Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 20, 2022

Tags

answers, ask, fig tree, God, Jesus, life-giving, parable, questions, Sermon, suffering, Ukraine, un-ask

As I have been watching the news about Ukraine, I find that I am in equal measures blown away by the fortitude and commitment of Ukrainians – who by all accounts had no chance in beating powerful Russia, and devastated by the suffering of Ukrainians – starving and trapped inside surrounded cities, attempting to protect children by writing the word “children” outside a safe house, only to have that safe space bombed, and even having maternity wards being fair game for destruction.  As my heart ached the question, “Why?” this week, I was so grateful when I read today’s gospel and see those gathering around Jesus asking Jesus the same question.

In Luke’s gospel today, the people come with two concerns to Jesus.  They want to know why Galilean Jews have suffered at the hand of Pilate, and why many were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed.  I feel a solidarity in their painful questions, and I have a hopeful longing when Jesus opens his mouth.  But what comes next feels like Jesus has not heard us at all.  In answer to their question of why there has been suffering, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit and had not borne fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree. 

Now maybe you hear Jesus’ parable today, and you can immediately see the correlation between the question why there is suffering in the world and the parable of the unproductive fig tree.  I was not so lucky this week.  In fact, I found myself staring blankly at this text for days.  Certainly, I understand the question the people ask, since I have been asking that same question for weeks.  And I think I somewhat understand the parable – I mean, what better parable for Lent than one about repentance.  But what I did not understand was why Jesus told this parable to answer our question of why there is suffering in the world.

Fortunately, I stumbled on the work of a biblical scholar.  She describes the idea by poet and healer Pádraig Ó Tuama of the “Buddhist concept of ‘mu,’ or un-asking.  If someone asks a question that’s too small, flat, or confining, Ó Tuama writes, you can answer with this word mu, which means, ‘Un-ask the question, because there’s a better question to be asked.’  A wiser question, a deeper question, a truer question.  A question that expands possibility, and resists fear.”[i]  I think what the poet and the scholar are pointing to is a little like that movie The Karate Kid from the 1980s.  In the movie, the main character wants an old man to teach him karate so he can stand up to the high school bully.  And so, what are the first things the old teacher has him do?  Paint a fence, wax a car, and sand a wooden walkway.  This desperate teen asks for help, and at first glance, the wise teacher is responding in a totally disconnected way.

Of course, in the movie we learn that the teacher’s method is anything but disconnected.  Painting, waxing, and sanding all incorporate the skills needed to master karate.  Jesus is a similar sensei in his telling of this cryptic parable.  In order to help us shift our work of repentance on this third week of Lent, when we ask why, Jesus says “mu.”  As Debie Thomas argues, Jesus “…says “mu” because “why” is just plain not a life-giving question.  Why hasn’t the fig tree produced fruit yet?  Um, here’s the manure, and here’s a spade — get to work.  Why do terrible, painful, completely unfair things happen in this world?  Um, go weep with someone who’s weeping.  Go fight for the justice you long to see.  Go confront evil where it needs confronting.  Go learn the art of patient, hope-filled tending.  Go cultivate beautiful things.  Go look your own sin in the eye and repent of it while you can.  In short: imagine a deeper story.  Ask a better question.  Live a better answer.”[ii] 

Jesus is not unfeeling about our angst about suffering in the world.  I suspect Jesus is grateful for our empathetic hearts.  But this cryptic parable this week is meant to shift us a quarter turn so that we move out of empathetic paralysis and into repentant productivity.  We learn from the parable we will not do this work alone.  We unproductive, rooted trees cannot exactly fertilize and aerate our own soil.  God, the gardener, who graciously asks for more time, will do that work as we focus on moving from being empathetic fig trees with no sustaining fruit, to humble, repentant fig trees who work on improving our own sinful behavior before becoming overwhelmed with the rest of the sinful world.  God will likely have to shovel a lot of manure to help transform our unproductive soil.  But as we weep with others, grab our own spades, confront evil in our own life, and fight for justice through hope-filled tending, we begin the work of asking better questions and living better answers.  Amen.

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[i] Debie Thomas, “What Are You Asking?” March 13, 2022, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2944 on March 19, 2022.

