7 Mar 2010
Gospel Luke 13:1-9 Lent 3
Repentance & The Fig Tree
• A short yarn I read once was of a hen on a farm that approached a pig and said: ‘I’ve heard the orphanage needs food. How about we supply a breakfast of ham and eggs?’ ……. ‘Nothing doing,’ said the pig. ‘for you that’s just a contribution….for me it’s total commitment!’
• Today’s gospel has Jesus on the way to Jerusalem……on his way to total commitment……he wanted so much for his people to repent ….to change their God forsaken ways!
• From St Luke we are given two passages or accounts of disasters--both involving the question of sinfulness and the need for repentance. One involving a fig tree.
• In the first section (vv 1-5)--we hear how Jesus deals with a matter of willful cruelty and an unfortunate accident.
• He is confronted by mischief makers! These people who had probably been hearing him for some time and did not want to be committed to his message were probably out to make trouble. They said that some Galileans were slaughtered while offering sacrifice……
• The question Jesus asked was: “Do you think they were worse sinners than others because they suffered the slaughter?”
He supplied his own answer. A very definite: “No.”
Then he recalls, for their benefit, the incident of the falling tower where 18
people were killed......... Again he gives a resounding: “No” to any thought
that this too was a result of sin.
• Jesus was giving a warning to both the Jews and Galileans that only repentance could save them on Judgment day. For us to live in a state of grace is important and necessary.
• The “ability” to be mean or cruel lies within each of us........ We are the ones who make the choice!......we have the free will....to do good or evil.
• Accidents do happen....as do natural disasters....Haiti & Chile are very present reminders….but they are not caused by God.........God doesn’t make us sin either.
• It’s a shame for all of us that Jesus didn’t go on to explain, or expound in
some way aspects of pain and suffering..... the problem we grapple
with in our belief of an all loving, powerful God!......but Jesus was on
about repentance.
• He saw the situation Israel was in as a nation....its hypocrisy in national and spiritual matters........Its apostasy....the abandonment of its spiritual heritage and calling....its disrespect to its responsibility to be God’s chosen race.
• You may recall Hosea’s call of repentance to Israel in the 8th century BC? He saw that there was no longer any covenant love and preached that God was offering Israel every day a new beginning. They still went after false beliefs and idols!
• As one commentator has said: “The fruitless religious life had become the hunting ground of evil forces…the leaders encouraged their people to sin!”
• Now so many hundred years later God has sent his son…surely they will be committed to him! I think Christ must have been absolutely ‘flabbergasted’ .......just so disappointed…spiritually hurt with what he encountered…… Here he was in the last days of his earthly life.....and what a mess!.......Israel needed to repent!
• The nation had no caring outreach....no pastoral concern....just content to be legalistic and rigid....so many laws added to The Law. The Pharisees reveled in their cruel dark ways and the priesthood was corrupt.
• The rulers were only concerned with themselves and made laws to satisfy their own lust for power against their own people........e.g. If you dragged a stick along the ground on the Sabbath Day you were accused of ploughing!
(In fact the story of Christ healing on the Sabbath follows the gospel for
today! Condemnation by the Pharisees followed...how dare he!)
-Jesus’ words in verses 3 & 5 give us all a warning: “unless you repent you also will perish.”
• Indeed we need in this season of Lent to pay careful attention to what amounts to a loving command so that we follow faithfully his way of sacrificial love.....and his desire to have us realize what he preached so often……that God’s reign is within us!
• Further, that we are bearers of this sacred tradition; of word and sacrament and uphold the promise and claim placed upon us at our Baptism. Now that involves commitment more than a mere contribution!
• The fig tree enters! St. Luke’s placement of the fig tree here is important; because this is not about whether one sin is worse than another….but that sin separates us from God’s love….again the need for repentance.
• Here nature is used as an image of non-commitment. The owner comes along to his vineyard in which the tree is planted and says he’s been waiting for the fruit from it for the past 3 years!....... (3 means a long time...like 40days in the wilderness.)
• What does he see? Just fruitlessness......a tree occupying valuable space! ....The parable also has the aspect of judgment...... What will he do with it?
• This story in Luke is told in parable form; unlike in Mark’s gospel (11:12-14).......in Mark, Jesus curses the fig tree so that no one will ever again eat the fruit from it...........It’s fruit wasn’t nourishing or life giving!.....Also, Jesus says he’s hungry....yet, it wasn’t the season for figs! Why would he say that he was hungry and expect to eat from it?
