Getting What We Deserve – Or Not.

Luke 13:1-9

¹At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.²[Jesus] asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?³No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. ⁴Or 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? ⁵No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
  ⁶Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. ⁷So 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?’ ⁸He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Dear beloved of God, grace to you and peace from the God of second chances, through Christ who invites us into those second chances by turning to repent.  Amen.

Is it just me, or does the first paragraph of this gospel sound a bit like the shock-and-awe headlines of today?

And I can just imagine these folks who have come to Jesus to tell him the latest news, to see what he has to say.  The accepted wisdom of the day was that if some awful tragedy happened to someone, they must have done something to deserve it.

We may have heard similar comments about current events.

Comments like “they got what they deserved” or “well, that’s what happens to people who do [fill in bad behavior here].”

So these people may be expecting similar comments from Jesus, which of course doesn’t work as expected.  He deconstructs the story to refocus their attention.

Because the crowd’s attention is focused on pointing fingers.  On tracing some kind of horrible thing these victims must have done in the past so they were doomed to victimhood.  There is a word in German for what this crowd might be displaying: schadenfreude.  It’s when you take pleasure in the suffering of others.

I think we can all guess how Jesus feels about THAT.

And I don’t think he’s changed his mind in our time either.  If we feel a twinge of guilt when we gloat over someone else’s misfortune, that’s probably a good thing.

Jesus challenges the commonly-held belief that “you get what you deserve” and instead makes it quite clear that many times, we get what we DON’T deserve.  The Jews in Galilee and in Siloam, Jerusalem didn’t deserve such a horrific fate – but there it is.

“Instead of pointing fingers,” says Jesus, “what if you were to stop playing that whole game?  What if you worried about how YOU are behaving instead of someone else?  What if instead of feeling superior to those who suffered, you felt some compassion?”

And he invites the crowd to metanoia.  This word we’ve talked about m any times, that is poorly translated to “repent.”

I discovered a new view of metanoia this week: a change of Mind, a change in the trend and action of the whole inner nature: our intellectual nature; our nature of affection and relationship, and our moral nature.

In his initial response to the crowd, Jesus invites them to leave behind their commitments to the injustice and unrighteousness that is their schadenfreude.  When you abandon such commitments, it leads to a change in conduct.  For Jesus, that change is a return to the ways of God, which offer relationship over ridicule, and compassion over contempt.

Certainly in our time, in the last several years, the growing division in our country and around the world sounds like this.  The insults and accusations are thrown without care as to where and how they land; delighting in the suffering of “the other side” no longer seems to be shameful.

Make no mistake, it is indeed shameful, and harmful.

(And at times, very hard to resist.)

The truth of the matter is that Jesus could very well be speaking directly to us.  As I considered this truth, I had to be honest with myself about the times I was no different than this crowd.

When had I pointed fingers?  Talked about someone getting what they deserved?  Been delighted when a politician with whom I didn’t agree ended up in some kind of trouble or disgrace?

I don’t think that Jesus is urging us all here to ignore actual incidents of misconduct, whether minor or major.  It’s important for the community to determine how we will all live together in peace.  But in order for that to happen, we must be vigilant about our own behavior and state of mind as well.  Lasting systemic change must always be preceded by individual change.

Jesus’ extending of the invitation to turn anew towards God is illustrated well by the parable of the fig tree, the second part of today’s lesson.

Many of us here are gardeners, and some are even farmers.  What the landowner says to the gardener can make a lot of sense.  And the whole parable can raise a number of questions in our day: What kind of soil is the tree planted in?  Was it amended before planting? Has it been fertilized and watered properly?  Does it get enough sun?

Or, in the mindset of the crowd, was the tree a decent specimen to begin with or a lousy bottom-of-the-bin twig?

The understanding of this parable from my childhood was that God was the landowner, we were the fig tree, and Jesus was the gardener, interceding on our behalf to a stereotypically angry God.

But I want to push back against that characterization, because even though Jesus is understood to always intercede for us, I think it leaves grace out of the picture.  And that doesn’t make sense in our picture of a loving God.

Maybe we’ve been toiling along in a difficult situation – the equivalent to poor soil.  And in a production-oriented economy such as ours, the world doesn’t generally consider the quality of the soil – only that we aren’t producing.  And the world is more than ready to chop us down.  The budget doesn’t allow for such soil-wasting!

Now say that God is the gardener.  More specifically, God in Christ.

And God says to the world, “you don’t understand.  We’re still in the development stage here; you’re asking these fig trees to produce fruit at three years when every competent orchardist knows that fig trees can take up to 8 years to bear fruit. And by the way, this soil they’re in looks pretty sad – not fertile at all, and pretty dry. We’ll loosen the soil a bit so that water can get to the roots, and we’ll feed it with some steer manure. It’ll smell for a week or so, but it will help a lot in the long run. Give ‘em another chance.”

Dear friends, even if the world yanks us up by the roots and throws us on the compost heap – our God is the God of second chances.  And third, and fourth, and so on ad infinitum.

God helps us off the compost heap, turns the smelly manure into good growth, and patiently waits for us to return.  Because God is not finished with us, not at all.

God claimed us as God’s own from the beginning, but we tend to wander.  Get into a scrape or two, get ourselves into a bad spot.

Like the fig tree in the story.

But God will never leave us, never stop loving us, and is always ready to give us another chance.

How it must delight the Creator of the Universe, of All That Is, when we turn away from the things that stunt our growth in God and turn to the things that encourage us to bear fruit that lasts – the sharing of the love of God with the world.

I invite us all through this week to take a look at our lives.  At what might be stunting our spiritual growth.  What would it take to turn away from that, and turn towards what could feed and nurture our spiritual growth?

This is the radical transformation the Gospel requires.  It’s that change of mind, the change of trend and action of our whole selves, in order to follow Jesus.  Without that transformation, the Gospel becomes nothing more than pretty words on Sunday that are ignored the rest of the week.

When Jesus is asked about the political issues of the moment, he instead turns the focus back on the crowd, insisting that their metanoia is where the true change begins.

May we hear for ourselves Jesus’ invitation to that metanoia. May we venture into that new way of being, as a gift of grace from the God of second chances.  Amen.