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First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Exodus 3:1–15 |
Psalm 63:1–8 |
1 Corinthians 10:1–13 |
Luke 13:1–9 |
Chapters twelve through fifteen of Luke’s Gospel are intertwined with the themes of God’s grace and judgment. Emphasizing God’s grace are the parable of the lost coin, where a woman sweeps the whole house to find a single lost coin, and when she finds it, she calls in her friends to tell them the good news, the parable of the lost sheep, where the shepherd who has a herd of one hundred, leaves the ninety-nine to go searching for the one which has strayed, and the parable of the fig tree which we read this morning.
The parable of the fig tree seems to be based on a popular folk tale that goes back as far as five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. One of the versions is of a poor father who is trying to motivate his lazy son. The tale runs: “My son, you are like a fig tree which yielded no fruit, although it stood closest to the water of all the trees in the orchard, and its owner was urged to cut it down. Yet the tree begged the owner saying, “Transplant me, and I’m sure I will bear fruit then. If then after being moved I bear no fruit, cut me down, but I promise to bear fruit, you will see.” But its owner replied, “When you stood by the water you bore no fruit, how then will you bear fruit if you stand in another place?” Of course after several centuries, the story probably circulated with several versions, but it would seem that Jesus took the story and gave it another ending. In Jesus’ parable, the entreaty to spare cutting down the tree is not refused, but granted.
An orchard was a symbol of peace and prosperity, for the presence of an orchard indicated that there was a history of relative peace in the land. Normally when a fig tree was planted, it did not need any fertilizer or special care. Fig trees were, however, heavy feeders on the soil, and you could not plant the trees too close together or plant much else in the space right around them. So the decision of the owner to cut down the tree was for a double reason: not only did the tree not bear fruit, but it was taking up valuable nutrients in the ground, and by cutting it down, the ground could be freed for productive use instead of being exhausted by an unproductive tree. In Jesus’ story, the plea of the steward of the orchard to let him fertilize this unproductive tree becomes an extraordinary effort to help it bear fruit. Jesus’ lesson on God’s grace is that if it was reasonable for the owner to grant a simple fig tree a reprieve, how much more would God, be reasonable and merciful. So even though Jesus is announcing judgment, the very announcement also becomes a call for repentance and an indication of God’s grace and patience.
That is half the story. The other half is the seriousness and certainty of God’s judgment. Jesus begins his teaching in this section by warning of the signs of the times and comparing them to the clouds of an approaching storm. Then Jesus says to the faithful synagogue congregation, don’t think those who were killed by Pilate, or those killed by a falling tower, were more guilty or deserving of punishment than any of you. But unless you repent, unless you bear fruit of God’s harvest, you will come under judgment. Jesus warns those against automatically expecting a high seat at God’s heavenly banquet, cautioning against going to a banquet and presuming to sit near the place of honor, and Jesus then gives the parable of a king who invited his neighbors to a fancy feast, and when they began to procrastinate and make excuses, the king called in the guests from the highways and byways, and it was those outsiders who celebrated the great feast and the others lost out. Grace-judgment, judgment-grace, are both part of the same cloth.
In one sense the tension between the announcement of grace and the warning of judgment can be pictured as a cosmic game of musical chairs. When the music stops, some of us find chairs and some of us do not. Those who are left standing on the edges need to hear of God’s forbearance, of God’s desire that alienation and lostness be changed into incorporation and reconciliation. And those who for the moment are sitting down need to be forewarned not to take their position for granted and become satisfied and complacent. The game of musical chairs is fun only when the people who have been sitting are willing to get up and dance away when the music begins again. If those who are sitting hold on and never move away from their seats, the other players lose interest, and the game suffers.
Often the balance between grace and judgment is maintained in our movement between our relationship with God and the world. It’s easy to worship God in this place, in these beautiful surroundings with good liturgy and music, and to sense a taste of God’s presence. It’s so tempting to want never to leave, for this is how and where we want God always to find us. When we want to keep the Gospel here or keep it neatly arranged close at hand, confident that God will support all our assumptions, we need to remember that God holds us accountable for sharing and witnessing in a dynamically changing world. While it can be a hostile and brutal world out there, there is always need for a public witness to God’s promise of reconciliation, forgiveness, and affirmation of basic universal human dignity. Grace and judgment are inevitably in a creative tension, as the music of the world plays; never despairing of God’s patience and grace when the music stops and we find ourselves standing on the outside, and never presuming on God’s grace either, when we find we are comfortably in a seat.
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
