Luke 13:6-9
Introduction
Just before our text for today Jesus is talking with his disciples following the
tragic deaths of 18 people after the Tower of Siloam fell. It’s here that Jesus uses the same phrase twice: “unless you repent, you too will perish”. Repent or perish. That’s quite the choice, isn’t it? These words remind me of the people who would stand on street corners with sandwich boards, proclaiming “The End Is Here. Repent or Perish.” But is that what Jesus is getting at here? Is Jesus telling us we need to sit before God each week, and list off our sins, express our sorrow and regret for how we messed up, confess how we acted as we shouldn’t have, and then promise to do better next time? Is Jesus saying we have to say “Sorry God” or we’re going to be cast into the fires of hell?
We are in the season of Lent— a 40 day, plus Sundays, walk with Jesus through his ministry, to the cross, and to his glorious resurrection on Easter morning. Lent is filled with many spiritual disciplines and efforts, and among them Lent is wrought with the topic of repentance—a spiritual disciple and theological subject many tend to think of as a divinely-sanctioned apology, a categorization of our sins, followed by expressing regret that we messed up. (Or in some cases regret that we got caught messing up.)
Repentance, we are typically told, is some form of “God I’m sorry I… stole, or lied, or cheated, or whatever, and I feel really bad about it.” Followed by a promise to never do it again—especially if God gives us a little extra in return—a little extra beyond eternal life in heaven that is. But is this sort of repentance what Jesus had in mind when he said, “unless you repent, you too will perish”? Unless we list our transgressions before God and feel really bad about what we’ve done, we’ll be cast into hell? Is that what repentance is about? Really? Or is repentance maybe actually bigger? Could it be more than a shallow and repetitive “I’m sorry” and instead about our spiritual lives? Might repentance be something that involves a divine re-ordering within our spiritual lives and within the world?
What if repentance wasn’t about listing the “bad things” we’ve done in an effort to avoid punishment—but instead it’s about redirecting our whole lives and being more deeply connected to God, to the source of life itself; and in this redirection and connection, we are radically transformed into new heavenly creatures? What if that was what repentance really was? What if that was what the season of Lent was wrought with? What if the season of Lent was a time when God reminds us of God’ promise to transform us, make our lives good and fruitful to the point of flourishing with goodness and joy? Might we give it a bit more time and attention? Might Easter morning become an even more joy filled celebration? It’s supposed to be. And it can be. And all we have to do is be willing to do a little cultivating.
Move 1
As we enter into this season of Lent, the Worship Team chose for our guiding theme “Cultivating and Letting Go” as a means for us to consider what in our lives needs cultivating so good fruit can grow and flourish, while also considering what we need to let go of for such growth and transformation to happen. As part of this theme is this story of the fruitless fig tree.
And though we’ve heard the text from the Gospel of Luke, let us hear it again, and let us see it as well, as we begin to consider what repentance is (and is not), what we need to cultivate, and what we need to let go of.
***Video* Shown Here****
[*The following is a verbatim of the narration in the video being shown on the screens]
In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story of a fruitless fig tree once planted with promise, only to grow barren and brittle. The landowner in the parable has returned to its empty branches for three years. With patience worn thin and hope withered, he commands the gardener to cut it down, seeing it as a liability to the soil. But where the landowner sees waste, the gardener perceives possibility that lies fallow. The gardener has learned from the land that life flows in cycles—budding, flourishing, pruning, death. And so he requests one more year.
Cutting the earth with a shovel, he loosens the clots that have settled like stone so that when water comes, the earth will receive it like a soft kiss. He blankets the roots with manure so that growth can be steadied by hope. And then he lets go. What happens to the fig tree? Does it live? Does it die? Does it bear any fruit? We don’t know.
And so, if we can’t read the end of this story, then we must write it with our own lives. Because we know what it feels like to be the fig tree, to be deemed worthless, to be weary enough to believe that we don’t deserve to be well. And perhaps we also know what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of the landowner—calculating worth based on what we produce, what we accomplish, what we provide. Can we cultivate the vision of the Great Gardener, the One who sees you for what you are becoming? The one who tends and prunes, nourishes and lets go? Perhaps for us, the fruit is not the ending. The fruit is in the waiting, in the dead of winter, in the manure; the nurture, the rest, the darkness. The fruit is in all of it, sowing seeds we can’t yet see.
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“What happens to the fig tree? Does it live? Does it die? Does it bear any fruit? We don’t know. And so, if we can’t read the end of this story, then we must write it with our own lives.” And I know someone who literally did.
Move 2
During one of the Christian Church in Ohio Delegations to Chile and the Shalom Center—or Camp Christian South America as I call it— I saw this story in real life.
