TO BE HUMAN IS NOT KNOWING IT ALL

Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; Luke 13:1-9

3rd Sunday in Lent, March 23, 2025 

Pastor Ritva H Williams

Welcome to Episode 2 of our Lenten series “God is Still with Us.” Last Sunday we reflected on the reality that to be human is to be vulnerable. Jesus models courageous vulnerability by going about his ministry even in the face of death threats from Herod, and intentionally compares himself to a mother hen gathering her chicks under her wings. In this way, Christ chooses to become vulnerable —  as vulnerable as a hen hunted by a fox — for the sake of a world, showing us that vulnerability is not weakness but our greatest measure of courage. 

Today we will explore the truth that “to be human is not knowing it all.” To be human is to have a partial perspective, to see, know, and understand only in part. To be human is to be subject to particular points of view and prejudices. Not-knowing-it-all limits us, gets us in trouble, hurts the people around us, and can be downright dangerous. But if we are willing and able to humbly accept our not-knowing, we open ourselves up to curiosity and the possibility of knowing more. 

Our gospel reading begins with someone in the crowd bringing Jesus up-to-date on current events in the nation’s capital. The Roman appointed governor, Pontius Pilate, ordered the killing of a group of Galilean worshippers. Romans soldiers descended on them as they made their offerings of pigeons, sheep or goats to be consumed by fire on the great stone altar. The result was a bloody mess. 

Jesus responds, “do you think these murdered Galilean pilgrims were worse sinners than all other Galileans? NO, but unless you repent you too will perish.” Jesus tosses in another headline: how about those eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed? Were they worse offenders than everyone else living in Jerusalem?  NO, but unless you repent, you too will perish.”

In the face of these disasters, Jesus absolutely rejects the idea that bad things happen only to bad people. Jesus refuses to go down the “blame-the-victim” rabbit hole — that ego-driven mind game of trying to reduce our fear, anxiety, and sense of vulnerability while bolstering our sense of moral superiority. Jesus won’t go there, knowing full well that victim blaming misses the point. No one is really safe from the murderous rampages of authoritarian leaders. No one is really safe in a world where earthquakes, landslides, and human error cause buildings to collapse. Confronted by the reality of our human vulnerability Jesus calls us to repent. 

To help us understand what it means to repent, what is involved in the process, and what repentance is good for, Jesus tells a story about a man who planted a fig tree in his vineyard. Every year he comes looking for figs. This is the third year and still no figs. So, the vineyard owner tells the gardener to cut down the tree because it’s wasting the soil. The gardener resists: “give it another year, I’ll dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, good and well. If not you can cut it down.” 

We often ask bible readers to imagine themselves into the story: are you the vineyard owner, the gardener, or the fig tree? In my reading of this parable, the vineyard owner represents the values of productivity and quick profits above all else, those who don’t measure up get the chop. The vineyard owner’s hasty decision to have the tree cut down raises the question: how much does he really know about growing fig trees? The gardener (who might represent God/Christ) knows much more about growing fig trees, and offers an alternative path leading to fruitful and sustainable vitality. The fig tree struggling to survive and grow in poor soil conditions, heat and drought, competing with weeds and cling grapevines, stands of us ordinary humans, vulnerable to the vineyard owner’s axe. 

How does this story help us understand repentance? First of all, to repent —metanoia in Greek — literally means  to change one’s mind, one’s perspective on reality and the meaning of life; and results in real life changes in how a person thinks, speaks and acts. To repent is not easy or comfortable. Notice how in the parable, that it is the gardener who digs around in the fig tree’s roots and composts it. In the movie, The Shack, it is Sarayu (Holy Spirit) who guides Mac in tending the garden of his heart, identifying and removing noxious weeds, replacing them with healing herbs and flowering shrubs. Changing our minds and our perspectives is not something that we can easily do on our own. It is God’s work in Christ through the Holy Spirit empowering us as we own up to and embrace our not-knowing.

This can be extremely hard work because we are all socialized into particular cultures that define what’s normal and abnormal, natural and unnatural, right and wrong, good and bad. At some point, many if not most of us decide we do know it all, or at least, we know enough to judge, control, and reject the people we label as sinners.  It can be painfully difficult to humble ourselves, admit we don’t know, and open ourselves up to new ideas and new knowledge. 

Yet Jesus insists that unless we repent — unless we change our minds, perspectives, and lives, we will miss out on our life’s purpose. As beloved children of God our purpose is found in Christ’s mission and values: to love one another as Christ loves us. Christ welcomes, accepts, affirms and celebrates each one of us just as we are, yet has Christ has no intention whatsoever of leaving us just as we are at this moment. Christ knows we can do better, and so is prepared to be the gardener digging around in our roots, and applying nourishing compost as needed. 

Repentance is about owning up to and embracing our not-knowing-it-all in order to learn and grow, so we can do a better job of loving God and others as Christ loves us. It involves rethinking old ideas, letting go of false either/or categories and binary systems. Repentance is not a one-and-done thing, but a continuous even daily process as we are pulled back and forth between the values of the world and the mission of Christ. 

To be human is not-knowing it all. Once we accept this, it turns out that to be human is to be curious and creative, to explore and discover, to know more, even if we will never know it all.

Blessing for Knowing (Jan Richardson, The Cure for Sorrow, pp. 145-147)

To receive this blessing,  it might feel like you 

are peeling back every layer of flesh, 

exposing every nerve, 

baring each bone that has kept you upright.

It might seem every word is written 

on the back of something that your life depends upon,

that to read this blessing 

would mean tearing away what has helped you remain intact.

Be at peace. 

It will not be as painful as that, 

though I cannot say it will be easy to accept this blessing,

written as it is upon your true frame, 

inscribed on the skin you were born to live in. 

The habits that keep you from yourself, 

the misconceptions others have of you, 

the unquestioned limits you have allowed, 

the smallness you have squeezed yourself into:

these are not who you are.

This blessing wants all this to fall away.

This blessing 

— and it is stubborn on this point, I assure you 

— desires you to know yourself as it knows you,

to let go of every layer that is not you, 

to release each thing you hide behind, 

to open your eyes and see what it sees:

how this blessing 

has blazed in you since before you were born; 

how it has sustained you when you could not see it;

how it haunts you, 

prickling beneath your skins, 

asking to shine forth in full and unstinting measure; 

how it begins and ends with your true name. Amen.