Let’s
Stand with the Fig Tree!
Pastor Jim Kniseley
presented this sermon at Resurrection on March 7, 2010, the Third Sunday of
Lent. The sermon text is Luke 13:1-9.
Dear
Friends in Christ,
Some
powerful natural disasters have taken place recently in the world. The devastating earthquake in Haiti and the
terrible earthquake in Chile are constantly in the news. Televangelist Pat Robertson weighed in with his usual harsh
judgment: “The earthquake in Haiti is God’s punishment on them for past
sins. They deserved it.”
Some
of us in this congregation are suffering from some bad things that have
happened in our personal lives: the death of family members; the loss of jobs
that have created great hardship; and some of here today are enduring severe
health problems.
I’ll
bet the question has gone through the minds of many here: what did I do wrong
that God is punishing me?
That’s
the question that Jesus is confronting in today’s gospel account. Can you legitimately associate life’s
misfortunes with sin? Folks in the first
century, the time when Jesus was here on earth, had this perspective on
life. They were taught that there is
always a direct cause and effect between what happens in the world and human
beings. They believed sincerely that
natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes and floods came because
someone had sinned. They were God’s
punishment.
Jesus
gives 2 illustrations of bad things happening to people: Pilate had some
Galileans Jews killed and had their blood mixed with the blood of animals that
were to be sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus asked the people listening that day: Do
you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans
because they suffered this way?” We’re
told Jesus’ answer: “No! But unless you repent, you too will all
perish.”
The
next illustration was the 18 people in Jerusalem dying when a stone tower
collapsed and killed them. Jesus asked
again: “Do you think those 18 people were more guilty than all the others
living in Jerusalem?” Jesus answer is:
“No! But unless you repent, you too will
all perish.”
Jesus’
word “repent” in this teaching is interesting.
Why is he telling his listeners to repent? What is that all about? Another way of asking the question is: Why is
Jesus telling his listeners that they must change their mind about the way they
think?
Maybe
the parable that Jesus next tells will help us with understanding about his
insistence on repentance. It’s the
parable of the fig tree. A man, the
landowner, has a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he hires a vintner or
caretaker for this vineyard. The
landowner has an expectation: his expectation is that the fig tree will produce
figs. For 3 years this tree produces no
fruit, and so the landowner wants to cut it down. The caretaker, however, asks for one more
year in order to give the fig tree a chance to bear figs.
At
first blush this seems to be such a simple story and the meaning so clear. If you delve into this story, I find that it
is not so simple to understand. Jesus
was an excellent teacher, and his great teaching style was to give parables
that make you think. You need to wrestle
with this story to have it make sense.
Here
are some of the complexities of this story:
·
The story is incomplete; we do not know if
the tree eventually bore fruit or not;
we
don’t know if the tree was chopped down or not.
·
Why is a fig tree planted in a vineyard? Isn’t a vineyard for growing grapes?
·
The story implies the tree has been growing
for 3 years; the problem is that it takes more than 3 years for fig trees to bear
fruit; why is the landowner making an unreasonable demand?
There’s
some conflict in this story between the landowner and the vintner. The landowner wants to chop down the tree and
the vintner wants to preserve it.
The
really big complexity is this: we heard Jesus teach that there is no
correlation between a person’s actions and what happens and now we have his
parable that seems to imply that if you don’t do something, you don’t bear
fruit, you will be eliminated, gotten rid of.
So,
dear friends, what do you think this parable means?
Let
me throw out a possible interpretation.
Perhaps this parable illustrates the position that the Galileans and
those killed by tower of Siloam were in.
They were the fig tree, caught between destruction (Pilate) and neglect
(the collapse of the tower). In that
case, it would be foolish to blame the fig tree; rather the blames rests with
those responsible for tending the fig tree.
The change of mind that Jesus calls for might include how one hears the
story of the fig tree and thus every victim caught in such a bind.
To
read it this way means that we have to stand with the fig tree. We need to take the position that life is not
always fair and that what will make the difference is that God’s people will be
there to help, to stand up for those people caught in the middle, to risk
conflict with the landowners and vintners of this world, people who act
selfishly and harshly and those who show indifference and callousness toward
folks who suffer persecution and hardship.
The
role of Christians, the role of the Church, if we follow the thrust of this
parable of Jesus, is to call for justice and show care, compassion and love for
those who suffer.
As
Jesus teaches, we understand that suffering is not punishment from God in this life;
it is a part of the human condition.
Good people will experience pain and hardship, you and I will experience
this in our lives, but God promises to be with us in those times, and he would
love to use other people of faith to help us through those very difficult
times.
+
State
of the Church
1. People
who have left RLC: let’s show compassion and kindness to them; they are
hurting; let our response be Christ-like.
2. All
of us are needed to keep the ministry of Christ healthy and vital: be at
worship
every
week; please participate regularly in Christian Education classes; please
volunteer your time; please give generously as a thank you to God and your way
of
supporting the ministries we share.
3. PC
and I are learning from you now about living on less; we’re faced with a 30%
decrease in income, and some
of you have shared with us what it means to go
down 50, 60 and 70% in
income. You get through the pity party
and woe is me attitude, and then you right away focus on the necessities and
cut out the luxuries. I am approaching
this as a challenge that has the potential to make me stronger. This week Carol and I did some of the
obvious: we are now getting DVDs from the library and have cut back on cable
television to the basic plan; we’ve gone to the basic plan on our phone; we cancelled
our trash pickup; we cancelled all newspapers and magazine subscriptions; and I
will be doing an extra job with the synod starting in May at one day per
week.
4. Some
of you have wondered about the giving pattern of your Staff and Council. I can only speak for Pastor Carol and
myself. We have been doing percentage
giving, giving between 15 and 20 percent of our income to Resurrection. We have decided that though our income will
drop, we will continue our giving at the 15 to 20 percent level, believing that
God will help us to do this.
My
hope and prayer is that each of us will simply do our part. Some can give more,
others cannot give more. We each need to pray about our own situation,
and determine what we have to offer. Here’s
what I believe: if we all do that, I am
sure the Lord will multiply our efforts and keep this community of faith going
strong.
Thank
you, Lord. Amen!