Our delegation had been at the Shalom Center with a large group of youth and adults that included their pastor. After our time up in the Andes Mountains where the Shalom Center is, we traveled back to the town and church of the group we were with. There, or new Chilean friends and their entire church, hosted a huge picnic for us—with all manners of traditional Chilean cuisine, which included a lot of avocados which is a constant staple among Chileans.
During our time at the church the pastor, Pastor Cordaro, showed our delegation around the church and its grounds. He took us to an avocado tree that was right outside his office window. He told us how for years no avocados grew on the tree—but not because the tree was bad, but because the tree had been neglected.
So he took the lesson of this parable, and like the gardener he tended to it, cultivating it—cutting the earth with a shovel, loosening the hard soil so the roots could receive the rains. He fertilized it and cared for it. And then he prayed for the tree.
The following year, for the first time, the tree grew avocados. Avocados that were part of the huge picnic meal the church held for our delegation from Ohio. Pastor Cordaro literally saw this parable come to life. Seeing what happens if we neglect the cultivating. But then seeing what happens when we don’t.
Move 3
When Jesus says “unless you repent, you too will perish”, he is hinting at this process of transformation, of sanctification. And when he leaves this parable without an ending, with questions left unanswered he is inviting us to consider the ending of our own choosing. Will we cultivate the seeds we cannot see, so the fruit that is in us will grow? Or will we not?
Jesus doesn’t’ want a list of our sins, rather he wants a redirection of our lives, of putting God first and everything else second— because it is this redirection of our desires, our hopes, our dreams, and our entire lives that results in transformation, growth, and flourishing. If we refuse God’s grace, if we rely on ourselves instead of on God, if we put our own self-interest and our own comfort over and above obeying the will of God, if we chose to not follow Jesus where he leads, we become barren and brittle, clots have become like stone, we feel worthless, weary, and believe we don’t deserve to be well. And what could come from such but perishing?
How the parable ends is up to us. Will we allow Jesus to be our gardener? Or will we not—and just keep believing that repentance is just saying “Sorry God. I’ll try to do better next time.”
Conclusion
Cultivating. Letting Go. Repentance. Lent. It’s all about a redirection—a redirection of our entire lives, of all our desires, our hopes and our dreams. And in this redirection we find fruitfulness, transformation, and flourishing. In this giving of our lives to the Gardener, of laying down our entire lives at the feet of Jesus, we become more deeply-rooted in the life of God, the source of all life. And it is then that we experience a life-giving transformation that shapes us into heavenly creatures, into children of God who know they are worthy of bearing good fruit.
This is what Lent is all about— pausing to reflect on what parts of our own lives are barren and brittle and need to be cultivated by the gardener so we don’t perish, but instead flourish. Where in your life has fertile ground turned to stone, and needs cut into so heaven’s rains can kiss your dry ground? What in your spirit feels worthless, weary, and undeserving that you need to let go of? What is going to happen to your fig tree—your avocado tree? That is what Lent leads us to ask because that is what Jesus is asking us.
Lent reminds us of God promise to transform us, to make us flourish and fruitful. But for such to happen we cannot neglect the cultivating that must be done. May it be so in this season of Lent. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, March 6, 2022, Lent 1
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Thumb to forehead. That is how this begins O God. A thin ashen reminder that life, in time, ends. And all of it—ashes, dust, the reminder of life coming to an end, the imprint of sins in need of a savior—comes to the forefront of our spirits in this season of Lent—a season in which you are calling us to cultivate and let go.
Holy God, it is fitting that Lent begins in the cold winter and ends in the budding new life of spring. But it’s meaning, its impact, its life giving gift of that which comes out of ashes, dusts, sin, and death can only be truly transformative if we do what this season invites us to do.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Thumb to forehead, that’s how this begins… “But how will it end?” “How do I want to spend these Lenten days?”
God of new life, implore us to ask these questions of ourselves—daily—as a Lenten focus; as a means of drawing closer to the beings you want us to be.
Confront us daily, O God, with the questions “How will I cultivate the soil around me so that sun and rain will kiss my roots, and feed my very being?” “What must a let go of that is hardening the soil around me, choking out the roots that feed my very being? Is it self-reliance, distrust, fear, contempt, judgement, hatred, indifference?”
May our daily response to your questions be, “Help me to see O Lord, what needs cultivated, and what needs to go. Help me to follow you.”
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Thumb to forehead. Remind us again that this precious life begins and it ends—but that it can begin again and again—all of it cultivated by you our Creator and Christ the Gardener who wants nothing more than to help us, and see us, grow and produce fruit that is life, and gives life, to all.
Hear now the prayers of our hearts, as we share them in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, the gardener who brings forth new life, and who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”