March 11, 2007
Third Sunday in Lent
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Can you believe my luck? Of all the wonderful verses found in the book
of Luke, I have been assigned today’s passage.
Of all the incredible stories and themes available in Luke’s Gospel, I
find myself preaching on this text. Why
me? What did I do to deserve this? This is not a terribly edifying text. Instead of speaking about one of Jesus’
miracles or unpacking one of His parables, I am faced with violent and gruesome
death, tragedy and manure.
Of course, this is the way it is during Lent – the
Gospel texts force us to face the hard stuff.
The first week of Lent we looked at temptation as we journeyed with
Jesus in the wilderness. Last week we
confronted our fear as Jesus refused to run from the threats of the world. Next week we will deal with greed. And finally on the fifth week of Lent we will
experience grief. This week we talk
about doubt. During Lent we face our
difficulties: our temptations, fear, doubt, greed and grief and look for the
grace that God offers in and through Jesus.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, help us to hear your
word and to repent so that we might experience the grace you have for us even
in our difficulties.
Our Gospel text for this week has three distinctive
parts. In the first few verses the
Pharisees come to Jesus with an apparently well known news story of the
day. We do not know what happened; there
is no historical evidence for this event outside these verses from Luke. Historians say that Pilate was capable of
such unwarranted brutality; he was a cruel and ruthless leader. We can almost see the horror of this bloody
massacre in our minds, but there is something deeper in this slaughter than
meets our modern eye. The Galileans were
in the
In the second section of this passage, Jesus
mentions a tragic event – the collapse of a tower in Siloam. Eighteen died. Again, we know little about this tragedy, but
archeologists have recently unearthed what they believe to be the collapsed
It helps to put this story into context. When Jesus came down from the mount of
transfiguration, He set His eyes and His feet toward
One day a Pharisee invited
Jesus to dinner. It is important to
realize that the Pharisees must have had some respect for Jesus, or at least he
was considered to be a worthy dinner companion.
Sinners, foreigners and heretics would not have been welcomed; an
invitation to dinner was a sign of approval.
Jesus made quite an impression
at that dinner. He offended the
Pharisees by the things He said and the things He did. He didn’t wash as was required and He called
them sinners.
He cursed the Pharisees because they thought that they were righteous. They thought they were blessed by God because
they were clean on the outside but Jesus showed them that they had unclean
hearts. Jesus condemned their actions
and He insulted them. They rejected
God’s Word in their life – first that given by the prophets and then the Word
Himself, Jesus.
After the dinner, the
Pharisees and teachers of the Law decided to watch Jesus and to try to stop His
ministry. They thought that Jesus had
too much mercy on the sinners and too little delight in those whom they deemed
righteous – most particularly, themselves. They rejected Him because they
thought He rejected them. What they did
not see is that Jesus has mercy on those who recognize their sinfulness and who
seek to be transformed by the Word. What
they did not see is that Jesus rejected them only because they had rejected
Him.
The Pharisees who were watching
Jesus had an easy explanation for the suffering in these stories: sinners get
what they deserve. To them, the victims
were unworthy of God’s mercy and forgiveness, so God ensured that it could not
be received. Jesus answered the thoughts
of their hearts with a warning. “You
think they were worse sinners because they suffered? You think they were worse offenders because
they died? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will perish.”
Jesus was not threatening
their lives. He was telling them the
truth. Reject Jesus and you will die,
for only in Jesus is found true life and forgiveness.
In the third section of the
Gospel passage, Jesus tells the listeners a parable about a fig tree. The tree had been fruitless for three years,
so it was worthless to the landowner. He
told the vineyard keeper to cut down the tree.
The man asked his master to give him one more year. “I will dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.”
The landowner had every right
to cut down the tree. Figs were expensive
to produce. They are huge trees that
take a great deal of land and water – unfruitful trees steal nutrients and the
life-giving water necessary for the other trees to produce a good crop.
This tree was older than
appears in the story. Fig trees begin to
bear fruit after the third year, so the landowner did not even check for fruitfulness
until then. At six years the landowner
had already paid a heavy price and it was unlikely that the tree would ever
bear fruit. It was hopeless. But the Gospel message for us is in the
vineyard keeper’s words. “Leave it alone
for one more year and I will dig around it and fertilize it.” That’s grace – a second chance when there
seems to be no hope.
Jesus offers the mercy and
grace of God to those who have no hope.
He gave bread to the hungry and healing to those whose diseases were
impossible to cure. He cast out legions
of demons and forgave the most notorious sinners. He invited anyone with ears that hear into
the heart of God through God’s Word. He made
them face their difficulties: their temptations, fears, doubts, greed and grief
and then offered them His grace.
