CURRENT EVENTS & FRUITLESS FIG TREE
Psalm 63:1-8; Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9
3rd Sunday in Lent, March 20, 2022
Pastor Ritva H Williams
We meet Jesus this morning teaching and occasionally taking questions from the crowd that surrounds him and his disciples. Someone calls Jesus’ attention to “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” These folks are asking Jesus to comment on current events. They sum up the entire news story in that one sentence, so let’s start by unpacking it.
The Galileans were people from Galilee, a region under the rule of Herod the fox whom we met last Sunday. They were Jews who went to Jerusalem from time to time to worship at the Temple and make the animal sacrifices prescribed in scripture. Pilate was the Roman governor of Judea, noted for his brutality, violence and contempt of Jewish values and practices. In this incident Pilate ordered his soldiers to kill the Galileans — visitors from a political district not under his jurisdiction. To add insult to injury he murdered these visitors while they were worshipping, so that human and animal blood was mingled before the altar.
Many ancient peoples (and some modern ones too) believed that sin causes suffering, and suffering was the proof of sin, and so the idea on everyone’s mind was that these Galileans must have been really bad people. Jesus says, “No!” The suffering of the Galileans was not God’s punishment. Their murders were entirely on Pilate acting as an agent of the Roman Empire.
Jesus then brings up the 18 persons who were crushed in the collapse of the tower of Siloam. Were they worse debtors than everyone else living in Jerusalem? And answers his own question with an emphatic, “No.” Their deaths were not divine punishment for unpaid debts. Whatever caused the collapse of the tower — an earthquake, aging infrastructure, shoddy workmanship, or some combination thereof — the victims were not at fault. Jesus insists that the victims of these incidents — one state-sanctioned terror and the other a random accident — did nothing wrong. They did nothing that caused their deaths.
We all know calamities like these happen all the time everywhere. Jesus’ message for us is not to blame the victims, and not to blame God either. To paraphrase one of my favorite commentators: It is not wrong to ask where God is in the midst of horrible catastrophes. It is not wrong to question and doubt. It is not wrong to shake one’s fist and cry with anger and grief. But it would be wrong to accept this as God’s will. It would be wrong to try to justify it or to explain it as somehow being part of God’s mysterious plan. It would be equally wrong to use such calamities as evidence that God does not exist or care.
Human violence and natural disasters occur without warning and without reason. They are tragedies that highlight how precarious and fragile human existence is.
Jesus’ statement, “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” is not a promise that repentance will magically prevent catastrophic and tragic deaths. The focus is on the suddenness, the unexpectedness of the disasters. Rather than endless and useless speculation on why bad things happen to good, bad, and indifferent people, Jesus urges his audience to face life’s unpredictability by doing the one thing they can do — repent.
To repent is to change one’s mind, one’s attitudes, and one’s values about what is essential for human existence. To repent is to see things in a new way, to adopt a different perspective. Part of repenting is recognizing where our attitudes, values and perspectives have been skewed or just plain wrong. But, repentance is not intended to lead us to beating ourselves up for real or imagined faults and mistakes. It is a much more thoughtful and reflective process that involves identifying and turning away from things that violate God’s purposes (such as idolatry, injustice, and exploitation) and turning towards faithful living rooted in ever deepening relationships with God and neighbor.
To illustrate his point, Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree that doesn’t produce any figs. To get at the meaning of that parable, let’s think about the mission and purpose of fig trees. Why do they exist? To produce figs, of course. But why produce figs? What are they good for? Conservationist Margaret Kinnaird writes that “Figs are consumed by everything from tiny ants to 2-ton elephants. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, crave them … fig eating animals drive the cycle of rain forest regeneration.” The mission of the fig tree therefore is to provide nourishment and vitality to all kinds of living creatures, including human beings, and even the earth itself.
This fig tree is not producing figs as it is supposed to. It is not fulfilling its mission. The landowner makes his intention to dig up the fig known to the gardener, and even states his reasoning. The fig tree is wasting the soil.
Please note that in the parables of Jesus, owners of lands, slaves, and vineyards do not represent God. These characters behave very much like authoritarian leaders in the ancient world. Making the vineyard owner out to be God also causes a serious theological problem as Jesus becomes the gardener who talks God into being nice. In the words of Mark Davis, “This is a very dangerous way of looking at the God whose primary description on the scriptures is “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” In this parable, God is represented by the gardener who advocates for giving the fig tree more time, and proposes digging around it and spreading manure on its roots in the hopes that it will finally produce figs.
Parables provide metaphors for human life. Here, the fig tree represents not only individual humans beings but also human communities, institutions, and societies. All have a purpose and mission —- all are expected to produce “fruit” that nourishes the life and vitality of others.
You’ve heard me say many times that each and every one of us is created in God’s image as a beloved child of God, uniquely gifted to make a positive difference in our world. The positive difference we may in our homes, schools, playgrounds, workplaces, neighborhoods and communities is the fruit that we produce. In this Lenten season Jesus asks us to ponder: are we bearing fruit? are we making a positive difference?
Regardless of whether our answer is yes, or maybe, or sometimes, or I’m not sure, or no I’m not— the good news is that the gardener of our souls is giving us another chance. The good news is that even though life is unpredictable, let us seize the time that we have been given — today. Let’s not waste it.
Please pray with me this prayer by Pastor John van de Laar.
There is no shortage of ways that we can help to heal our world, Lord;
we just need the willingness to see them and the courage to act.
So, we pray for your inspiration and strength, to use the abilities and resources we have for the sake of those who need them. We pray for those of us who have plenty – of wealth that can lift some out of poverty, of power that can influence the world toward justice and equity, of relationships that can connect those who can help each other, of creativity that can inspire and challenge through new ideas and new visions, of time that can be used to feed the hungry, transport the weary, or befriend the lonely. And we pray for all who need ordinary, gifted people to ease their grief, their pain, their trauma, their need, and their fear. Do not let us rest, Lord, until we have found a way to help as we may, for the cause of Christ.
Amen.
1 John van de Laar, “Through our Tears,” Lent 3C, sacredise.com
2 Margaret Kinnaird, “Big on Figs,” Jan 01 2000, The Natural Wildlife Federation at nwf.org.
3 Mark Davis, “Theodicy or Hypocrisy?” Sunday March 13, 2022, leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com
