Day of the Church Year: 3rd Sunday of Lent
Scripture Passage: Luke 13:1-9
Maybe we’ve been there. We are driving down the freeway or perhaps a county highway somewhere far from Phoenix. We are driving just a bit faster than the speed limit, within an acceptable range, we think. In our rearview mirror, we see another vehicle barreling towards us, traveling faster even than we are. Both cars are driving over the speed limit, but that guy is going way faster and should really slow down. He could hurt someone. The second vehicle passes us on the left and continues on to the horizon. A few minutes later, again in our rearview mirror, we see a vehicle, traveling fast enough to overtake us, and pretty soon, we hear the siren. The police pull us over, ask for our license and registration, ask if we know how fast we were driving. Whether or not we say it to the officer, we are probably thinking: But look how fast the other guy was going!
Is it fair that the person who passed us going 80 miles per hour in a 65 mile an hour zone didn’t get pulled over—but we did while going 75 in a 65? Maybe; we were still driving over the speed limit. On the other hand, maybe not. That both drivers were not stopped is unfair. But life isn’t fair. We cannot control what others do, cannot control systems, cannot control the laws of the universe. We cannot control disasters, and we cannot control God. Many of our life circumstances are shaped by people or forces for which we are not personally responsible—our family system into which we are simply born, the systems of our culture that privilege some and not others, geo-political events much larger than us, disasters caused by weather, misunderstandings of physics, shoddy work, or a complex combination of causes. While it may be tempting to believe that God rewards or punishes us based on the rightness or wrongness of our choices, on our sin or righteousness, today, Jesus addresses the fairness and unfairness of life not through a lens of morality but through the lens of consequence.
Jesus tells short stories of unfair, horrible, violent deaths of Galileans and a parable about a fig tree to illustrate the control we do have: the power to repent—which means turning around or changing our minds—and the power to produce good fruit, to seek justice and righteousness, to act with grace and love. In an unfair world, we do get to choose something, and that something is how we respond to what happens to us.
At first glance, these tangled verses of Luke chapter 13 seem to make no sense, so I invite you to open your Bibles to Luke 13:1-9 to follow along. Jesus uses two examples from current events of his day to make his point. First, apparently, the Roman Empire killed Jews from Galilee and then mingled their blood with the animal blood used in ritual sacrifice in the temple—which would have dishonored the temple sacrifice in a most grievous way. Second, in a different piece of news, eighteen people died when the tower of Siloam unexpectedly fell, an unforeseen error of construction or design. In both circumstances, Jesus asks a rhetorical question: Were these people who died worse sinners than anyone else? No. God wasn’t punishing them because they sinned. From what Jesus says about the circumstances, these deaths were entirely unrelated to the sin or righteousness of the victims. And even more than that, God is not the one who caused their deaths. But, Jesus says, unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did. How did they perish? What were their deaths like? Unexpectedly, suddenly, horrifically. Also: shameful with the mingling of blood and dishonorable. In other words, their deaths were unfair.
Jesus then pivots to a parable about a fruitless, defunct fig tree. When the owner of the fig tree sees his fruitless tree, he tells the gardener to cut it down. But the gardener advocates for the tree, asks for another year to fertilize it and dig around it. Perhaps the tree got stuck in a sun-less spot. Perhaps the gardener failed to sufficiently water it. Perhaps the gardener forgot to prune it. The owner agrees. With intention and planning, if the tree still does not produce fruit a year later, then, the gardener will cut it down. The death of the fig tree won’t be unexpected, sudden, or unfair. After a year of opportunity to produce fruit, whatever happens is fair, gracious even.
Though tangled with his use of mixed metaphors, Jesus offers a vision of a God who extends grace, who does not operate unexpectedly, suddenly, shamefully, or dishonorably. God provides opportunity and space for growth, for fruit to emerge.
Lent brings opportunity and space for growth, for good fruit to emerge—for Lent is a season of repentance. That’s why we traditionally choose a practice during Lent, something to give up or something to add, that helps us grow and deepen our relationship with God, and by extension, our relationships with God’s people. There is so much in this life we cannot control, so much that is unfair, but God has given us the capacity to repent and produce fruit, regardless of our circumstances.
Remember our experience on the highway? Our desire to justify driving over the speed limit, to contest a speeding ticket, simply because someone else was driving faster? Jesus’ call to repentance means the unfair circumstances that complicate our lives don’t excuse our indifference and arrogance, greed and hard-heartedness, disregard for our neighbor and the earth.
For sure, Jesus’ words today are among his hardest. Genuine repentance is hard work. Repentance not couched in defense of our behaviors. Repentance despite wrongs done to us. Yet our God-given capacity for repentance is gift. If you want to know freedom, try repentance! When defending ourselves, when trying to wiggle our way out of a ticket, when lashing out because we have endured injustice, we feel bound. Bound by our pain, our ego, our pride. By contrast, repentance leads to life, to good fruit—but is one of those things we must first try in order to appreciate.
Years ago, I was called out by a member of the Grace community. She told me something about myself that I stalwartly denied, not just once but several times, something that hurt her. One day, she held my eye and told me again. This time, instead of internally defending myself, instead of justifying my behavior to her, instead of making excuses, instead of denying what was plainly true, I said, “You’re right, and I don’t know why I do that.” It was a hard minute followed by years of freedom, friends. Today, I’m an apologist for repentance. God has given us a capacity for repentance, not because God is cruel and unjust but because God is gracious and seeks abundant life for us.
On a day of difficult scripture, I pray the gospel is heard: A way of freedom, life, and good fruit, repentance is God’s gift to us. Perhaps with trepidation or reluctance, perhaps with joy and while laughing at ourselves, we can say: Thanks be to God! Amen.