Luke
13:1-9
Our Lenten journey continues today
with the teachings of Jesus found in the gospel of Luke. The
theme for our reading is clearly a call to repentance. Though this is language that we often avoid
in the Presbyterian Church, it is a fitting theme for the season of Lent.
Jesus has been busy teaching and folks
come up to ask him a question. They want
to know what he thinks about some Galileans who were killed when offering
sacrifices in the temple. In a
particularly gruesome and violent act, Pilate killed these folks and the blood
of the people mixed in with the blood of the animals they were sacrificing. It is really offensive. The people clearly want Jesus’ opinion on the
issue, but the nature of their question is not entirely clear. Either they are asking him to become angry
with them about the injustice, or they are asking him why those people suffered.
Jesus seems to head right to the heart
of the issue. Ignoring the acts of the
Romans, he focuses instead on the acts of the victims. “Do you think these people died in this way
because they were sinners? No!” Jesus
immediately dispels the common notion that suffering was associated with
sin. He then adds a second example, the
fall of the tower of Siloam, which was an accident and not an act of violence. He points out that those folks also were no
more sinners than anyone else in all of Jerusalem. He is emphasizing the point that sin is not
associated with suffering.
Lest people think that they are off
the hook then, Jesus goes on to call everyone to repentance. “Now is the time to repent,” he says, “or
else you will perish just as they did.”
At first that seems to go against the point about suffering not being
connected with sin. That is why I think
he goes into the parable.
Jesus shares the story of a fig
tree. For three years a fig tree in an
orchard has not been producing fruit, and the owner wants to remove the
tree. This makes sense since it is
taking up valuable space and resources, and not producing anything in
return. The gardener though, pleads for
mercy. If the owner will give the tree
one more chance, the gardener will give it special attention. If it doesn’t fruit within one year, then it’s
time is up. Jesus seems to imply that
there is time for his followers to repent and bear fruit, and then at some
point the time will be up. Like the
Galileans killed in the temple or the folks killed at Siloam, at some point our
time will be up.
I found two relevant things for us in
this text this week. The first is the
idea of time. I think Jesus keeps
talking about repentance when he speaks of death because he wants all of us to
recognize our own finitude. When we
begin the season of Lent, on Ash Wednesday, we all take a moment and
acknowledge the reality of our own impending death.
If you haven’t been to one of those
services before, then let me tell you what happens. Like most services, we sing some songs and
say some prayers, but they are all focused primarily on our own sinfulness. Then at the end of the service folks come
forward to receive the ashes. The ashes
are made from the branches of Palm Sunday, reminding us that we are just as
likely to shout “Crucify him!” as we are to shout “Hosanna!”.
As I make the sign of the cross in
ashes on each forehead I say, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall
return.” Remember that you are finite,
that you are limited, and that you will die.
It is not uncommon for me to place ashes on a head and to have that
person literally die within the year.
That is the nature of our communal life together. As I place the ashes I am always thinking, “All
these people that I love will die, and I will die too.” It is quite a powerful thing to place them on
the head of your own child. Lent is a
time to remember that life is finite, life will end for all of us.
I think Jesus wanted to draw people’s
attention to that fact. Just like the Galileans
in the temple, just like the people of Siloam, all of his listeners that day
had death looming in the future. They
were no different from those people, and death could come suddenly and
unexpectedly for them, just as it did for those they were asking about. Jesus was reminding them that their time was
short, which meant that the time for them to repent was right away.
The same is true for us. If we were to die today or tomorrow, what
kind of life would we leave behind us?
Would we leave a path of goodness and generosity in our wake, or would
we leave a mess of greed and broken relationships? We don’t speak of repentance in our tradition
because of fear of going to hell; rather we speak of it because of fear of
wasting our lives. You have one chance
to live a good and faithful life, you have one chance to be a productive
servant of God, you have one chance to mend and maintain good relationships
with family and friends. Don’t let that
one chance pass you by! As Jesus says,
repent now, for death could be coming as quickly for you as it comes for others
who suffer tragedy in our world.
That chance to produce fruit is echoed
in the story of the fig tree. Jesus is
clearly highlighting the mercy of God, but also making clear that God’s mercy
alone will not fix our lives. We must
bear fruit worthy of repentance. We must
produce a good life while we have the chance.
Otherwise, like the fig tree, we will be cut down without producing
anything. The time is short, the tree
has one year, but the time to make a change, the time to grow is there.
The other thing that I loved about the
reading this week was that little detail about the gardener spreading manure
around the tree. When we think back in
our own lives, it is often when we are deep in the manure of life that we are
growing the most. Seriously, when you
are in the poo is when you get things done!
It is in those times when our backs are against the wall, when the chips
are down, that we finally take stock of our lives. It is in those times that we finally get our
own stuff together and repent. We look
around, we recognize the need to change, and we make it happen, we get things
done. Like the fig tree, when we are
deep in manure, we can’t help but produce fruit.
The folks that Jesus was talking to
that day were in a bit of manure of their own.
They were worried about the way that the Romans were treating the people
of Israel. They were under threat of the
Roman Empire. They were aware of the
fragility of life and their own impending deaths. Whether they were threatened by the violence
of the empire or the sheer randomness of a structural collapse, they were in
the manure. And Jesus was calling them
to get their lives in order, to get their lives straight before they ran out of
time, before it was too late.
This Sunday we are halfway through the
season of Lent. This is a time for us to
take stock of our lives, to look around and see the world we have created, and
to be honest with ourselves about the path that we have walked. This is a time for us to remember that we are
dust, and to dust we shall all return.
Jesus reminded the folks of Israel
that day that their time was short.
Death could come as suddenly for them as it came for their friends and
neighbors. So too, death could be right
around the corner for each of us. Like
them, now is the time for us to repent.
Now is the time for us to change our lives for the better. Now is the time for us to increase our
generosity, to practice forgiveness, and to mend broken relationships. Now is the time for us to get ourselves
together, before we end up in deep poo.
May the remainder of our Lenten season
be a fruitful time for us all. And may
God bless all of us with continued opportunities for change and renewal, for
repentance and rebirth. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment