Luke 13:1-9

Luke 13:1 At that very time there were some present who told him about
the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2
He asked them, „Do you think that because these Galileans suffered
in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I
tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or
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? 5 No, 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. 7 So 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?‘ 8 He replied,
‚Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure
on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you
can cut it down.'“

Questions about Relationships

It is usually toward the end of the day when the phone call comes to
my office. It has probably taken the person on the other end of the line
all day to work up the courage to ask their question. It isn’t always
the same question, but many times it is a variation of the following: “Why
is God punishing me?” Things are going poorly for this individual or
family at the moment and they have connected the dots and found the picture
unmistakable. God must have it in for them.

For my part I try to be assuring to them. I don’t claim to know the
mind of God, but I assure them that God does not “have it in for them.” I
am sure of this because of Jesus‘ death and resurrection. God is for
us, not against us. But at the same time, these bad things do happen,
and there does not seem to be rhyme or reason to it. We look to make
sense of our world, and we find out that senseless and random evils exist
and plague us from time to time. Our world is complex, and simple answers
will not suffice.

I don’t mention that their question is one aspect of the age old philosophical
conundrum, theodicy. They probably don’t know, nor do they care, that
this word describes questions like, “If God is all powerful, then how
can God be good or just with all the evil that exists in the world.” Students
in college Philosophy 101 courses have been writing papers on this topic
for decades, perhaps even centuries. The ancients of various cultures
puzzled over this question. Perhaps this is the first and most important
question asked after one answers positively the question about the existence
of God at all.

Many religions around the world express the hope that wicked people
will be punished and righteous people will be rewarded by the divine.
The natural extension for some, however faulty the logic, is that when
someone suffers they must be wicked. Our experience tells us otherwise.
Often people, even those we consider good, suffer for no apparent reason.
Likewise, people whom we consider wicked often seem to go through life
rewarded for their wickedness. All of this leaves our world shaken and
our heads shaking.

What is the relationship between our behavior, the good and bad things
that happen to us, and God? How do all these things fit together? I don’t
know that I begin to have the answers to these questions, at least not
on the logical level. What strikes me as odd is that Jesus in our Gospel
text for today seems not to help in the least.

Muddy Waters

In our text for today, the question comes up not once, not twice, but
three times; two of them contemporary examples for Jesus to use, and
one a parable that he tells. As Jesus addresses this topic, the answer
to his own question muddies the waters considerably. At first it seems
that he is telling us that there is no connection between Sin and the
evil. His emphatic “No” to the question, however rhetorical, indicates
just that. But then he goes on to talk about the repentance of the people
who are listening, lest they suffer the same fate. Jesus is saying, in
effect; “If you don’t repent, you will suffer just like they did.” Perhaps
Sin and suffering are not linked, but repentance and avoiding suffering
seem to be.

Again, our experience tells us otherwise. If we take what Jesus is saying
literally, then we know that it doesn’t always happen that way. Many
people in Jesus‘ day repented and were baptized by John, and yet were
swept away in the Jewish rebellion against Rome that was going on at
the time. Others in Jesus day seemed not at all concerned about their
broken relationship with God, they seemed to keep right on going without
suffering any ill, almost like the “Energizer Bunny.” We are still puzzled,
and no closer to an answer. That is, until we take a closer look at Jesus‘
parable and its implications for the two earlier examples that he gives.

The Gardener and the Tree

Jesus parable of the gardener is one of those peculiar to Luke’s gospel.
The theme is common and as old as the prophets. The garden, vineyard,
or in this case, fig tree, is not producing fruit. It is not serving
the purpose for which it was planted. The care given to it seems wasted.
The owner, understandably miffed about this, intends to put the soil
to better use. The gardener intervenes and pleads for one more season
to nurture the plant to growth before it will either produce or be cut
down.

At first the meaning of this text for us seems plain. The time is short.
Bear fruit now (be productive as God’s chosen people) or endure the wrath
of the owner of the garden and be cut down and cut off. How many of us
have heard (and pastors preached) just such a message. But that is to
misunderstand the nature of trees altogether. Trees that do not bear
fruit cannot simply start to produce on their own. It takes the proper
soil, fertilizer, water and sunshine for this to happen. It is indeed
God’s doing, not the tree’s action. The gardener knows this and not only
pleads for time, but pledges a plan to do just the things needed for
the tree to bear fruit. The gardener knows not only grace and patience
but also nurture and care. The tree will ultimately bear fruit.

But if, as I suspect, Jesus is referring to himself as the gardener,
then this is not the end of the story of the gardener and the tree. We
cannot hear this story of Jesus in isolation. It has everything to do
with the destination that Jesus intends in Jerusalem, his death on another
tree. Taken in the context of Jesus own death, the story of the Galileans
killed by Pilate becomes more meaningful and more poignant. Jesus does
not need to repent, yet he suffers the same fate of cruel death at the
order of the same person. When he talks of perishing as they did, he
is talking about something that the reader of the Gospel must realize
Jesus is himself going to do.

For this gardener takes on the fate of all humanity, our suffering and
our death, head on. He not only tends to the tree, but dies on a tree.
He suggests that being cut off from God is a terrible fate, and then
he endures that fate with us and for us. By joining us in our suffering,
Jesus does not answer the questions about why we suffer. Instead he lives
it. He shows us that it does not have the last word. Beyond our hope
and comprehension is something greater still, of which by his death we
can only catch a glimpse. For this purpose he tends the unproductive
tree and dies with it, with us.

For the Love of the Tree

We are usually so worried about the pains and suffering we endure that
we are blind to the fact that God has joined our life, our death, and
created a new path into our future. God has done so because love overrules,
not death, but the power of death upon humanity. Our suffering is strong
and enduring, but God’s love is stronger still. We cannot avoid the pains
and evils of this world, but we do not have either to join them or be
resigned to them. Instead we can follow Jesus.

Jesus did not need to repent because he remained, at all times, oriented
toward the one he called “Abba.” The repentance that he calls forth in
this story may well be an encouragement for us to do the same: to turn
away from the pains and evils that consume us, to turn away from the
things that we use to distract ourselves from the reality of evil in
our hearts as well as our world, and to turn our faces toward the God
whose love is the only hope we have of changing the ending, if not the
course of our story.

For it is in turning to our gardener for help and hope that we might
indeed become productive, just as a plant will turn toward the light
that is in part fuel for its fruit. And we hope in this gardener because
he has joined his fate with our fate, so that his destination might be
ours as well. Thus oriented on our Lenten journey, we are now ready to
face the tree of the cross, the place of fate, so that we too might arrive
at the empty tomb and the end of suffering’s power.

This news means more to the people who call me late in the afternoon,
with such burning questions of existence and suffering: that Jesus carries
his cross for us and before us, that God’s response to our suffering
is not indifference but to join us in it. We may never understand it,
but we know now that unexplained suffering and pain are not our journey’s
destination. So we cling to our beloved gardener, as if our very lives
depended on him. Because, I suppose, in every sense they do.

Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman
Peace Lutheran Church
Austin, Texas
luke_bouman@sbcglobal.net