Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Consider the Consequences" 

Text: Luke 13:1-9

Like our newspapers and television news programs, Chapter 13 of Luke’s narrative of the "Good News" opens with two reports of bad news. At this point in the story, Jesus and his disciples are "at a certain place" on their journey to Jerusalem, followed by large crowds. At this unidentified place, some folks in the crowd tell Jesus about the recent suffering of some Galileans under Pontius Pilate. Then, Jesus responds with a news flash of his own – a report about eighteen persons in Jerusalem who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them.

In Jesus’ way of seeing the world, both news reports carried the same underlying message, but this message contradicted the accepted folk wisdom of his day. In ancient times, it was common to believe that when something "bad" happened to someone, it was not an accident or bad luck. On the contrary, whatever happened was a consequence of your goodness or your sinfulness. So, upon hearing the report about the Galileans, Jesus asked his listeners if they thought that the deaths suffered by the Galileans were the result of their having been worse sinners than others who had not perished. Then, he asked the same question regarding the eighteen who perished under the tower of Siloam.

Without giving anyone in the crowd a chance to reply, Jesus made the prophetic move of throwing these two news reports directly into the face of his followers. He answers his own rhetorical question by saying, "No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you all will perish in the same way." In this way, Jesus stakes out a position contrary to the conventional wisdom. First, he dismisses any direct connection between the fate of the victims and their sins. Then, he goes on to proclaim that the people in the crowd surrounding him must repent or they will perish in the same way.

What were the people in the crowd to make of Jesus’ questions and answers? I can just see some of the folks in the crowd beginning to murmur and then starting to complain out loud, saying,

"Now, hold on just a minute, Jesus. Why do you say that we all will suffer unjustly as did those Galileans or that we all will die unexpectedly as did those innocent bystanders when the tower of Siloam fell down on them? You know that we all are good people, and the proof is easy to see – here we are following you! Surely, we can expect the Lord to take care of us and to give us a long life, filled with prosperity, many blessings, and numerous children and grandchildren!"

But, instead of responding to the quibbles and questions raised by the people in the crowd, Jesus did what he often did in Luke’s Gospel – he told them a parable. And a right proper parable it was, coming as it did immediately after the two reports of mass suffering that had led Jesus to declare that the people in the crowd must repent.

Let’s go back and join that crowd of folks listening to Jesus telling that parable about the fig tree.

I don’t know about you, but if I had been in that crowd, when Jesus launched into his parable, I still would have been puzzling about the connection between the two reports of mass deaths and Jesus’ remarks about our (my) need to repent. As a result, I would have been lucky to grasp the bare elements of the parable. Let’s see if we can recall its main features:

· a man was disappointed that a fig tree in his vineyard was not yielding any fruit;

· the man told his gardener to cut down the fig tree;

· the gardener urged the man to give the fig tree one more year, during which time the gardener would work with the soil and fertilize the tree;

· and the gardener concluded by saying to the man, if the fig tree bears no fruit next year, then the man could cut it down.

After Jesus finished relating this parable, Luke’s Gospel is silent on what happened next with the crowd – in fact, the next verse (10) marks a clear transition in the narrative. Suddenly, Luke announces that Jesus is teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day.

So, imagine with me that we are still there in that crowd, still puzzled by Jesus’ parable about the fig tree in the vineyard. Wouldn’t you want to ask Jesus what this parable had to do with those Galileans who had suffered under Pontius Pilate or the folks in Jerusalem who had died when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Surely, someone in the crowd would shout out, "Jesus, explain to us how their deaths are to be compared with a fig tree that receives a reprieve by its owner?"

And another person among the listeners would call out, "Jesus, does your parable mean that those people were ‘cut down’ in their prime because they were failing to bear good fruit in their lives?" Then, Jesus would say again, "No, it was not their sins that brought on their deaths, for their sins were no greater than those of their neighbors."

What Jesus was demanding of those of us in that crowd was a new way of thinking, a transformation in our perspective on what happens in life – and in death. When Jesus twice told us that we must repent, he was saying that we had to turn from our current way of seeing the world and dealing with one another. Jesus called on us there, in that crowd of his followers, to see the world and other human beings in a new light, in the same light in which he saw the world.

