We love our images of a gentle and loving God, don’t we? Like the image of God calling to God’s people through the prophet Isaiah in our first lesson today, saying: Come and eat! Come and drink! It’s free!
It’s such a warm image. For me it evokes memories of childhood and home. 5:00 each day dinner was on the table, and mom was calling out to the house full of family, and often friends as well, with an invitation in these words: Come and get it! But we knew that it wasn’t just an invitation. There was also a command behind those words. Family meal time was important, and if you were not there, and didn’t have an excuse and permission to not be there, you were in trouble. My parents expected us to be there, expected us to spend this time together. “Come and get it!” was an invitation in the form of an imperative…
But it wasn’t just an invitation to eat. It was also an invitation to community. Sure, “Come and get it!” meant that the food was prepared and was being served, but it was also a call to gather with those who loved you, and who wanted to know what your day had been like, what was going on in your life, because we understood ourselves to be a unit – what affected one, affected all; if one rejoiced, we all rejoiced along with them; if one was hurting or in trouble, we stood together and supported them through the trouble. This, at least as much as the food we were about to eat, was at the center of our gathering.
But this was also an open gathering. No one was ever turned away. The answer to the question: Can so-n-so stay for dinner?” was always: “Yes, if it’s okay with their parents.” I didn’t always get it then, but I think I do now, my parents were teaching us, by example, what Christian community might look like.
And I see these principles at work behind our other lessons today – the importance of a communal understanding of life in Christ, and that Christ’s invitation to grace is best heard as both invitation and imperative…
Much as there is today, there seems to have been some bad theology in Jesus’ day. Apparently, there had been a couple of current events that people were struggling to understand and interpret in terms of God’s involvement, or lack of involvement as the case may be, not unlike those who struggle to understand natural disasters and such, as well as the hard truth that bad people do really evil things sometimes in our own day and age.
In Luke 13, one situation is of a political nature. Pilate had killed a bunch of Galileans who were in Jerusalem making sacrifices in the Temple, and he mixed their blood with the blood of the sacrifices. And I’m sure people were asking why God didn’t protect them. I mean, of all times when a faithful follower might expect to be safe, wouldn’t you expect to be safe in worship? But then I’m reminded of Dr. George Tiller, a Lutheran and an OB GYN who, some 7 years ago or so, was gunned down by someone who believed himself justified in doing so, right there in the narthex of his Lutheran Church as he served as a greeter on a Sunday morning, because Dr. Tiller performed abortions. And I’m reminded of folks like Bishop Oscar Romero, who, in 1980, having called on the Salvadoran government to end its oppressive and unjust practices, was gunned down as he elevated the chalice, praying the words of the Great Thanksgiving that this cup is the new covenant in Christ’s blood, shed for all people for the forgiveness of sin.
Well, do we think Tiller and Romero were any worse sinners than anyone else? This is the question Jesus raises, refusing to deal directly with the individual circumstances presented…
The other question that’s asked has to do with a tragic accident, the collapse of a tower in Siloam for reasons unknown to us. Was it an engineering mistake? Was this a construction accident? Was there something or someone sinister behind it? We don’t know. We’re not told. But we can tell that it’s on the minds of the people.
And, of course, we probably all find it hard, if not impossible, to read about the collapse of any tower without flashing back to September 11, 2001, and the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York. But then I hear Jesus asking: Do you think those who died at ground zero were worse sinners than anyone else? Is this how you believe God works?…
On the heels of each of these examples, Jesus takes what might seem to be an odd and even cruel turn. “No, I tell you, they’re not any better or worse than the rest of you, and, by the way, unless you repent, unless you turn around, turn away from doing things your way, and turn toward living the way God calls you to live, unless you do that, and soon, the same fate awaits you. You will all perish as they did!
Yikes! There’s no gentle Jesus, meek and mild here!
Well, and there’s no room for self-righteousness, either. It’s like Paul writes in verse 12 of our text from 1 Corinthians this morning: If you think you’re standing, watch out that you do not fall! We’re all in this together, folks…
But what, exactly, are we in? Is this all law? Is this all threat? Lest we think so, Jesus follows his admittedly harsh call to repentance, with a parable.
Now, remember, a parable is not an allegory. Every person and everything in an allegory represents something. Not so with parables. A parable teaches one central lesson, and our theology can get way off base when we try to allegorize parables, like, unfortunately, many have tried to do through the years. In the case of today’s parable, we end up with God, as the vineyard owner, who wants us, the barren fig tree, dead, pitted against Jesus, the gardener, who tries to defend us from God’s wrath. And this is obviously a problem, since we know that the Father and the Son are One, and that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, full of grace and truth. Any interpretation that pits God the Father against Jesus the Son is clearly out of bounds, theologically. Which begs the question: so, if not that, then what is the central lesson of this parable?…
Perhaps this: The fig tree becomes for us a figure of grace. It’s got a chance, you see, precisely because it’s got a gardener who cares for it.
Now, obviously, fig trees are supposed to bear fruit, that’s their purpose, and after three years, it should be producing fruit, but this tree is barren, so, by rights, it should be removed so that the trees around it, the ones that are presumably bearing fruit as they ought, can thrive on the nutrients that this tree seems to be wasting. But the gardener intercedes, asking for one more year. And the gardener will go to great lengths to see the tree bear fruit.
The gardener doesn’t pay attention to the current situation, but, rather, looks ahead to a new day when the tree will be doing a new thing.
Jesus doesn’t get caught up in the political situation between the Jews and the Romans, or the natural, or accidental, or possibly sinister causes of the tower collapse, just as the gardener doesn’t linger on why the tree isn’t bearing fruit. Jesus simply calls us to repent, to get outside of ourselves, to turn away from ourselves and our own self-interests, and to turn outward toward our neighbors, living and loving as God in Christ has called us to do, and, as the gardener in the parable, he promises to do what’s needed to get us there.
Like the gardener, Jesus will go to great lengths, even to the point of digging up around our stagnant roots and pouring out his precious blood in order that we might be nourished and empowered and begin to bear the fruits of repentance, that is, living lives that are turned out for the sake of the other…
You know, Lent is a penitential season, a time when the Church calls us to intentional acts of repentance, and we often respond to this call in very personal ways. But repentance, in the best sense, is not about personal development or personal betterment. Repentance is best understood and experienced, as is all of Christian living, within community, as the disciplines of Lent – praying, fasting, and alms-giving – drive us outside of ourselves to live for God and to love our neighbors with an active love, bearing fruit in the world and for the world that God loves enough to die for…
This, then, is the invitation, and the imperative of God that we hear today: Come! Eat and drink! It’s free! But it’s not just for you! This eating and drinking, this nourishment – this praying and fasting and generous sharing – is for the life of the world that God loves. And in his great love, God, in Christ Jesus, will do everything in his power to get you to be fruitful, even if it means loving you to death, even death on a cross.
Amen.
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