[ii] Thomas.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, February 28, 2016

Tags

allegory, barren, encourage, fairness, fig tree, fruit, gardener, God, insecurity, Jesus, justice, lectionary, Luke, redemption, Sermon, stength, transition

My dad, a retired Methodist Minister, and I have always disagreed about the use of the Revised Common Lectionary.  He always felt that the pastor’s duty was to listen to the movement of the Spirit and select scripture lessons that were relevant to what was happening in the life of the parish.  I argued that his method was rife with pitfalls.  The pastor could end up confusing personal preference with the movement of the Spirit, could push one’s own agenda too far, or could end up avoiding hard texts out of laziness or fear.  Instead, I argued, following the lectionary forces the preacher to be truly open to the Spirit – totally giving up control over what text is offered on any given day, trusting that the Lord will provide the message.

This week, I wished I had adopted my dad’s practice.  I looked at the gospel lesson and immediately, said, “Nope!  No way, now how.  There is no way I am going to preach that text to my people when we are in the midst of transition!”  My list of reasons for avoiding the text from Luke were long and, I believe, well-reasoned.  I did not want to preach about a tree not bearing fruit because in no way did I want to infer that I think St. Margaret’s is not bearing fruit, especially because my pending departure has created a sense of insecurity about the strength of St. Margaret’s.  The truth is, St. Margaret’s is bearing fruit.  There is the literal fruit that we are bearing in our Garden of Eatin’ which is feeding our hungry neighbors.  And then there is the figurative fruit:  the children we are raising up through reinvigorated Christian Education programs, the pastoral ministries we are offering to our cemetery families, and the love and care we offer to each other.

But I didn’t just want to avoid talking about barren trees.  I also had no desire to talk about manure today.  Quite frankly, I could just imagine how in the midst of transition a community could feel like they are getting a whole lot of manure dumped on them.  A gardener knows that to keep plants thriving we have to aerate the soil, pull out weeds, and double up with nutrient-rich manure.  But anyone who has driven by a recently tended garden knows that the stench of manure can make you want to quickly run in the other direction.  As we think about the burdens of a transition, the last thing I wanted to talk about today is the gardener’s suggestion of piling on hot, smelly manure.

Besides wanting to avoid talking about barren trees and smelly manure, I had zero desire to talk about trees getting chopped down.  For all of the conversations I have had with parishioners over the past few weeks, the most common one has been about fear for the future of St. Margaret’s.  Many of you are worried about our viability and fear what the instability of transition and new leadership will bring.  On one hand, your fears are not unwarranted.  We have watched neighboring churches decline to the point of closure.  We also know that we are in a time and culture when churches have to work a lot harder to grow and thrive.  But I do not think St. Margaret’s has to fear the ax in our passage today.  If we were having this conversation five or six years ago, I could see where the damage of past leadership could have been the end of St. Margaret’s.  But even that challenge did not pull St. Margaret’s under.  And we are in a much stronger place – we have changed so much for the better and grown into a tree producing fruit.  Are we in a transition?  Yes.  Is change coming?  Yes.  Is our tree going to be cut down?  I do not think so.

Unfortunately for me, we actually do follow the lectionary.  And since we do not get to pick and choose what scripture fits our needs at a particular time, we look for the ways that a text speaks to us despite our personal preferences.  The good news is that some of our initial reactions to this text are rooted in a misunderstanding of the allegory Jesus gives us.  Many of us assume that the landowner is God and the gardener is Jesus.  But nowhere in Luke’s gospel is God portrayed as an angry, vindictive God that needs to be placated or negotiated with by Jesus. Instead, God is the one who waits every day for the prodigal son to come home.  God is the woman who leaves no pillow unturned looking for her lost coin.  Luke’s depiction is of a God who rejoices over one who repents than over the remaining ninety-nine who need no repentance.

Instead, as one scholar suggests, “Given Luke’s consistent picture of God’s reaction to sin, then perhaps the landowner is representative of our own sense of how the world should work.  That is, from very early on, we want things to be “fair” and we define “fair” as receiving rewards for doing good and punishment for doing evil.  (Except of course, when it comes to our own mistakes and misdeeds – then we want mercy!)”[i]  But our God is a God of justice, not fairness.  When I struggle with these two words, I always remember a cartoon that has floated around.  The cartoon has three people trying to see over a fence.  One is short, one is medium-height, and one is tall.  All three are given two boxes to stand on.  Of course, the tall person can easily see over the fence.  The medium-height person can just barely see over, but the short person cannot see, even with the two boxes.  This frame is called fairness or equality.  But the next frame is called justice.  In this frame, the short-statured person gets three boxes, the medium-height person gets two boxes, and the tallest person gets just one box.  All three people can now see over the fence equally.

