Loving God, you call us to change our minds and our hearts, coming to you in order to seek new life.  Empower us this day by your Holy Spirit, teaching us to find our purpose in you; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

    Today’s gospel begins with a question that is asked just as much today as it was in Jesus’ time.  A tragic event happens, and people want to know why.  Was God punishing these people?  Did they do something to deserve it?  Is God expressing displeasure with what people are doing?

    People have been asking “why?” with the recent earthquakes in Haiti and in Chile.  People ask “why?” about the suffering in their own lives.  People ask “why?” whenever there is another senseless act of violence.  For some reason, we seem to be drawn to the black and white sort of answer that identifies suffering with punishment.

    Yet, time and again we learn from Jesus that this is simply not how God works.  I can’t help but think of the blind man who was brought to Jesus in John 9, where the people want to know whose sin caused his blindness - his own, or his parents?  Their assumption is that blindness must be a punishment for sin.  However, Jesus makes it very clear: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (Jn. 9:3).

    Likewise, in today’s gospel, people assume that those who were put to death by Pilate must have been sinners who deserved it.  However, Jesus’ answer is an emphatic, “No!”  Then Jesus goes on to make it clear that those who had been killed by a falling tower in Jerusalem were not targeted because of their sins, either.

    Just to be clear, though, Jesus is not saying that none of these people were sinners.  In fact, he goes out of his way to remind people that all of us are sinners.  In fact, if we were to take a closer look at many of the tragedies that happen, we would discover that most of them are caused in some way by human sinfulness.

    If you think about many of the diseases and illnesses that people get, don’t most of them have humanly created causes?  And how many tragedies where somebody is killed are the result of sinful human beings making wrong decisions?  With natural disasters, though, we tend to think differently.  Such things are beyond human control, right?

    Yet, even then there is often a human element involved.  How many die because of poorly and cheaply constructed buildings?  How many insist on living on a flood plain and then get upset when it floods?  How many die because the rich simply want to keep getting richer?  Yes, human sinfulness is always involved somehow.  However, God does not send tragedies upon people in order to make them suffer for their sins.

    Instead, God dealt with our sinfulness through Jesus Christ.  God sent - not punishment - but the only one who could ever break the power of sin.  Because of Jesus, we have options.  We don’t have to continue in sin.  Instead of being totally turned in on ourselves, we can allow Jesus to set us free to live in love for God and for others.  We can place ourselves under Jesus as Lord rather than under the influence of our own selfish nature.  It is just as God speaks through the prophet Isaiah: “Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live” (Isa. 55:3).

    There is life to be found, even in the midst of suffering.  There is life and grace to be found, even in the midst of dire warnings.

    Let’s return to today’s gospel once again, which does contain some dire warnings!  While Jesus makes it clear that those who had been killed were not being punished by God for some great sin, he also makes it clear that all those who are listening to him need to repent.

    Now, I would suspect that most people hear the word “repent” and think - “Oh.  That means being sorry for your sins.”  While that is at least partially true, “repent” also means to totally change your mind.  Repenting is about changing the way that we think.  And so, in the gospel, people were looking at others and wondering what great sins they must have committed to deserve such a fate.  And Jesus turns it around for them and asks them instead to think about their own sinfulness.  And then he tells this parable about a fig tree, which probably seems to most of us to have nothing to do with the previous conversation.

    However, many of those who were listening to Jesus would have seen themselves in this parable.  Jesus was speaking to Israelites, and the fig tree was commonly used as a metaphor to represent Israel.  And so, as you think about this parable this morning, imagine that you are the fig tree.  You have been planted in God’s vineyard, and your job is to bear fruit.  However, already it has been three years, and you haven’t produced any fruit at all.  And so the owner, quite rightfully, simply wants to cut you down and get rid of you.

    However, the gardener, who seems to be even more patient, wants to give you one more year.  He’ll cultivate the soil around you and throw some manure on you, all in the hope that finally you will bear fruit.  And then, if there is still nothing, he will cut you down.

    While it may not seem like it at first, this parable also has to do with repentance – with changing the way that we think.  In thinking about a fig tree, it seems quite obvious to us that the purpose of a fig tree is to bear figs.  A fig tree that isn’t going to produce any fruit is simply a waste of space in the vineyard.  In the same way, God has a purpose for each one of us – described here simply as bearing fruit.  And what use is God going to have for us if we refuse to fulfill the purpose for which we were created?  If you were in God’s place, would you get rid of the “dead growth,” so to speak?

    Yet, God is far more like the gardener than the owner in this parable, for God does not give up on his precious creation.  Still, though, God expects us to fulfill the purpose for which we were created.  Stated simply, this purpose is to live in loving relationships with God and with the people around us.  This purpose is to love God with our whole heart and mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves.

    Now, as you may have already discovered, we cannot do this on our own.  If we could, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection would have been totally unnecessary.  However, as it is we need the power of the Holy Spirit working in our lives and faith in Jesus Christ in order to become the people whom God created us to be.  We can, of course, choose to remain turned in on ourselves and under the power of sin.  Yet, there is no real life to be found there.

    As Isaiah asks, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” (Isa. 55:2).  All those who thirst, “come to the waters! ...Seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isa. 55:1, 6).  We are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:2), coming to Jesus, and discovering in him life in all its fulness.  Amen.

Lent 3(C)                                    Luke 13:1-9
March 7, 2010                                Isaiah 55:1-9
St. Luke’s Zion Lutheran Church
Pastor Lynne Hutchison

© 2010 Lynne Hutchison  All Rights Reserved