Text: Luke 13:1-9 (Revised Standard Version)
There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus? 3 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Silo′am fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.”
6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure. 9 And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
This passage seems to be made for old-time tent revival meetings – Repent sinners, or die! And I have no doubt but that it has been used countless times to convict sinners of their sins and bring them forward to the altar.
Repent or die!
There is no denying that repentance played a very big part in Jesus’ thinking and in his ministry – as we read in Mark, the oldest of the Gospels, his first message to the people when he began his ministry was, after, all, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news.”[1]
But notice that he doesn’t say “Repent or die,” but “believe the good news.”
Nonetheless, in this morning’s passage, Jesus does say “unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” So it looks like we’re not off the hook.
Until we read the second paragraph of today’s lesson. In fact, it almost looks like the two paragraphs don’t belong together. Yet there they are. So what’s going on here?
First, this “repent or die” business. Kevin Vetiac of Boston University writes, “[I]s this what Jesus is doing here, using fear to keep people in line? Is Jesus telling people to dot all their Is and cross all their Ts in order to avoid eternal damnation? Does this sound like the Jesus you know?
“I don’t believe this is what Jesus is doing. Instead, in the face of tragedy, which can sadly become commonplace, Jesus provides comfort and also a sobering call for all of us to examine our own lives. Some horrible things have happened. Pilate, whose cruelty has been historically documented, has killed a bunch of people again and 18 people have died senselessly when a tower collapses on them. Jesus absolves them of any extra guilt. They were not especially sinful; they were simply caught off guard by the circumstances of life but Jesus does use this opportunity to call us all to repentance.”[2]
The historical record is clear: Pontius Pilate would have been at home playing the arch-villain in any James Bond movie. He was a thorough-going scoundrel, a thug, a man without scruples who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. By this point, he’d been ruling Israel for four years. He was so monstrous that people had rioted more than once, and he’d had no qualms whatsoever about putting down those riots with viciousness that alarmed even his Roman overlords. There is a record of Pilate being reported to the Emperor himself for one such action, this one having taken place after the Crucifixion, and he had been recalled to Rome to give an account before the Emperor in person for what he had done. Think about that for a minute: Somebody being called on the carpet for viciousness and cruelty by an Empire that had taken viciousness and cruelty to a previously inconceivable level – that puts Pilate right up there with Stalin and Hitler, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and any other monster you might care to mention! So, this Pontius Pilate had mixed the blood of Galileans that he had executed with the blood of their Jewish sacrifices. To the Jews, this was as offensive, as appalling as it got.
Then we have those eighteen people on whom the Tower of Siloam fell. We have next to no information about them, except that they were killed. It may be that they were just common laborers, guys out doing their jobs, and the obviously poorly-engineered tower toppled over onto them.
But what did it mean? The people who came to Jesus and reported both of these events probably expected him to agree with the point of view that held that these people had somehow, in some way, done something “wrong” and had opened themselves up to God’s wrath.
But Jesus chose instead to turn these events into a teaching moment. He said to the crowd, “No, these people were no worse, no more sinful, than any of you.” He didn’t address the issue of individual sin, but rather the unwillingness of Jerusalem and its leaders to ignore the message of God that he brought.
And this brings us to the second part of the lesson, the one regarding the fig tree. The fig tree is Jerusalem; in Mark’s version of this parable, that tree gets cut down and burnt. In Luke’s retelling, though, we read something else: The landowner – God – gives them yet another chance. This chance is secured by the gardener, who, of course, is Jesus himself.
And here’s an interesting thing – as David Lose tells us, “nowhere in Luke do we find a picture of an angry, vindictive God that needs to be placated by a friendly Jesus. Rather, Jesus portrays God as a father who scans the horizon day in and day out waiting for his wayward son to come home and as a woman who after sweeping her house all night looking for a lost coin throws a party costing even more than the coin is worth to celebrate that she found it. Luke’s Gospel overflows with the conviction that ‘there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance’ (Luke 15:7).”[3]
Far from being an angry, even vindictive landowner who just says “get rid of that tree,” the God we read about here today is a God who’s always ready to forgive, always ready to welcome us with his grace, always ready to rejoice with us. That’s who God, the landowner in today’s story, is.
To see a vengeful landowner, we need only to look in the mirror. That landowner reflects how we think the world should work – we want things to be fair! And that means that bad guys should pay the price for their crimes, and good people should reap the benefits of their good works.