I tell you this story not because as short-statured person I totally get this cartoon!  I tell you this story because I do not think our God is an angry landowner demanding results and expecting everyone to figure things out themselves – to produce fruit without adequate help.  No, I think the gardener is actually God – our advocate looking for justice, not just fairness.    Perhaps God is the one raising a contrary voice to suggest that the ultimate answer to sin is not punishment – not even in the name of justice – but rather mercy, reconciliation, and new life.[ii]  So, in the threat of danger and even death, God is a god who intercedes, who demands mercy, and in fact, is willing to get down in the manure to make sure we thrive and bear that delicious, life-giving fruit.

Now, even the gardener is not naïve to think that our window for productivity is unlimited.  Even the gardener submits to the owner that if after a year, the tree does not produce, the owner may cut the tree down.  But I do not think God will let that happen.  God is “all in” with making sure we are redeemed – whether by getting dirty with us to help us grow, or by interceding again, even when the produce is just not there.  Not unlike Abraham who argued and argued with God to spare ten, twenty, even fifty people, our gardener is one of mercy, reconciliation, and redemption.

And that is why I love the lectionary.  Even when I fight, and kick, and say, “No way!” God finds a way to speak despite my reservations.  Where I had feared sending the wrong message about our walk with Christ, God comes through bringing good news of mercy, reconciliation, and redemption.  Bishop Curry says this about our text today, “The task of the disciple is to witness and then wait, to take our best step and leave the rest to God…We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.  Being freed from managing the results of our actions enables us to do something, and do it well.  We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.  We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future not our own.”[iii]  I do not know about you, but I am over the moon that our God is one who is willing to fight to the last pile of manure to encourage and strengthen us.  If our God can do that, we are bound to rise again in hopeful new life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] David Lose, “Lent 3 C:  Suffering, the Cross, and the Promise of Love,” February 22, 2016, as found at http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-3-c-suffering-the-cross-and-the-promise-of-love/ on February 25, 2016.

[ii] Lose.

[iii] Michael B. Curry, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 97.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 3, 2013

Tags

fig tree, God, grace, Jesus, Lent, mercy, parable, repent, Sermon

We are half way through Lent, and this is the time that we begin to take stock.  But we do not always take stock of ourselves, humbly repenting of the ways we are stumbling with our disciplines.  No, we look at everyone else.  When we ask our fellow parishioners how their Lenten disciplines are going, we are not asking out of Christian love.  We are asking because we hope they are failing more miserably than we are.  We need to hear that someone has lapsed in their practice or given up altogether so that our weak attempts to hold on do not seem so weak after all.  We are a judgmental people, and we rarely offer the forgiveness that we so long to receive.

Jesus knows this as he listens to those gathered around him in our Gospel lesson today.  They are lamenting with Jesus about two groups of people who have recently suffered – the Galileans at the hand of Pilate and those near the tower of Siloam.  “Isn’t it horrible, Jesus,” they seem to be saying.  The insinuation is that those in Galilee and in Siloam must have sinned gravely to receive such suffering.  The assumption was a common one among the people of Israel.[i]  We remember the friends of Job who immediately assumed Job must have done something wrong to deserve his severe suffering.  Those gathered around Jesus are hoping that Jesus will confirm their suspicions – that Jesus will turn the spotlight on the sinfulness of those people, so that they can all shake their heads in judgment.

But Jesus will not take the bait.  Instead, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit, and had not bore fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree.

The message seems to be clear in Jesus’ parable:  repent, change your ways, and start producing fruit, or you will be slaughtered.  But this interpretation of the parable gets all the parts confused.  The people gathered are not the gardeners begging God, the vineyard owner, for one more year to tend our garden.  That version of the parable would be too simple.  Instead, God is the gardener – the one negotiating grace – and they are the unproductive trees.