The paradox of this Gospel lesson is this: the initial demand to repent is followed by a "parable of grace" (cf. Robert Farrar Capon, The Parables of Grace, 1988, pp. 95-98).

How did Jesus accomplish this move from repentance to grace? In telling the parable of the fig tree in the vineyard, Jesus sets the stage for extending grace to all, even to those who are "out of the ordinary." That fig tree was not in an orchard with a lot of other fig trees. It had been planted in a vineyard, where the soils were intended to produce good crops of grapes each year, but would not necessarily be fig-friendly. For whatever reasons, the fig-tree had not yet produced any fruit. So, the gardener appealed to the owner to spare the fig tree from destruction, arguing that one more year could make the difference between a total loss and a good return on the owner’s investment in the fig tree.

And did you notice that the gardener promised to work the soil and fertilize the fig tree. In other words, the fig tree was going to get some expert help in getting into production and meeting the owner’s expectations. It would not be left to its own, so far inadequate, devices to reach the mandated production goals for the year.

As a member of that crowd listening to Jesus’ parable, I am imagining a scrawny little fig tree with a few leaves and no fruit, surrounded by a field of grapevines bursting with luscious fruit. Right? A solitary fig tree, out of its element amidst the grape vines in the vineyard would not have been a pleasant sight to its owner.

But the gardener saw some possibilities in the fig tree that the owner wasn’t seeing. The gardener had been working for three years to get the fig tree to produce fruit and was not ready to abandon the project. So, he asked the owner to "Let it be," a phrase that in the original Greek also would have been understood by the crowd to mean "forgive the fig tree for its failures."

But the gardener also is realistic enough to recognize that the owner does not have infinite patience. So, the gardener concludes his appeal by saying that, if the fig tree fails to produce within another year, then the owner could cut it down. By the way, did you notice that the gardener himself did not volunteer to cut down the fig tree, but leaves it up to the owner to carry out the execution?

The narrative in Luke’s Gospel ends abruptly, without telling us the owner’s answer to the gardener’s appeal. But knowing how Jesus thinks in these parables, don’t you believe that the fig tree got a reprieve of its death sentence?

Imagine that we all were in that crowd of Jesus’ followers. And imagine further that Jesus asked us to decide the fate of that fig tree, then and there – to vote it out of the vineyard or to let it have a reprieve. How many of you would have cast a vote to cut down the tree? (show of hands) . . . and how many of you would have voted to grant the fig tree a year’s reprieve? (show of hands). Well, it looks like the fig tree won its reprieve, and gets to remain in the vineyard.

After being at death’s door, just what will it mean to the fig tree – and to the gardener -- to get a reprieve for a year to become fruitful? While we can’t hear directly from the fig tree, we can imagine that the gardener felt both elated and worried as the count down on the year of reprieve began upon the owner’s departure from the vineyard.

Of course, getting a reprieve, getting extra time to produce the work that we have promised to deliver by a certain date, is great, even a bit overwhelming. But actually producing the expected work, especially when the owner is watching your performance for any sign of failure, is even more overwhelming. Still, no matter how you cut it, getting a reprieve is far better than the alternative of being cut out of the vineyard.

And what did it take for the followers of Jesus, assembled there in a certain place along the road to Jerusalem, to get their reprieve from the same fate as befell the Galileans and the folks at the tower of Siloam? Nothing more or less than to repent, to turn around, to change their way of thinking about their world, to change their relationships with other people, and to change their relationship with God.

And what does it take for us, sitting comfortably in this sanctuary, to get a reprieve? Nothing more or less than to repent, to turn around, to change our way of thinking about our world, to change our relationships with other people, and to change our relationship with God. In our journey toward Jerusalem in this Lenten season, remember that scrawny little fig tree and its year of reprieve – a time to produce or else again face the wrath of the owner.

As we contemplate this penitential season, and our own need for repentance, we also contemplate the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection. When he hung on the cross, Jesus is reported in Luke’s Gospel to have said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

In the end, when we look up at the empty cross in this sanctuary, and recall his sacrifice for us, think of the forgiveness, the reprieve, the salvation that we all received, though we humans – like the fig tree in the vineyard – have done nothing to deserve it . . . and consider the consequences. Amen.

© 2004 Robert V. Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)