Sermon for 3/23/25

Sermon 3-23-25 3 Lent Luke 13: 1-9

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Recognize that composition? That was the first sentence in Charles Dicken's novel “A Tale of Two Cities”. All one hundred and twenty words.

Our Gospel reading is also two stories that overlap and become one with just a little twist. Jesus is addressing a large crowd. In the crowd are some rebel rousers who are not happy with the rumor that Pilate had murdered some Galilean Hebrews while they were making religious sacrifices.

I say rumor because there is no written evidence that the incident actually occurred. Neither of the two major historians writing during Jesus' time, Josephus or Philo mention this atrocity. Nor do they mention the tower of Siloam falling on eighteen workers. There is no anthropological evidence, to date, supporting either one.

Fact or fiction, the idea that Pilate would murder their fellow Jews would have been the talk over coffee at every Denny's in the whole area. These people are stirred up, they think Jesus should do something about it.

They are putting Jesus in a tight spot, right in the middle of His Hebrew brethren and the Roman government. What true patriot would even think about questioning revolution? What true teacher and leader would publicly denounce Rome? This is a no win situation. Jesus turns the table.

It was the belief by the Hebrew people that calamities and God's wrath were the direct result of sin. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” Then He brings up himself, the eighteen who were killed by the falling tower.

“Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”

He answers both questions exactly the same way. “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did”. Jesus moves the conversation from political rumor to personal sin and suffering. And He makes His point that all must repent.

If those present who brought up the killings in the first place were enemies they could have easily trapped Jesus into making either the Jews or the Romans angry. We know for sure Pilate confiscated Temple funds to fund a water improvement project for the city. The use of Temple money enraged the Jews. They would have thought the workers who took wages from that money would have been terrible sinners. It would have been God who fell the tower on them.

Instead of answering their question and committing Himself Jesus told them to worry about their own lives and prepare for their own judgment.

By this time in Jesus' ministry He was using parables about vineyards and fruit trees as direct slams against the leaders of the church, and everyone knew it. So instead of causing a riot and having the crowd attempt to throw Him off a cliff like they did back in chapter four He immediately launches into another parable, about the barren fig tree.

Fig trees were and are very common in that part of the world. They are mentioned fifty or sixty times in the bible. Just like everywhere else, this parable is not about the tree, it's about the Jewish leadership. It takes a little while, but the Jewish leadership, around chapters 19 or 20, in Luke, finally figures out that these vineyard parables are about them.

The owner of the vineyard lives in town and he has a gardener to run the place. He has the gardener plant a fig tree. I have a little knowledge about fruit trees and growing figs is not that much different than apples, pears, peaches or any other fruit tree. Fig trees do, however, sometimes have two crops a year, spring and fall.

Depending on the variety they can even bear fruit for nine or more months of the year. Other than that their care is similar to those other fruit trees I mentioned. Except, there are Hebrew laws concerning the care and keeping of fruit trees.

The Torah, what we call the first five books of the Old Testament, Leviticus chapter 19, verses 23 through 25 there are rules about planting fig trees.

When a fig tree is planted it will grow and mature for the first three years. Then sometimes in the fourth year or so it might start to bear fruit. The fourth, fifth and sixth years of its life the fruit is considered forbidden, it is unlawful to harvest and consume the fruit from those three years.

The crop from the seventh year is considered the first fruit. That crop is to be dedicated to God, given to the priests at the Temple, or something like that. Then starting in the eighth year the fruit can be kept and consumed by the owner, less a ten percent tithe of course.

In this parable the owner has been waiting these nine or ten years and still has not seen the first fig. He is not happy. The owner says, “Cut it down. Why should it be wasting the soil”. But the gardener suggests they leave it alone for one more year. Give the fig tree another chance.

This parable is not about trees, it's about the leadership of the Jewish nation and how God looks at the people He's created. God has been very patient, but His patience has a limit. He has waited a long time for His creation to do what it is supposed to do. It is time for repentance, a changing of direction, a time to produce the fruit that they are supposed to produce instead of wasting the soil.

This one reading has two stories, one political, one personal. Both are about repentance, about a change of direction before God lets us all perish.

I like to think of this reading as the Gospel of the second chance, but it is also the Gospel of the final chance. A tale of two Gospels.

Amen.