(Luke 13: 1-9)
I definitely wasn’t born with a green thumb. And growing up the extent of our landscaping efforts was me mowing the lawn. Landscaping just wasn’t that big of a deal. An that all changed after getting married as Teresa and I moved from house to house and state to state. Like our houses, we started out small and inexpensive with modest landscaping at best. My biggest challenge was growing roses in the Texas heat and humidity. If you weren’t careful, the insects and black spot would really do a number on your rose bushes. When we lived in Humble, Texas, I had three bushes and three climbers. They were a vibrant red and, when in full bloom, they were amazing and the envy of the neighborhood. Trimming and pruning them was my therapy when I was in law school. When I’d need a break from studying, I’d wander outside and inspect my roses for insects and the dreaded black spot. I’d water, fertilize, and prune the branches that weren’t producing which resulted in a healthy display of roses. One summer we went on an extended vacation and left the care of the roses to one of the neighbor boys. When we got back it looked like my roses had been hit with Agent Orange jungle defoliant. There wasn’t a leaf to be seen. I had failed to instruct my young gardener on the evils of black spot. With much care and nurturing, the roses recovered and bloomed again under the watchful eye of the gardener. People, like roses, when left to their own design don’t do well and benefit from the watchful eye and loving touch of a gardener.
And our dependance upon a Master Gardener is what Jesus is talking about in our scripture reading for today. Jesus had been traveling the countryside and was speaking to a large crowd, numbering in the thousands, when some who were present told him about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. Sensing that the underlying premise of their statement had to do with why faithful worshippers were killed in such a senseless act Jesus responded: Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? Essentially, what they are asking is what did these Galileans do to deserve this kind of death at the hands of the Roman governor. They weren’t killed because of any sin; they were killed as the result of a paranoid ruler who sensed a possible rebellion and wanted to send a strong message. Jesus then asked: What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? Now for what it’s worth, those working on the tower may have just been killed in an industrial accident while working on one of the Roman building projects. No, Jesus tells them, their deaths had nothing to do with any sort of sin that they may or may not have committed. But then, as now, people feel the need to attach some sort of an explanation to an inexplicable occurrence. And we could ask ourselves the same question today as in: What sin did the Ukrainian people commit that would move God to allow a paranoid madman to invade their country with such brutality? None. Like the Galileans, the Ukrainians are innocent victims of an evil despot. Without engaging them further, Jesus dismisses the idea that accidents or human cruelties are God’s judgment on especially bad sinners. Whether a person is killed in a tragic accident or miraculously survives is not a measure of one’s righteousness. Bad things happen to the innocent and bad alike. It’s what happens when we live in an imperfect world populated by imperfect people. Instead, Jesus points to everyone’s need for repentance when he tells them that unless they change their hearts and lives, they will die just as these Galileans did, without truly knowing God the way God needs to be known. And, for the record, there may have been some very God-fearing people among the deceased Galileans. But Jesus is telling them to stop trying to figure out why one person or a group of people died and try to figure out what you need to do to live and not die, and he’s not talking about physical death. He’s taking the opportunity to tell his listeners about the need for transformation, changing one’s life for the better before it’s too late. He’s not talking about those earthly things that can kill us. He’s talking about eternal life, which is not a given. That eternal life that comes only after a personal transformation.
Now that he has their attention, he segues to a parable about God’s grace to underscore the important life-saving message he’s trying to convey. He says: A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve found none. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients? Jesus’ Jewish listeners would have gotten the connection as in the Old Testament, a fruitful tree was often used as a symbol of godly living. In Psalm 1: 3 the psalmist refers to a blessed man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners. Such a man is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. And the prophet Jeremiah talks of a man who trusts in the Lord who is like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17: 7,8) It reminds me how we as a church reacted to COVID. During the drought we continued to produce fruit. The gardener, who knew the tree was not producing, responded: Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down. What Jesus was pointing out was what would happen to the non-producing believers, the kind of believers that took valuable time and space and still producing nothing for the patient gardener, God. Jesus was warning his listeners that God would not tolerate forever their lack of productivity. And what he’s telling his predominately Jewish audience is not to count on the mere fact of being Jewish to get you into heaven. And for us Christians the same holds true, especially if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord, and in our hearts we have faith that God raised him from the dead, and we do nothing with the grace given us by God. Trusting with the heart leads to righteousness and confessing with the mouth leads to salvation. Now, don’t get me wrong, Jesus is not talking about works. He’s talking about righteous living which is the foundation to living a fruitful life. Don’t waste your time worrying about the other person and what they did or didn’t do that resulted in some sort of tragedy. Focus on your own living, living a life that bears fruit, especially if you profess to believe in God. Once you do that, you’ll be in a better position to help and serve others in a truly meaningful way.
And here we are two thousand years later facing the same issues. We live in a world full of people who profess to be Christians and, in response to some tragedy we see on the nightly news or read on the internet, we wonder what they did to deserve such a calamity, rather than trying to figure out what we can do to help or what steps can be taken to prevent something similar from happening in the future. In spite of the fact that mainline Christian denominations have been declining for decades, just think what we could do if Christians everywhere did something, anything, to produce fruit rather than sit in their “holy huddles” worrying about the future, their future. We know what our future holds and, until that day, we should be busily tending the garden making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, a world that sorely needs transforming. The Master Gardener has entrusted his creation to us, and we each have our own gardens to tend whether at home, in our community, our church, or the greater world. Ask yourself: Is your garden in need of care? Is there some weeding, fertilizing, and pruning that needs to be done in order to produce righteous fruit? What within your own life needs pruning and care? What is it that is keeping you from producing? What’s keeping you from producing more fruit? The gardener is loving and patient, but he so wants us to be productive in his service yielding the kind of nutritious fruit that feeds the bodies and souls of those who are lost and searching for meaning and purpose, and just trying to make sense of this world. Respond to the Gardener’s patient care and begin to bear the fruit that He has created you to produce, fruit that will change somebody’s world, and maybe even yours.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving Father, how we praise you for your amazing grace that saved wretches just like us. We once were lost but now are found. We were blind but now we see clearly what it is we are to do in your service. It is your grace at work within us that moves us to produce the spiritual fruits of love for you and neighbor. It is your grace that softens our hearts so that we can freely and joyfully join in the ministry of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. It was your grace that taught our hearts to fear, and your grace that relieved our fears enabling us to be a presence for you as we do our acts of righteousness in a world that is starving for justice and acts of human decency. How precious did that grace appear the hour we first believed. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.