Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
If Jesus was here to retell this morning's Gospel lesson, perhaps it would have gone like this:
There were some present who told him about the man who ran his vehicle into a crowded street, filled with people in town for the big football game, killing and injuring dozens of passers-by. Do you think they were worse sinners than all the others in town, partying, celebrating, and (ahem) planning to skip church the next day? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Or those people going to work or the store when, suddenly, they plunged into the waters below because a cargo ship crashed into the bridge they were crossing? Were those folks worse sinners than all the others around Baltimore? Or, what about the folks driving around the loop in Victoria when and airplane crashed on top of their car? Were they worse sinners than anyone else in town, or in the county, or those sitting in the pews today? No, I tell you, but unless you likewise repent, you will all likewise perish.
When we hear such stories as these, whether the event
happens a thousand years ago, a thousand miles away, or right across the
street, we often have one of two immediate reactions. The first is relief:
“There but for the grace of God go I.” But often it is followed by the second,
“Why did it happen to them?”
That second question gets creative with its answers –
especially when people dare to foolishly speak for God when He gives no
revealed answer in His Word. Remember when TV preachers made headlines for
attributing Katrina to God’s wrath against New Orleans and its long history of
social and racial inequality? Or, when the gunman went on a shooting spree in
Las Vegas, moralistic people said, “Well, it’s called sin city for a reason,
you know,” implying that this was God’s way of setting people straight. When flooding
hit Houston again last year, it was determined that, obviously, God was
settling the score with the evil and greedy oil and petrochemical industry. The
recent fires through LA were proclaimed as His way of humbling the social
elite.
Those are modern takes on the ancient Jewish idea of “you
get what you deserve.” If such a tragedy befalls you, it was thought, that it
stands as evidence that you or someone in your immediate family had sinned
against God or man, or both, and you were getting your just desserts. What
comes around, goes around, you know.
Other times, the question is answered less from judgement in
the negative, that they did something wrong, but from the opposite assumption
of innocence. “It’s not fair!” the cry goes up. “They didn’t do anything
wrong!” They were just partying with friends; they were just going to work,
school, or back home; they were there for a weekend get-away. They didn’t
deserve those terrible things to happen to them.
Whether presuming guilt and judgement – they must have done
something wrong and are getting what they deserve – or presuming innocence and
goodness – they are just blameless victims – we presume the role of God,
determining right or wrong, guilt or innocence, based on our perspective, our
ideas, our opinions.
Be careful, Jesus warns. Do not presume either guilt or innocence because of what happened and whom it happened to. In fact, He says, we must interpret such events, not with ourselves as the interpreter, but instead as if these things were happening to us as well, as if we were the ones in the sad headlines. If you dare to interpret from the position of God, then do it honestly with regard to His view of sin. I re-told the Gospel reading as the introduction to get your attention and place the warning into our world today. Suddenly, Jesus’ warning, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish,” takes on a whole new meaning.
There are two powerful words, there: repent and perish.
Let’s consider perish first. In our modern usage, perish is a polite way to say
“died tragically.” It gets used in press releases and news reports: four
people perished in the massive vehicle pileup on I-40 in the Panhandle last
week; three people perished when the structure collapsed. Jesus is using it
as a rawboned description of death. But He isn’t just speaking of the heart
beat that stops and the brain that ceases processing. Specifically, Jesus is
referring to the tragedy of the eternal banishment to hell that sinners
deserve. “The wages of sin is death,” Paul famously wrote. He means the sad
fact of complete, eternal, physical and spiritual death. In other words,
separation from God and His love and compassion. Unless you repent, Jesus means
you will all experience what death really means as you suffer where their worm
does not die and the fire is not quenched.
The other word is “repent.” Repent doesn’t mean that we walk
around like Eeyore, sad, with hang-dog looks on our faces, moping around as if
everything is wrong and nothing is good. Repentance confesses our place as
sinners before God. Repentance acknowledges that our condition tragically deserves
to perish. Repentance says, as Luther writes, that we indeed daily sin much in
thought, word and deed. We confess that while we may not have sinned against
the celebrants in New Orleans Vegas, we have sinned by making assumptions. We
confess, not that we caused the bridge to collapse or the plane crash, but that
we sin against our fellow travelers by becoming impatient or by a moment of
recklessness on the road, risking their lives as well as those in our own car.
