Year C

Luke 13:1-9

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

There Is Still Time

There are few things more alarming for parents than to come upon a beloved child who’s gotten into something dangerous, whether pulling bottles from a medicine cabinet or playing with scissors from a nearby desk. With so many perfectly good toys lying around, the child would rather play with these! That illustration, while perhaps simple, gets right at the heart of our Lenten readings today. God has provided a world of good things for us. Yet, so often we run after other things that are not healthy for us. Tempted by their allure, we imagine they will somehow provide meaning, purpose, and the identity we seek. Such is the essence of sin, which means, literally, “to miss the mark.”

Missing the mark is why during this season of walking the way of the cross with Jesus, we are invited to take stock of our sin, its consequences and repent. Repentance typically has negative connotations, implying we must abase or humiliate ourselves for our wrongdoings. But our lessons today invite us to reconsider the nature of repentance. God is not angry but lovingly concerned for our well-being. Repentance, in this context, is God imploring us to turn away from those things that could harm us so that we might return to a right and healthy relationship with God and each other. Yet, some may read these passages and feel justified in scolding or badgering others, blaming them for their circumstances, or even judging their sin self-righteously. But is this the way of Christ?

Certainly there are times that call for warning. Paul discerns such a moment in his letter to the Corinthians, and Jesus’ warning is clear. But in taking another look we will see that the primary hope of these readings is not to scold, badger, judge or blame. Rather, through the prophet Isaiah, God invites all people to receive the good food God has prepared. And Jesus goes out of his way to say that no one person is better or inherently more worthy than another. Paul writes in Romans “All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.” However, what is it in human nature that we feel the need to blame, scold or judge the victims for their circumstances?

We want to ask; in response to the person with AIDS, the homeless person on the street, the man or woman who is beaten or killed: what did they do to deserve this misfortune? What sin did they commit to bring such hardship onto themselves? Implied in the question is a connection between sin and suffering. Today’s gospel lesson reminds us that such questions are not new to the twentieth century. People approach Jesus in our lesson about two disasters. Innocent folk, who apparently had come to the temple to offer their sacrifices, had been caught in the crossfire of a riot and Pilate’s military police. A tower had collapsed and killed eighteen people in Siloam. Telling Jesus the stories, the people wonder: “Were they worse sinners that such suffering happened to them?

What is it in our nature that we feel the need to blame the victims for their circumstances? Perhaps we feel threatened and desire to separate ourselves from “those people.” We are not like them; they are different. Or perhaps we simple desire an answer, an explanation, a cause-and-effect equation with which our minds can make sense of something which is senseless. To those who approach Jesus he doesn’t answer them in the form of an explanation. He answers them in the form of a response. “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered this way? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” He rejects the notion that calamities come to people in some kind of payment for their sins.

The point is not that “those” people who died in the two disasters were more or less sinful, but that all are sinners and will perish if they do not repent. A part of our Lenten journey with ashes on our foreheads is the reminder that each one of us carries within the weakness to sin, the vulnerability to suffering, pain, and death. Life for followers of Christ is to be lived by faith, without any easy guarantees. Placing one’s faith in the false security’s that allure us means we live without faith in Christ, who is our only security. False security can lead to the notion that “they” somehow deserve what happens to them. With Christ as our security, the question is changed from “where does tragedy and suffering come from?” to “where does it lead?” Does it lead to faith or to despair? Does it lead to compassion or to apathy? Does it lead to a life of hope, or to a life of rejection? Illnesses, accidents, human tragedies kill people. But they do not necessarily kill faith.

All our questions about disasters and suffering should cause us to place our faith on the mercy of God. This same God who warns us to place our faith and confidence only in God’s mercy is the same one who says, “No testing has overtaken you which is not common to everyone.” God is faithful, and the parable of the unproductive fig tree reaffirms that God is faithful, that God is merciful. The fig tree had full opportunity to produce. That’s what the three years mean’s. Despite the clear evidence that the tree has been “wicked” and has no right to stand, God, the gardener, pleads with the owner for yet more time so that God may cultivate and fertilize it, in the hopes that it will then produce.

Jesus’ parable relates directly to his own work; he has been coming to Israel, seeking fruit and finding none, and now is offering one more chance. God agonizes that we not miss out on his mercy. That agonizing is the story of Christ. Christ is executed as a criminal to free us from our crimes, our sins, against God and our neighbor. God is so compassionate that God died for our lives. It is truly amazing to know that God in Jesus died to save you and me. Central to the understanding of the cross is that God is a merciful God and Isaiah assures us that all who ask for God’s mercy will receive it. It is the love of God that saves and gives us time to grow and produce fruit, like the fig tree.

Jesus died not as our judge, weighing our sins against our merits, calculating our faith and our disbelief. Rather, the one who warns us enters into our situation; the one who calls for repentance embraces our humanity through the incarnation; and the one who judges is judged for us. Therefore, we don’t need to judge, scold, or blame the victims. The Lenten call to repent echoed in Jesus’ words offer us the possibility that there is still time. The parable of the fig tree says that the story is not over yet. God the vinedresser says, wait; give more time for they must be ready. As long as there is still bread and wine for us to share at this table, as long as there is still water for us to remember the vows made in our baptism, then there is still time and hope. There is still time to repent, time to receive forgiveness and time to live with compassion.