happen when we are engaged in a ritual. It can happen when we are standing under a wall. No escape is offered by the illusion that we lives by merit and reward, but God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. We live under the rubric of forgiveness, of áphesis. The vinedresser who on the cross said áphes, forgive, to his God and Father, comes to us, not to see whether we have produced good fruit by sheer willpower, but to dig around the caked conventions by which we think that we could do that.
The vinedresser who eats and drinks with sinners invites into God’s banquet precisely those who are burdened by life’s failed expectations, by our own inadequacies. He nourishes our roots with what they are thirsty for, the fertilizer, the humus, of his own humility unto death, so that we will not perish on our wilderness journey by trusting idolatrously in anything but him. Rather that we will seek him while he may be found, turn to him while he is near, and recognize the bold claim of the Psalm we chanted this morning, that his love, his grace, his blessing, is better than life itself, than any life without him.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.