Second Chances

Third Sunday in Lent – Year C

February 28, 2016

Luke 13: 1-9

At that very time there were some present who 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. 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.”

Then 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. 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.’”

Growing up in a family where there were just two kids (my brother and I) there were many, many times when we connived and planned with each other about things we were going to try and get away with. Some of those things were pretty harmless – sneaking into each others rooms well after bed time, or figuring out ways of getting an extra snack after school. But there were other times when our plotting involved much more nefarious activities – like sneaking a few dollars out of mom's purse. There were times we got away with our little criminal escapades, and there were times when we were caught and punished. That's the way it is.

One of the things about life, most people try to get away with what they can. At work, you might try to get away with not doing your job all the time. At your check-up, you might try to get away with telling your doctor you are watching your diet and exercising. You might tell your dentist you floss after every meal. You might try to time your paycheck deposit and the check you wrote knowing you didn't have the funds in your account yet (hoping it doesn't bounce). How many people drive down the highway at exactly the speed limit, and how many people go just a few miles over? I tend to try to get away with not filling up my gas tank on my car until the last moment (I've only run out of gas once, but there were many times I'm not sure what the car was running on, because it definitely wasn't gas.)

We all try to get away with things. But, eventually, we know, we are going to get caught. So, we weigh our actions against the potential punishment waiting for us when we get caught. Will speeding bring a warning, a small ticket, or the loss of our license? Will lying get a scolding, or will the punishment be worse? Many of our actions are done in the light of either a potential reward or punishment. “Just wait until your father gets home!” Either makes us squirm in terror, or shrug our shoulders.

Of course, it's one thing when you actually did something wrong; it's something completely different when you didn't do it and you still get the blame, still get the punishment. Anyone who has a sibling knows what that's like. Anyone who works with another person knows what it's like when you get blamed or reprimanded for the work of someone else.

In the last few years, one of the trends in criminal justice that has become common is the setting free of wrongly accused individuals from prison based on new investigative techniques; mostly involving DNA. Sometimes these individuals have been in prison for decades. How would you feel if you had been found guilty of a crime you didn't commit, punished for it, and eventually spent perhaps the rest of your life in prison serving a sentence for something you never did? If you think you complained bitterly when you were blamed as a child for something your sibling did, imagine how you would feel in this situation.

It would be nice if we in the church could claim innocence, but that is not the case. Immediately following the tragic events that cost the lives of so many people on 9/11, the televangelist Jerry Falwell gave an interview where he put the blame for the events of that day not on the terrorist hijackers, but on others. He said, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.”¹ After Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, pastor John Hagee said, "I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."² I don't know about you, but when I hear things like that, especially when I hear so-called 'Christian leaders' say those things, it makes my blood boil.

The situation we are given in our gospel text isn't exactly a terrorist attack or a natural disaster, but it's close enough that we can draw some connections. Jesus is speaking, and is told about the deaths of some people from Galilee, and how their deaths were treated. Was the way they died, the way they were treated in death a result of the way they lived? Not, in the sense of dying from lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking, but dying badly because God viewed you as somehow worse than the person who dies peacefully in their bed. The claim being made it they died badly because they deserved it; their sins were worse than other people sins.

Jesus makes it clear in his response that the severity of the perceived sins of a person, or a group of people have nothing to do with their death or their punishment. Sin is sin. Dante may have described the circles of hell in his Inferno, with the sins getting worse as you got closer to hell; but Jesus is clear in his response that there is no classification system where we can grade sins, where one sin is worse than another, where different sins deserve different levels of punishment from God. In God's eyes the sin of killing someone is equal to the sin of lying – whether we want to admit that fact or not. And, as Jesus says, the punishment for sin without repentance is death.

It's unfortunate, but it seems people have put their focus on just that sentence, and not on the sentences that preceded it, and most definitely not on the story of the fig tree that came right after. Often in the church, pastors and theologians talk about the relationship between law and gospel; how law is what convicts us and gospel is what sets us free. If that is true, then Jesus' declaration that destruction will come to those that do not repent is the law that is balanced by the story of the fig tree.

In the parable, there is a fig tree that does not bear fruit (perhaps this is its sin, not doing what it was created to do), the vineyard owner comes to the gardener demanding it be destroyed, The gardener however, begs for one more year, to give the fig tree another chance. This is, I believe the message of hope we can cling to. But, perhaps, we need to unpack the parable first.

Have you ever noticed how we tend to assume that in Jesus' parables God is always the wealthy one? The king, the land owner, the vineyard owner. It’s not like that’s wrong it’s just not the whole truth of who God is. And this week it seemed to me that the vineyard owner doesn’t sound like the God I know, the God reveled in Jesus Christ. The God who came to dwell with us full of grace and truth, the God who passes out forgiveness like candy, eats with sinners and invites all to God’s table. No, the vineyard owner who was angry and impatient and wanting results doesn’t sound like the God I know.

The God I know, the Savior I serve, sounds a whole lot more like the gardener that begs for the life of the fig tree. Who gives time for fruit to be developed. Who comes to us in our times of need and nurtures us, feeding us, providing for us; that we might bear fruit.

The season of Lent is one of renewal and return. It's a time when we look closely at our lives, when we examine the fruit that we are or are not bearing. Then, we seek to grow, become more of who we are created to be. One of the blessings of Lent is that it comes around every year. Year after year we examine ourselves; year after year we seek to grow, and year after year the gardener pleads our case from the cross, for mercy, for pardon, for one more year.

One more year, people of God. One more year to do what needs to be done. One more year to believe you really are the beloved child of God God has claimed you to be. One more year to trust in God more than money. One more year to forgive others. One more year to forgive yourself. One more year to put your mistakes behind you or better yet see them as the fertilizer God puts around you so that you can produce fruit. One more year to be fed at the table of God’s grace. One more year to be enchanted by the story of Jesus. One more year to help someone else. One more year to feel loved. One more year to love. One more year, because you are a beloved child of God who God has named and claimed and forgiven and loved as God’s very own so that you can bear fruit. So to all of you God again says…one more year. Amen.

1http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091301falwellaclu911

2http://www.thewire.com/technology/2010/01/pat-robertson-blames-natural-disaster-victims/20350/