I have been thinking about life as the unproductive fig tree all week.  An unproductive tree is still very much alive – the tree goes about the business of breathing in and drinking up nutrients.  The tree is surviving, but not thriving.  But the tree is doing about all the tree can do.  The tree cannot fertilize itself.  The tree cannot aerate the tree’s own soil.  In order for the tree to thrive, the tree is dependent upon the gardener for the kind of care that produces fruit.

This is where I got stuck in the parable.  First, Jesus tells the people to repent; but then, Jesus tells the people that they are immobile trees, incapable of changing anything without the help of a gardener.  As someone who likes who likes to do, to be active, to achieve something, this parable is especially difficult.  If Jesus had just said to repent, I would have had a task to do – a job to accomplish.  Repenting, amending my ways, returning to God are all things I can work on and do.  But being a tree that just stands there, waiting for someone to help her, depending on God’s grace feels a lot less comfortable.

This Lent I really struggled with choosing a spiritual discipline.  I have tried all sorts of practices in Lent in the past:  reading a daily devotional, taking up a prayer practice, creating an exercise routine, or even giving up a foul mouth.  I tend to like the practices that add something to your life, rather than take something away.  But this year, nothing seemed to fit.  I talked to my spiritual director about my quandary, and she suggested something radical.  Instead of taking on something or giving up something, she suggested I just commit to just being more aware.  My busybody nature was totally confused and apprehensive.  But my spiritual director encouraged me to just try – to try spending this Lent, not busying myself with a discipline, but daily taking stock of my life patterns and observing.  This non-practice practice has been the most awkward experience for me.  As a person who needs tangibility, I have been left with this intangible practice.  No checklist to consult, no achievements to track:  just a practice of being, of letting God work on me.

I think what my spiritual director has been trying to get me to live into is the tree identity of our parable today.  In naming ourselves as the tree in Jesus’ parable, we are claiming a couple of things.  First, we are claiming that we are utterly incapable of determining our future.  The tree in the parable is not bearing fruit, and nothing the tree does will help the tree change this status.  The tree cannot try harder or behave differently.  The tree is simply a tree planted where the tree is.  Second, in identifying with the tree, we are claiming that we are dependent upon the gardener.  We are dependent upon the gardener’s mercy – the gardener who lobbies for one more year of trying.  We are dependent upon the gardener for determining the kind of nourishment we will receive.  We do not get to consult the gardener about the type of care we think we need.  We must trust the gardener to do what the gardener does best.

What I like about this parable today is that the parable takes us out of our comfort zones and puts us squarely in God’s hands.  First, by telling the people to repent, Jesus takes the people out of a mode of comparing and judging others and puts the people in the mode of tending to themselves.  His instruction to repent is almost Jesus’ way of saying, “Why don’t you stop worrying about what Pilate did and what the people of Siloam did, and why don’t you take stock of your own stuff.”  And then Jesus takes the wind out the sails of the people even further.  His parable tells them that not only do they need to not worry about what everyone else is doing, they need to realize that even the things that they are doing do not matter – because ultimately they are trees dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to thrive.

Now this may not sound like good news to us, but this is a tremendous word of grace for us today.  In the midst of the season of Lent, that season that we are typically kneading the dough of our lives, trying to get ourselves just right for God, Jesus leaves us with a word of grace.  Jesus’ parable today shifts our energy this week.  Instead of desperately grasping to change and amend our lives, Jesus invites us to let go:  to let go of trying so hard, and to remember the God who lovingly offers to do the work of digging in our soil and spreading smelly manure so that we might bear delicious fruit.

As we have been thinking about gardening this Lent, I have been hearing many stories of your own gardens.  For those of you who garden, you have lived this invitation that Jesus offers.  You have lived through a season where the tomatoes did not make it, where the new crop was not planted in the right place, and where critters have come in and destroyed.  And for those of you who are seasoned at this work, the common phrase I hear from you is, “Ah well, we’ll try again next year.”  This is the kind of letting go that Jesus is inviting us into this week.  This is the kind of trust in God that Jesus encourages.  As we come forward for healing prayers today, an old gospel hymn keeps running through head when I think of Jesus’ parable today.  The chorus says, “Your grace and mercy brought me through.  I’m living this moment because of You.  I want to thank you and praise you too.  Your grace and mercy brought me through.”  In the midst of our Lenten journey, we pause today to recognize the ways in which we are simply trees in God’s garden, dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to get us through.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

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[i] Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 92.