Repentance just doesn’t fit into that view. Besides, the word “repentance” makes us uncomfortable, maybe even angry – at least when it’s applied to us. Repentance is always something that the other guy or woman should do, and if they’re in doubt, well, by golly, we’ll be happy to tell them!
But, as Kevin Vetiac tells us, that’s not quite what it’s all about: “Repentance is not a dirty word. It comes from the Greek word metanoia, which is more than just remorse or sorrow or a change of mind. It’s a change of heart. Repentance isn’t setting off in a direction and slowing down and hitting the brakes from time to time. Repentance is stopping the car, making a u-turn and driving in the opposite direction. It’s an invitation to turn away from the sin which causes life to shrink in order to turn towards what causes life to bloom. Repent or perish isn’t a threat. It’s simply reality. We either turn away from what causes death in our lives or we are already perishing…Repentance isn’t a prison sentence. It’s the hand that liberates us from the bondage we have inflicted upon ourselves and our world. Metanoia, a change of heart, a radical change in direction is God’s strategy for a world in which so many of us want a full abundant life, but so often settle for so much less. Metanoia, repentance, transformation one person at a time, this is God’s strategy.
“And the call to repentance isn’t crouched in a threat, but in mercy. The owner who plants the fig tree is exasperated when after 3 years the tree has yet to produce any fruit and orders it to be cut down. I can relate to the owner. I do not handle disappointment well. I’m working on it, but when I am disappointed by others my response tends to be swift and sharp. The gardener however, says to give it more time and I hear the voice of Jesus in the gardener. It’s so easy to give up on others and even ourselves but Jesus says, ‘Wait. Hold on. Give me more time. I’m still working on this one. I’ve got more caring and tending and nurturing to do. I just know I can make life bloom and flourish here’.
“God’s call to repentance is under-girded by God’s grace, mercy, unfailing love, deep compassion and God’s relentless desire to see us live a full abundant life and that can only happen as we repent, as we continually turn away from the things that ensnare us and cause life to shrink back.”[4]
Note here that the “dying,” where the tree is supposed to be cut down, is not on the part of God, but on the part of the landowner.
The gardener, God, says gently to the landowner’s (our) insistence on harsh judgment, that maybe the ultimate answer to sin isn’t punishment – even in the name of justice – but rather mercy, reconciliation, forgiveness, and a new life.
Note also that God does not cause our suffering – we’re plenty good at causing our own suffering without God’s help – but God is always with us in our suffering.
He’s with us, because he’s experienced it, felt it, too! We need to bear in mind that Jesus tells these parables while he’s on the way to Jerusalem. He’s in his final days on earth, days that will end horribly and painfully.
We traditionally think of Jesus dying on the Cross as the only way that we could be reconciled to God – we had sinned against God, and someone had to pay the price, so God took human form as Jesus and died there for us.
But in light of today’s lesson, there might be an additional aspect to the story that we might miss if we focus just on the suffering, the pain, and the judgment: That maybe the Cross is about God identifying with us, being in solidarity with us, and above all, loving us. Loving us completely and totally, and giving us a second chance, a third chance, a fourth chance … and on and on.
God in Jesus loves us enough to fully take on our lot and our lives. In the Cross we see just how far God is willing to go for us, to be with us. In the Resurrection, we see that God’s love for us is stronger than anything, even death!
Like the gardener who saved that fig tree, God has promised to redeem – save – us. So, even if we suffer, even if we fail to bear fruit at times, nonetheless we can say that our suffering, the injustices that might beset us – and, in truth, the injustices that we inflict on others, whether knowingly or unknowingly – and that even death do not have the last word in our lives and world. And we can say that God will keep waiting for us, will keep loving us, and will keep calling us to turn away from all that bogs us down, so that we might be drawn again into his loving embrace!
In sum: It has been said that the goal of human life is to be one with God. Let us, in this holy season of Lent, strive to repent, to put aside our judgments of others, and to strive for the clarity of mind and purity of heart that will lead us to endure the Day of the Cross so we can rejoice on the Day of Resurrection!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] NIV, emphasis added
[2] Vetiac, Kevin, “Sermon on Luke 13:1-9,” http://www.bu.edu/sth/news-resources/creations/sermons/sermon-on-luke-131-9/
[3] http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-3-c-suffering-the-cross-and-the-promise-of-love/
[4] Vetiac, Kevin, “Sermon on Luke 13:1-9,” http://www.bu.edu/sth/news-resources/creations/sermons/sermon-on-luke-131-9/