The Epistle lesson for today
comes from the letter from Paul to the congregation at
In today’s lesson, Paul retold
the story of Moses and the deliverance of the Hebrews from
The Hebrews could not see the
future. All they could see was that the
present circumstances were far worse than what they had in
Paul told this story to the
Corinthians as an example so that they would not return to their old ways. Though the Corinthians
were living in a different time and place, they were also powerfully influenced
by their cultural environment. They had
questions and conflicts that tested God’s love and patience. Our situation may seem different than that of
the Hebrews and the Corinthians, and yet we face the same problems. We are also influenced by the world in which
we live and when we get buried in the muck of life, we ask that age old
question, “Why me?”
What if you were the one
facing death or tragedy? How would you
react? What would you say? Would you ask “Why me?” Every
single one of us at some point in our life has uttered that question. We have even asked, “What did I do to deserve
this?” We have all questioned God and we
have doubted His love in the face of suffering and pain.
As I was writing this sermon,
I received an email with the story I used for the children’s sermon. The
teenager asked “Why me?” Her mom
answered in a most unusual way – with cake.
It would be pretty disgusting and unhealthy to eat the uncooked oil, raw
eggs and flour but they are sure delicious when we use them to make cake. We don’t always know why things happen or why
we have to go through them, but no matter our circumstances, there is always
hope.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians,
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be
tempted beyond what you can bear. But
when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up
under it.” While it is natural for us to
ask “Why me?” we are reminded that Jesus gives us the strength to get through.
Jesus followed the reports of
massacre and tragedy with the story of the fig tree because our human
circumstances often make it hard for us to bear fruit. When we wallow in the doubts that plague us
in the midst of suffering and pain, we are as good as dead – like that fig
tree. Though the vineyard keeper had
been caring for the tree for years, it bore no fruit. Neither do we when we
are lost in temptation, fear, doubt, greed and grief. So
Jesus, like the vineyard keeper, digs around our roots and nourishes us to help
us grow. Though the manure seems like a
bunch of crap to us, the gardener knows what He is doing – He knows how to use
the manure to bring transformation.
The mother could have
addressed her daughter in a much different way.
She could have reminded her daughter to study more and to get over her
boyfriend. She could have laid the blame
on the daughter for her troubles. That’s
what often happens in our world – it is certainly the point of view of those
Pharisees and teachers of the Law: those who suffer aren’t righteous, so they
get what they deserve. Our doubts about
God come when we believe this, when we think that there is no hope. Buried in our doubts, we turn to the old ways
which we think will bring us comfort in our pain.
Jesus shows us a different
point of view. He reminds us that we are
all sinners in need of a Savior. It is
easy for us to take the word of those who say we deserve what we get, to think
that we are beyond forgiveness and mercy.
But bad things happen and sometimes bad things happen to people for no
reason. These bad things are not some
form of divine vengeance or punishment for our sins. Bad things simply happen and sometimes we are
caught in the middle of it all. Those
who look to Jesus see a way out. Now, the
way out is not a guarantee that we will not suffer. Jesus is not a “Get out of suffering free
card.” No, the lesson we learn today is
that God is with us in our troubles. When
we repent, which means to turn our hearts and eyes to God, we’ll get through it
with His help.
We won’t always understand why
things happen the way that they do. We
won’t always understand massacres or tragedies, but we can rest in the
knowledge that God can make good things happen out of the bad. He says through Isaiah, “As the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts
higher than your thoughts.” When we are
caught up in the sorrow of our suffering, we are invited into His heart. “Come all you who are thirsty,” He says. We are invited to dwell in the presence of
the Lord Almighty, to drink in the life giving waters of His mercy and grace. The Word, especially those lessons we hear
during this season of Lent, cause us to look at our failures and to recognize
our sinfulness. Jesus calls us to
repentance with a warning – repent or you too will die. The story of the fig tree reminds us that
tomorrow is not necessarily another day. The time is now to turn to Him. He is not threatening divine vengeance on bad
guys, but He is calling us to look to Him for forgiveness and mercy. Without Him we will die. In Him, we have life eternal. He wants to transform us, to give us a way
out of our temptations, fear, doubt, greed and grief. We may seem to get buried under the manure as
He makes us into fruit bearing trees, but we can rest in the knowledge that He
knows what tomorrow holds and that He will help us through. In the end, we’ll see how God has made cake
out of our suffering and pain. Thanks be to God.