The gospel for Sunday March 20th (Luke 13:1-9) discusses the relationship of sin, punishment and repentance. It begins with Jesus talking with his disciples about two contemporary events. 

Some present told him 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.

While no other gospel includes this episode and there is no other record of it, it supports a familiar picture of Pilate as an administrator who turned quickly to violent solutions. The questioners may have wanted to hear Jesus condemn Pilate as the personification of all that was evil in the Roman occupation of Israel. Instead Jesus turned the question to one of theology: 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.

Jesus continued with a question of his own, based on another event that seems to have been commonly known: 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.”

Jesus was addressing a long-held understanding that bad occurrences were directly related to a person’s sin. Recall that Job’s friends assumed that he had done something to offend God when God tested Job. Deuteronomy 28:15-20 says, If you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees …these curses will come on you…: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. 

In both cases Jesus answered his own question about their suffering with the same words, No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 

Jesus’ answer modified the simplistic understanding of Deuteronomy, but did not change its essence. He said that the suffering of the Galileans and those killed when the tower collapsed was not a direct result of their sin. One cannot and should not draw a direct line between sin and specific suffering. Reality and theology are more complex than that. However, he did say that, ultimately, sinners would suffer Deuteronomy’s consequence: unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 

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Then Jesus told a parable to illustrate his way of seeing the relationship. 

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.’”

It is a parable of a God of second, third and fourth chances (each year being a ‘chance’.) It is also a story of God regarding the potential not the lack. Jesus used it to instruct his disciples on healing and forgiveness.

Another implication of this parable is that…as stand-ins for the fig tree… God calls us to be fruitful and contributing members of community. We do not live for ourselves alone.

As a Lenten gospel, it also invites us to consider the invitation to benefit our community in some way, and to think of the consequences of not responding to that invitation.  

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  • A more recent version of the incidents reported in this gospel…and Jesus’ response… may be the death of Thomas Merton on Dec 10, 1968 near Bangkok Thailand. Merton, (who was notoriously inept with anything mechanical or electrical), died of electrocution while stepping out of a shower and apparently contacting a fan with a faulty electrical cord. He hadn’t done anything to “deserve” this fate. Yet, it is interesting that his life and work has continued to bear fruit more than 50 years later.
  • When and how has God given you multiple opportunities to be fruitful? When you responded well, was it hard? Did you find that you were given a measure of grace (manure) to help?
  • Jesus used the fig tree…a cultivated plant… as a source for his parable. What other cultivates does he use? Is there a subtle lesson in how God regards us and his relationship with us?

Peace
Michael