“Making the Most of the Time”

March 7, 2010

Isaiah 55:1-9

Luke 13:1‑9

I hope that you are beginning to find ways to make this season of Lent at time to restore your soul. I hope that through prayer or service, through worship or study, through meditation or giving, you are beginning once more to experience the warm, springtime mercy of God.

We need reminders—I certainly need reminders—during these days that Lent is not about going glumly around in sack-cloth and ashes. It is about preparing ourselves to celebrate the great joy of Easter, about making ourselves ready to celebrate to the fullest extent possible. And as I said two weeks ago, each Sunday in this season is a little Easter, a weekly opportunity to rehearse the gladness of the hope of the resurrection in which we live and toward which we move.

So perhaps you’ve been coming to the musical meditations at noon on Wednesday—we had quite a good crowd here this past week. Maybe you’re helping your children learn about giving by using the One Great Hour of Sharing banks. Or maybe you’re using these days to read through the Gospel of Luke, to be astonished and amazed at the Jesus you find there.

For a couple of weeks now several of us have been exploring some of the parables of Jesus in Luke’s gospel on Wednesday evenings. If you haven’t been to one of these gatherings yet, you’re more than welcome to join us. These sessions include some great conversation, some compelling insights into scripture, some puzzling questions, some good companionship—and they have reminded me again why I try to discourage the study of the Bible.

Oh, I’m exaggerating—but once again we’ve opened our Bibles only to discover Jesus giving us a message that we’d rather not hear, speaking in ways that we don’t expect, and saying thing that are just plain troubling.

And I’m afraid it’s happening on Sunday mornings as well.

We like Jesus to be nice, don’t we? We want him to tell us that the way we live is just fine. We want him to say that everything is all right. And when we come to church it would be good to be reminded about how dated and psychologically unhealthy it is to talk of sin, or guilt, or repentance.

But then we open those black covers of the Bible. What we read can seem strange and harsh to us. To read or hear scripture is often to enter unfamiliar territory, a land in which a different language is spoken. The words are rough and troubling. They leave us scratching our heads and uncertain more than comfortable and calm.

Still those harsh words tell of the only hope we can possibly have.

Take the parable that Jesus tells about the fig tree. It's short and to the point. And the point is sharp as a knife.

As with the other parables that Jesus told, this one is rooted in everyday life. Vineyards were plentiful in ancient Israel and were often planted with fig trees growing among the vines. So there was nothing unusual about a man planting in this way. 

The problem with fig trees, however, is that they absorb an especially large amount of nourishment from the soil. They begin to rob the vines of sustenance over time. Of course this isn't a major problem as long as the tree bears fruit.

Now, this particular fig tree had been there for about six years, growing in the sun, drawing nourishment from the soil, putting out leaves—but producing no fruit. No one expected the tree to bear fruit for the first three years after it was planted. But three more years passed—and still no figs!

Well, the natural response would be: “Cut it down!” It’s one thing for a tree to take up the nutrients if it is bearing fruit; it's something else altogether when you don't get one fig for all those years. “Cut it down!”

Harsh words—but they make good sense.

And yet we hear something more, something filled with grace.

The gardener replies to the demand to cut down the tree with a request: leave the tree alone for one more year. Let me dig around it, loosening the soil, providing more nourishment to the roots. Then we’ll see if next year it produces fruit.

Those words exhibit a sense of mercy that we desire in our lives and in our world. What student is not relieved when his request for more time to finish a paper is granted? Who of us does not rejoice when she learns that the report due on Friday won’t be needed until Monday?

We would like to receive mercy and show mercy. We would like to receive grace and give grace.

Then just as we begin to breathe a sigh of relief, Jesus ends the parable with the gardener agreeing, “And if it still doesn’t produce fruit, you can cut it down.”

You can cut it down.

That is to say, the paper better be finished within a week; the report better be in the office on Monday morning. Or else…

Cut it down.

If we were telling the parable, perhaps we could do better. I think most of us could be far more understanding than Jesus. We might recognize that the tree bore no fruit because times were tough everywhere. We might not want to put the tree under any extra stress by demanding fruit at all.

Our ending provides some comfort, doesn’t it? It says we have all the time in the world. We have all the time in the world for our lives to be productive, fruitful. We have all the time in the world to love our neighbors. We have all the time in the world to deal with the poverty and the homelessness and the racial tensions in the midst of our city. And if we bear no fruit, there are plenty of excuses.

So relax. Take it easy.

And yet, when we listen somewhere in our souls we hear not just harshness, but life-giving strength and hope in that troubling parable from Jesus.