We confess, not that we caused the fires or floods or storms, but we
acknowledge our part in this fallen world in abusing creation. And, repentance
acknowledges as well that we deserve to perish tragically – physically,
spiritually, eternally – for each of these sins, and so many more.
*I wonder if that’s not what Jesus is actually wanting them
to repent of – a foolish notion that somehow, this side of heaven, we can
reject death and see it as something that only happens to bad guys –
specifically, guys we determine who are bad and worthy of dying (or unworthy of
living, whichever the case may be). Perhaps that’s part of Jesus’ point: be
prepared because everyone will one day die. He’s not being macabre – He’s
speaking the truth of the havoc satan and sin has brought to creation. But that
is the purpose for which Jesus came: that He, too, would die – for you and with
you so that you no longer have to keep death at arm’s length. You have nothing
to lose but the fear and horror of death.
To help us grasp this idea, which is outside of our daily
thinking, Jesus tells this brief parable about the fig tree that isn’t
producing fruit. Briefly, an owner finds a fig tree that isn’t producing fruit.
It’s just using up soil and space, so he tells his servant to cut it down. But
the vinedresser instead argues for the tree, offering to give it special care,
turning the ground and fertilizing with manure, so that it might have the
opportunity to produce fruit one more time. If it fails in a year’s time, then
it can be cut down.
Don’t be tempted to see yourself as the vinedressing hero
who potentially saves the tree. Parables generally aren’t about you as the main
character. They’re about the kingdom. They are about Jesus. Well, I said the
parable isn’t about you – but you are in it. See yourself as the tree; see the
vinedresser as Jesus; see the landowner as God who is displeased with the
spiritual fruit that you and I produce – or, more accurately, with the complete
absence of spiritual fruit. Where is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control? The landowner rules: although
living, it’s as if we’re dead – there’s no fruit, that is no evidence, of
faith; is there any faith, any life at all?
Enter the vinedresser. Enter Jesus. He pleads for the
landowner’s mercy for the fruitless tree. Jesus intercedes to the Father on our
behalf. “Let it be, Lord, for one more year.” Let it be – it’s interesting:
Jesus uses the same phrase from the cross. There, under His own judgement of
death, we hear Jesus pray, “Father, forgive.”
That’s the wonder of the foolishness of the cross. Jesus
becomes sin for us. The foul, stinking manure of mankind’s sin is dumped upon
Him and He carries it in Himself. His body is marked by nails; a spear digs
deep into His side. He sends resurrection into our roots. He doesn’t come to
see if we think ourselves good and worthy: He comes to turn over our idea of
good and the conventions by which we pretend to be good. He doesn’t come to see
if we’re sorry: He knows our repentance is often fickle and just as much hot
air. He doesn’t count our doing of anything. He comes only to forgive, fully,
freely. No one is too far gone, no one is too spiritually dead for His
resurrection restoration. We were dead, remember, and brought nothing to the
conversation. The vinedresser restores life, without qualification, as one
enormous gift.
When we hear this section of Luke 13, it always begins with
the question, “Why?” Jesus turns us to see the “who” instead. Who we are – dead
and dying. Who He is – saving and restoring, having Himself died and rose for
us. With that as our focus, we are able to live in these grey and latter days
without having to be fearful for marauding Roman governors and strangely
falling towers, or hidden viruses, or even a crazed, maniacal dictator who
seems to hold the future of the world underneath his hot, sweaty hands. Luther
was once asked, what would you do if you knew tomorrow as the end of the world.
He thought for a minute and said that he would go plant an apple tree, that way
just in case the world didn’t end, some day, someone could enjoy the fruit of
his labor. Live each day with the joy and certainty that Christ has taken our
place, died our death, and redeems us to bear fruit in His name. And then, go
plant a tree.
* I am
indebted to Robert Farrar Capon's book, Kingdom, Grace, Judgement:
Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus (c. 2002, Wm. B.
Eerdmans Co.) for this Gospel understanding of the parable. Much of
what follows from this point is based on chapter 9 of the book.