Luke 13:1-9 At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”
Jesus the Gardener
The explosions in the Ukraine continue to wound, kill and displace hundreds of thousands of people – we know this, though frankly it remains hard to take in most of the time – let alone understand or accept. In a world supposedly ruled by God, I’ve been finding myself asking: how can such things happen? And also: Why?!
If you’ve been driven to these kinds of questions by the state of the world recently too, today’s gospel may be helpful, as the people surrounding Jesus are doing the same thing — questioning him about some Galileans Pilate had had killed in a particularly brutal way, and about eighteen others who’d been crushed by the collapse of a Tower. We can’t be sure exactly what events the people were referring to, but a historian of the time, Josephus, recounts a gruesome story that seems like it fits.
It goes like this: Pilate used Temple funds to build a new aqueduct into Jerusalem – and because he’d used Temple funds to construct it, some faithful Jews opposed it and protested publicly. In response, Pilate sent his henchmen into the crowd where they bludgeoned multiple protesters to death – and then mingled their blood into animal sacrifices they were making to their own gods.
In the face of a horror like this, it only makes sense that people would be trying – like us with the Ukraine today, perhaps – to make sense of it. How could such a thing be allowed to happen to faithful people? they are asking. And also: did they do something to deserve it? There’s an old and familiar logic at play in this last question: something terrible happened to a group of people, therefore that group of people must be terrible. And while it’s brutal in its tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye approach, it is also at least a little bit soothing because it restores order to the world – right? And meaning, and something like fairness. If I do right by God, then God will do right by me, the logic goes. And, of course, if I don’t do right by God – well, then God will make sure I suffer.
Only Jesus has something very clear to say about this approach to the suffering of others. And it is this:
No.
No, those people did nothing worse than we did and do, and sin is not the cause of their misfortune. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? He asks the questioners. “I tell you – No.’ It’s pretty clear – especially as he says it twice just in the short reading we heard today. But he says something else too, right after. He says: “but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Huh. This makes things at once less comfortable and more complicated – don’t you think? I mean, how are the two even linked? If misfortune is not caused by sin – if there really is no cause and effect – then what difference does my behavior make to what happens to me?
And this is where the parable of the fig tree comes in, I think. At first glance it seems like a fairly straightforward allegory upholding the old quid pro-quo, eye-for-an-eye approach, and in fact this is how it is commonly interpreted: Jesus is the landowner who expects those who hear him to bear fruitthe commentaries tell us. If they do not do so, God in his mercy gives them some extra time, after which, if they still fail, they will be destroyed.
But does this sound to you like the Jesus you know and love and rely on? And does his insistence that the unfruitful be destroyed resonate with his other teachings about mercy and love and forgiveness and life? Not for me. In fact for me it makes more sense for Jesus to be represented not by the vineyard owner, but by the gardener in this story. The gardener after all is the one who knows the tree – and the one, it seems who planted it in the first place too. The owner of the vineyard didn’t plant the tree himself but “had it planted”. Impatient, he keeps coming back to look for fruit, and finds none — which isn’t surprising, because as Jesus’ audience of the time would have known, a fig tree typically takes 4 years to bear fruit, not three. A fig tree is not a vine. It grows differently and more slowly. And it needs help. It is no more sufficient to ‘have a fig tree planted’ if you want to grow figs than it is to ‘send a kid to school’ if you want to bring up a healthy and well-adjusted child. In order to fulfill its potential, the tree, like the child, requires both nurturing and care. And it is for time to do just this that the gardener pleads “let it alone for one more year” he begs. Let me give it space to breathe, and food to eat, let me pay it a little attention, and help it to thrive. Let me offer my labor in order that this gorgeous tree can become what it should be and bear fruit that is good to eat.
So again, I ask you, which sounds more like the Jesus we love and who we are told loves us? The owner, who glances from a distance and first judges, then condemns and ultimately casts out? Or the gardener, who struggles alongside and who heals?
And which sounds more like you — like us — today? Do we choose the distance and the judgment of the owner who never gets close enough to the ground to even see what is there — what hope and promise for sure, but also what struggle and need? Or do we choose to pay attention and then to engage – and advocate for – like the gardener? The latter is a messier, dirtier, riskier way to live, of course. And it’s probably way more confusing and heart breaking than keeping a safe distance and thinking about something else. But when Jesus calls us to repentance, he means more than simply turning away from things that keep us from him. He means also turning towards each other in love – especially in times of turmoil and suffering and fear like today.
It doesn’t have to be anything big or grand this turning towards. In fact it can be quite tiny – like Holly the other day, choosing to walk to the Grace Church office from her home, so she could intentionally greet each person she met with a welcoming smile and a warm hello. Or like Robert who found a small real way to help people in the Ukraine by renting a room there through AirBnB and so funneling much needed money into somebody’s hands. Or like Meredith who has taken to breathing in and breathing out, breathing in and breathing out the very same air that our brothers and sisters in Kyiv are breathing in and breathing out, thereby joining herself to them through her prayer.
All three of these are part of the humble, quiet, often unseen work of the gardener who gives life. And it is just such small actions as these that Jesus is asking us for when he says over and over again that we must repent: repent of shutting our eyes and battening up our hearts and keeping our distance and wishing those who are suffering away, and instead find ways to intentionally turn towards them in love. this is his invitation to us, I believe, this is his call.
And if it sounds too hard – which I get because sometimes it is, for me at least – here’s one last question for you:
Who do you think is really perishing in this parable about the fig tree? The tree itself? No. The tree is now being fed and so will bloom and thrive. The gardener? No, the gardener is full of life and energy and hope and generosity and love. Not the gardener, but the owner of the land who keeps his distance, who glances quickly when he glances at all, and then judges harshly and without care — he is the one who seems to be shriveling away into fruitlessness – the one who is perishing. And of course this means it is to him that Jesus is primarily speaking today; towards him – and us — that he is leaning, willing our return to life in communion with and service to others through his own love, and letting us know that we do not need to be afraid, that we can take as long as we need, and that he will be with us, and is with us even now — and if we want to feel the truth of this, he whispers gently in our ear, all we need to do is kneel down in the dirt and offer ourselves however we can, whenever we can, to our fellow humans who are suffering. Repent he says. And do not perish. Repent, he says. And have life.
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