We don't have all the time in the world. We each have only 24 hours in a day. And no one has any way of knowing when those days will end.

Can we hear this parable with our hands folded in comfort?  Are we able to hear this parable without examining our own lives?  Only if we’re still convinced that time will wait for us.

The ending that Jesus gives this story is harsher than the ending we might create. But at the same time it offers more grace than we might expect.

By telling of a “deadline” Jesus doesn't string his followers along. We don’t hear: “Everything’s all right. Keep on as unhappy, as unproductive as you are. It doesn't matter.”

You see, it does matter. And somewhere deep inside maybe that’s the truth that you have been waiting to hear.

God desires that our lives bear fruit—things like love, joy, peace. God desires that our congregation be like the trees the psalmist describes: “planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season…In all that they do, they prosper.”

The tree is given one more year. At the beginning of his ministry Jesus proclaimed the “year of God’s favor”—a year of forgiveness, restoration, and second chances.

This story invites us to wonder:

What is important for you this year? Are there estrangements to repair, debts to settle, love to share?[i] What fruit do you want to bear? What second chance do you need to take?

What is important, essential for this congregation this year? What will build us up as a worshipping, learning, serving community of faithful women and men?

What we do, how we act, does matter. Each day we are given the choice—to tear down or build up, to complain or to encourage, to welcome or to turn away. The choices we make, the actions we take will determine whether or not our lives bear fruit.

The lesson of the fig tree is a challenge to live each day, each year as a gift from God.

And yes, let us never forget that God is patient, forgiving, understanding. But God's mercy stands out more clearly when seen in relief against God's judgment. And so an announcement of judgment “Cut it down!” can also be an invitation to turn in a new direction, an offer to renew your life, to restore your soul.

Maybe now we can better understand the way that Jesus responds to the report of tragedies that came to him.

There are no records of these events outside of Luke’s gospel. Lost in the distant past are two examples of evil in the world.

One is human—Galileans slain by Pilate as they came to offer sacrifices to God. Why did this happen to them?

One is a natural disaster—the residents of Jerusalem killed when a tower collapsed and fell on them. Why did this happen to them?

Try as we might, none of us can protect ourselves or those we love from every danger: disease, traffic accidents, crime, emotional disorders, or random violence. In our soberest of moments we know that life is capricious. At best we have a God who sustains us through disasters not of God’s own choosing.[ii]

There is a comforting lie that tells us: “You are better than they are.” You are better than those who were killed in an earthquake. You are better than those dying from addiction. The lie tells us “These people were worse sinners than you.”

It's a nice idea. Bad things happen to bad people. I'm good because I’m a Christian, or an American, or well-off. And because I'm good, I'm protected.  It's a comforting thought. But it's a lie.

Jesus turns all this on its head.

Instead of a safe discussion of the sins of other people, of them, Jesus turns the focus on us.

“Do you think,” Jesus asks, “that they were worse sinners?”

As we get ready to answer he continues: “No, but unless you repent, you will all perish, just as they did.”

The axe is poised at the trunk of the tree, even as we stand around pointing at others.

Again, the truth is harsh. But it carries the grace of God.

What if Jesus told us what we’d like to hear, what we so often think? “Yes, those people were worse sinners than you?”

We would feel good for a while. We would breathe a sigh of relief. We would have a faith that recognized our nationality, our virtue, our intelligence, our income, our cleverness.

But before long, we would begin to wonder: How soon before I slip?  How long until I too am crushed by some tower? When will the flood waters come? What will happen when I become unworthy of the love of God that has protected me so far?

By saying we’re all in the same situation, Jesus also offers a way through. God is the judge of our very being. And God offers all of us the opportunity for repentance. You and I are given the chance to turn around, to walk a new path.

The real issue here is not the sin of others. The real issue here is not the suffering of others. The real issue is the obligation that each one of has to live in trust before God.

As with the story of fig tree, here too Jesus brings the good news that there is still time to turn around. There is still time for productive living. God's mercy is always in conversation with God's judgment.

If we are satisfied with self‑righteousness and our good works, we are not ready for the forgiveness that God offers.  Forgiveness is for those who know the harsh reality of sin, of evil, of fruitlessness—in the world and more immediately, in their own lives.

The realization that we too need to repent, to turn around, to turn toward God once more can come as an unwelcome shock.

But recognition of the wrong that we do, the sin in which we live, loosens up and nourishes the soil around us, it allows us to continue living so that our lives might bear fruit.

When the harsh truth of God's judgment shines in our live, we can better see the mercy of God that we seek in this season of Lent.

We can better see the warm, springtime mercy of God that we desire for all our days.