• Doesn’t this show how extraordinary Jesus is? ......in all situations of life!......This Jesus keeps a beautiful and telling approach between the negative and positive way of his personality. Of how he uses and sees nature…Of how being, drained within himself, up against a brick wall as it were; yet lovingly searches their hearts and ours today for a committed response.
• He’s hungry! This is an inner hunger for justice, truth, faithfulness......it’s so powerful a hunger that he wants his nation....his people to bear fruit...to be a responsible, caring, fruitful people under God.
• The fig tree represents Israel..........the out of time season is Israel’s faithfulness....it’s over....it’s teaching...it’s rigid and corrupt spirituality....it’s call to be the only nation with God’s true law of love, commitment and word for the nations of the world.....it had withered!
• Later Jesus was to lament over Jerusalem (Lk: 13:34)…cry, heartbroken…he loved it so much…and like a mother hen; he would have gathered its people….protected them with divine love…but there was only disobedience and unfaithfulness….there would never be any change of heart……he would die outside the city wall.
• The true life of Israel...what it was called to be.....would be shown on the cross in unconditional sacrificial love.......He Jesus would be the last and yes, dying remnant.......His life, God would raise up and in so doing would be saying: this is the giver of new life...through him is the new way of love, faithfulness, compassion, truth and justice.
• Remember Jesus tried to address the faith and practice of his religion and it led to his death! Commitment often brings ridicule.
• Matthew and John also have stories of the fig tree. Matthew a shorter version of Mark. In John (1:43ff) it’s under the fig tree that Jesus finds Nathaniel sitting. ......perhaps just lazing in the sun!
• Maybe Jesus wanted him out from under its strangling spell of laziness….and for him to be on a useful path...using his gifts for discipleship?
• The roots of a fig tree are big and go a long way under ground. They can cause much damage. Sometimes our lives can mirror this damage and our words and actions leave many hurt and sorrowful.
• We all have to get out from under the fig tree of our own making.....escape from its uselessness and eliminate any hold its past has over us! To realize we all need to adhere to Christ’s call for repentance.
• This to allow a fruitful, loving, rewarding life to flourish....in fact to grasp Jesus’ invitation to abundant life. Remember, like Nathaniel, Jesus sees us and already knows what is burdensome in our lives.
• We might ask what is the inner withering of the ‘fig tree’ in us….the stuff that holds us back…that needs to be put off…thrown away… burnt?
• That dark side of ourselves that we don’t want anyone to know about! How might we deal with or stop the withering? Perhaps engage in a purposeful journey of recovery by engaging a friend—a professional—or someone who we can just sit down and talk with. Could it be by adopting a more spiritual path?
• We learn from the fig tree the importance of being nourished.
• What Jesus is saying is that repentance is a positive, loving and strengthening aspect for the character of any nation, community or individual. For with sincere repentance, the forgiveness that follows is so enabling to the human spirit. It is the light on the path to put away the past and be enlivened to begin anew.
• Thank God for Jesus.....the vinedresser.....who in this morning’s gospel asks for time for renewal.....time to nurture…..time to bear fruit….to provide the opportunity for grace through repentance. (He gives us his unconditional love…… and asks us his church, in this part of his vineyard, to give to all people, loving and supportive pastoral care.)
• Remember, ‘God so loved’ is the dominant theme of the Christian message.
• Thank God for God!....God who is the owner...who keeps coming to find fruit!
----Here is the message of hope and the gift of free grace. God who continues to seek…..continues to knock ….and like the Hound of Heaven never gives up!
• Lent gives us the opportunity to renew our lives...to be really penitent and to say we are truly sorry.........here at St Clement’s the sacrament of confession or reconciliation is always available for anyone who feels overburdened and would like the assurance of sin forgiven. This opportunity for a new beginning is a phone call to any of the priests.
• Let us reject the disempowering fig tree and go with the strong image of the vinedresser....the Christ on the journey to the cross....the one who is totally committed to being with us in all our joys and sorrows….who will till the soil of our souls....renew them....and invite us to take the illuminating path as co-creators with him in a fruitful, loving and Christ-centered life. A life centered on hope and life after death.
• We are asked by Isaiah in this morning’s first lesson to: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near;” (Is. 55:6)……. “for he will abundantly pardon.” (v7)
• Here before the great Easter experience...as we journey to the cross with Jesus…..is the invitation from the gospel to change…...to have in us, as individuals and as a parish...as St Paul says: “This mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Phi 2:5)
The Rev'd Keith Foote
