Luke 13:1-9

The Third Sunday in Lent | 20.03.22 | Lk 13:1-9 | Paul Bieber |

Luke 13:1-9 Revised Standard Version

¹ There were some present at that very time who told Jesus 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

This Year Also to Repent

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The first temptation for the preacher to resist is to attempt to answer the question implicit in the stories of the slaughtered Galileans and those upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. That question is, Why? Why did these things befall them? In the first case, death comes through the cruelty of a ruler who would have his subjects killed while they are engaged in the religious ritual of offering sacrifice. In the second, death comes by accident or shoddy workmanship. But why to these people?

Jesus eliminates the answer that many of us reach for first. As he does in John 9, at the beginning of the story of the man born blind, Jesus forecloses the easy and wrong answer that calamity is punishment for sin. You would think that we wouldn’t have to live too long in this world to get this idea out of our heads, but it lives on: God is punishing me, or my friends, or my enemies, depending on what bad thing is happening to whom. Or, conversely, God is blessing me with some good thing; this must be my reward for some good and virtuous deed.

Jesus is having none of that. But we are still tempted to offer some other explanation, the “why” of calamity. In theology, this is called “theodicy”: Defending a just and merciful God in a world in which there is no one-to-one correspondence between righteous deeds and rewards, sins and punishments.

This temptation is to be resisted. The point of the two little stories is not to say that, since the victims of these tragedies were not worse sinners or offenders than others, there must be some other explanation of the “why” of their calamities. That’s not the point. Jesus says, twice, “No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”

We need to repent. All of us. That is the message. And repentance means turning our hearts and minds away from self-centered desires and toward God. It means recognizing our errors, our selfishness, our dishonesty. And it means the desire to do something about them, something that means change involving our whole lives.

But that something cannot be simply my resolution to do better. If I could simply do better, amend my life, become a pure and virtuous person through my own efforts, then I really would be perfectible, all on my own, and I would have no need of grace.

And it is God’s gift of grace for which I thirst. It is freely offered to everyone who thirsts, without money and without price. But my old thirsty self would rather live in a barren and dry land where there is no water than to admit that my money’s no good at God’s oasis. Nor do I care to admit how eager I am to spend that money for that which does not satisfy.

Lent is a journey through a wilderness that the Liturgy constructs each Church Year as a preparation for my return to the cross and resurrection, and to my participation in the cross and resurrection, that is, my Baptism. The Liturgical wilderness is there to remind me of the real wilderness I have created in my own life.

John the Baptist preached in the wilderness, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance,” and he said that the axe is lying at the roots of fruitless trees. God comes to each of us seeking this fruit, laying the axe at our roots. Will we be cut down, cut off, left as thirsty as dry bones? Why are we here, taking up space, using up the ground?

The Vinedresser answers these questions, not with an explanation of our failures and ineffectiveness, of the way we prefer our own barren and dry wilderness to God’s feast of rich food, of marrow and fatness. The Vinedresser’s answer is what he offers to do for us: to dig around the besetting sins encrusting our roots, making it impossible for God’s cool clear water to relieve our thirst. To nourish our roots, paradoxically, with the manure produced by all that we labored for that was not good, that did not satisfy or nourish our roots.

The Vinedresser pleads with the Owner for another year of grace for us—in the classic language of the Church, for time for amendment of life. No person is exempt from human sinfulness, and the wages of sin is death. Death can happen when engaged in ritual; it can happen when standing next to a wall. When it happens suddenly, there is no time to repent. And so, “When Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” That’s the first of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.

The Vinedresser has begged for us time to repent our fruitfulness. There is still time to respond. Lent is not yet half over. God will give time, but he will not wait forever. Perhaps the most dangerous spiritual idea of our time is the idea that God is infinitely accepting. Even if the hand of your enemies and the hazards of life leave you untouched, God’s judgment still awaits.

Israel’s journey through the wilderness is set before us as an example. God’s people were ungrateful. They craved the food of Egypt so much that they wanted to go back to slavery. They let themselves be led astray into sexual sins. They grumbled against God. They became idolaters. Those who experienced the saving acts of God in the Exodus but did not remain faithful were struck down, cut down, cut off. But do you think that they were worse sinners than we? The Church is in the same danger of falling, of being felled like a fruitless fig tree.

Only the Gospel Jesus proclaims—the Gospel the Church proclaims about Jesus—has the power to bring forth the fruit of repentance. Jesus speaks of sin, judgment, and repentance in relation to all people. The Gospel of forgiveness is also for all, anyone and everyone. The Gospel offers comfort and hope even when God’s justice remains hidden in a world of sin, suffering, and death. In word and sacrament the suffering Christian meets the suffering Christ and sees in his cross—the destination of our Lenten journey—refreshment for our thirsty roots, nourishment to fashion our lives anew, comfort, release, peace, and life everlasting.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber, STS

San Diego, California, USA

E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net