Modern life is punctuated by heart breaking catastrophe. I think that as a society we have become somewhat immune to the horrors and atrocities that occur in our world, even in our suburbs and cities on a daily basis.
We live in a world where terrorism, drug abuse and violence, hunger and poverty, are reported to us in real time, every moment of the day. In fact, this generation more than any before it, and shown the harsh realities of life, up front, in full colour, no holds barred.in fact, the disclaimer that’ these pictures may upset or offend some viewers..is so infrequently used these days..because we are so used to seeing…everything.
We live with the certain understanding that misfortune can happen to others, at any time, and we silently hope and pray, that it will not strike too close to home which, of course, it may nonetheless. The all too frequent discovery that someone we know has cancer or a severely debilitating disease, or is showing signs of Alzheimer’s, is so often heart breaking, but we still somehow expect that we will remain untouched. Somehow we imagine that it will always be us who will be sending the flowers to those who are sick, or who have lost a loved one, and not the one receiving them.
We share that in common with the people of Jesus’ time, who were talking to Jesus in the reading this morning. Evidently there weretwo controversial events that had hit the news and attracted the attention of the followers. In Galilee there were some faithful people offering their sacrifice, observing the customary rituals, within the synagogue, when in the midst of their religious observances Pilate’s army came through, massacring those who had gathered there.
A particularly contemptuous and poignant thing to do, to those who were defenseless, and most likely just going about their daily business.
Inquiring religious minds wanted to know if Jesus believed that these faithful Galileans whom Pilatehad slain were worse sinners than all the others.
Similarly, it appears that there was a tower in the town of Siloam near Jerusalem
that fell on eighteen innocent bystanders, a matter that commanded the attention of the local community for days. Tragic as all this was, when the dust settled, people began toask themselves what was the meaning of this, and why these particular people were standing in just the wrong place when this substandard tower was appointed to collapse.
“Can you explain this, Jesus?” they asked, “Were these worse offenders than all the others inJerusalem?” and this belief was not uncommon. There was a strong doctrine of thought at the time, that a vengeful God, would punish those sinners who had disobeyed him. Remember back to last year, when I preached on Job, whose friends had the audacity to ask, what had he done, that was so bad..that his entire family was killed in one act of God? What could these people possibly have done, that had angered God so much, that he would have a building fall on them? It must have been somethingreally bad.
We are by nature, a species that seeks answers to what we cannot clearly see or understand. We do not like disconnected dots in our normally ordered
Lives, or in our understanding of what is happening to us and around us. We are hungry tomake sense of the seemingly nonsensical and unexplainablethings in life.The problem is that much of what happens is genuinely unexplainable. We don’tand can’t have all the answers. Life just isn’t geared that way. As one of my beloved mentors tells me all too frequently “If your wanted permanence in your lifeyou chose the wrong planet.”Life is full of uncertainty, and frequently we have only the short view. George Burns said at 100 years of age, “If I’dknown I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.”
But we can’t see the larger picture, this is for God, and God alone to know. But we don’t do very well with this void in our understanding. So we create meaningeven when the meaning is not yet clear. Even if we are really just guessing.
One of the best pieces of pastoral advice I ever received was to say nothing in
those times when questions that have no answer are posed.
“Those Galileans, whose blood was mingled with their sacrifices, were they
worse sinners than all the other Galileans?” they asked Jesus. “And those eighteen inSiloam on whom the tower fell, were they worse sinners than all the others?” theywondered out loud.
“No,” Jesus said, “but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
Now that’s an interesting response, a call for repentance in the face of humantragedy. I suspect nobody but Jesus could get by with saying that at such an awkwardmoment. Even so, the harshness of these words is confronting, even for us to heard today, so it was probably considered ‘too soon’ for those who were in the crowd that day.
It’s not the most comforting, or merciful thing to say, after all. Somebody points out atragedy, some terrible loss of life, an accident, and Jesus says, “No, these people weren’tworse sinners, but if you’re smart, you’ll learn from their mistakes and repent, because you never know whensomething like that might happen to you.”
John the Baptist has already warned us in Luke’s gospel that the axe is laid to the
root and that every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown ontothe fire.
Jesus picks up the same theme after commenting on the tragedies in Galilee and
Siloam, and says that if we can understand the parable of the fig tree we may understandeverything a little better. A story is told to illustrate the point of his call for repentance,almost to justify the actions of God.
A man had a fig tree and planted it in his vineyard, and it bore no fruit. So he
ordered it to be cut down. But this particular fig tree was tended by a kindly gardenerwho loved the plants, gently nurtured them in and out of season, talked to them as hewatered them, checked on them for borers and mites, for mold and beetles. And he wasnot content to just give up on a tree that he had tended so carefully.
“Let me work with it one more year,” the gardener said to the vineyard owner.
“I’ll dig around it, and put on some manure, and if it bears fruit it will be a win-winsituation. And if it doesn’t, well, nobody can say we didn’t try.”
It’s a nice parable, don’t you think? It’s pretty transparent, too, at an allegorical
level. God is the vineyard owner. Christ the gardener. Guess who is the unfruitful figtree?
And the message is undeniable, that God is ready to give up on us. After all, the soil is good, there’s been sunand rain, night and day, a tree is meant to produce, not just sit there and take up soil, or even steal nutrients from other plants. Clearly the message is, “You’re supposed to bear some fruit, be productive.”
God knows, that he would have good reason to give up on the unproductive trees.
We make war and perpetuate violence and aggression against one another. We spend our waking hoursconsumed with our own self-interest with little concern for others. We pass by Christ inthe guise of a beggar pleading for food. We fill our bellies when others starve. We wastethe earth and expend its resources wantonly and often carelessly. Much of the human tree is barren, and indeed taking nutrients from others in the garden.
But the gardener takes up the side of the tree and speaks for it when it cannot,
pleading for mercy, begging for patience, asking for a reprieve. “Give me just a littlemore time. Let me work with this one some more and let’s see if we can’t bring it along.After all it’s not easy being a fig tree,” the gardener pleads. “Maybe I should have donesomething more. Maybe there wasn’t enough fertilizer or air getting to the soil.Maybe not enough moisture. I don’t know. Just let me work with this one a little bit Longer. At least another year. And then let’s see.”
And the parable stops there, and we don’t know whether the vineyard owner
agrees, although we presume that he does. And we don’t know if the fig tree bears fruit,although we might want to think that it does, given that that gardener has undertaken to tend to it with much love and attention. All weknow is the gardener is pleading on our behalf for just a little more time to see if we canmake things work.
In the parable, the fig tree gets a reprieve; one more year is given to see if the treewill bear fruit. And the point is that there is the opportunity to change the outcome. Diamonds may be forever, butlife is not. We get a measure of days. Some more, some fewer. But we get what we get,and none of us knows how long our life will be. The promise is that Christ will do hispart, which is to aerate the soil, and put on fertilizer, and add a measure of time but withno guarantees; and the rest is up to us. If we are going to bear fruit, we need to focus ourselves on that goal.
There are awful things that happen in life, accidents, terrorist attacks, fires and
earthquakes, buildings that fall, cruel things like that tower in Siloam and that bloodymassacre among the Galileans.
But Jesus’ response to all that was, yes that happens, but don’t let that permit you
to make excuses for yourself, or stop you from dealing with what you have been charged with. Whatever itis that you need to be doing to get your life in order, to make amends with enemies, to setto rest old grievances, to find peace where there has been none, to stop smoking, or get agrip on that addiction, or fix the relationship, or find the better path, or stop drinking,today is the day. You’re not going to have forever, life is finite. We are reminded of this daily.
By the grace of God you may have one more year, maybe, and by God’s grace the
loving gardener has aerated the soil and laid down fertilizer and pleaded for a little moretime on our behalf. But the time for excuses is over. There is more urgency to this thanwe realized. We don’t have forever. And time is running out at both the personal andthe communal levels.
At a personal level, in this Lenten time, there is no better time to deal with the
excuses we have made for not attending to the things in our own life which need our care and attention. Ifthere are grudges we have nursed, it’s time to put them to rest. If there is forgiveness being withheld, it’s time to grant it. If there is brokenness in your relationships with others, it’s time to mend them. If you are using the past as an excuse for not moving into the future, it’s time to let it go, and move on. And why, because we need to hear Christ’s words very clearly this morning, our time is limited.
Let me put this anotherway. If you only had one more year to live, how would you spend your time?
Now, this is not the same question as what would you do if you won the lottery. Or if moneywere no object, what would you buy if you could have anything you wanted.
So this morning, I am asking each one of you to consider this question, “What would be worth spending your life on, all 365 days of it? Just suppose youonly had one year to live. How would you spend it?
I’d like to think that I would spend it getting things done that were worthwhile; thatbrought me peace and that put me back in relationship with those with whom I needed to make peace with. I’d like to look at the sun every morning and the moon every nightin this last year and know that some things are constant, and will go on long after I have left the earth.
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I would spend time with my children, teaching them the wisdom that I want them to know, that will serve them as they go forward in life. I’d like to enjoy every meal and sleep well at night over the next 365, and spend time in prayer and connection to the divine. I would want to speak to some of the people with whom have I shared my faith and hope that I have taught them something about prayer,and about the love of God. And I’d like to think that I had preached a sermon now andthen, that helped somebody realize how very treasured, and important, and valuable theyare in the eyes of the Father who loves us more than we ever thought possible. That’s what I’d like to do if I only had a little time left.
If you could only have one more year, do you think you could bear some fruit for
the sake of the kingdom of God? Jesus said, he’d help. He said he’d aerate the soil, andfertilize, and try to get us as much of a whole year as he could. And during all that timethere will likely be some discouragement, disappointments and set backs. But there’s no time for excuses any more. That’s what weneed to know. Time’s a wasting and we have work to do, both in the world,and in ourselves.
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And who knows, maybe this will be a good year for figs.