Luke 13:1-9
On September 4, 2014 in Chicago, a 34 year old mother of two was walking down the sidewalk, when a gust of wind knocked a piece of metal off a structure, striking a stone gargoyle.
A piece of stone from the sculpted gargoyle, seated on the southeastern corner of a century old gothic church structure, plummeted towards the street below, striking her in the head and killing her instantly.
The building had been inspected for structural safety for two consecutive years leading up to this incident.
The questions from the community and loved ones were similar to the questions we have all asked
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| The Flood David Bates |
The hurricane in New Orleans,
The Tsunami in Japan,
Or the tornados that touched down here in Virginia just this past week.
Eventually, someone always comes to the conclusion that it was the will of a higher power.
Either the will of God or the sins of those who have suffered, are cited as the solution to the one word riddle; WHY?
In the face of all tragedies, we seek out the answer to that question.
It is a far easier question to consider when there is an individual to blame and that is why we always seek someone or someones to blame when tragedy strikes.
But when someone is not available we usually go straight to THE ONE.
President Truman had a famous sign on his desk that read, “The Buck Stops Here!”
I always think that if God had a desk, that sign would be on it, cause when push comes to shove, God is always the One who is gonna get the blame at that particular moment.
And that is exactly what is happening in the gospel today.
Some members of Jesus’ audience are attesting to an atrocity that has occurred.
The details are obscure but it is apparent that during a high holy day at the Temple in Jerusalem, several Galilean Jews have been killed by Pilate’s soldiers.
Faithful people who were merely fulfilling their religious duty, making a sacrifice to God.
Dying in a barbaric fashion, in a sacred place, and at a sacred time while atoning for their sins by offering a sacrifice.
Given the time and place, it would seem to have been ordained by God because, after all, it happened in the house where God is said to reside.
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| The Tower of Siloam James Tissot |
A tragedy that is eerily similar to the one in Chicago, a structure collapses
One that is closely related to religious life, where many would bathe themselves to be purified before approaching the Temple.
Another tragedy where life is lost, evil transpires, and there is not even a human hand at the scene to blame.
And again Jesus knows the one word riddle on everyone’s mind; why?
The easy answer is the excessive sin of those who have died.
Its not an answer we have yet outgrown, either.
Because it serves a purpose;
First, blame
It assigns blame even at the expense of the victim and alleviates us from that blame
Second, assurance
It assures us that as far as we go, so far so good
So we must be doing something right, right?
And that works out okay, until we, or someone we love, turns out to be the one walking down a Chicago sidewalk one blustery day.
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A little over a week ago, Dr. Kate Bowler wrote a beautiful opinion piece in The New York Times.
Two years younger than me, at 35, she received a phone call from her doctor’s assistant a few months ago.
They called to advise her that the gallbladder issues she had come to see them about turned out to be stage 4 cancer.
Dr. Bowler, a professor at Duke Divinity school, responded by exploring her own response to the one word riddle regarding the diagnosis she had received.
She found herself questioning the way we use the term blessed, today.
Claiming that the word blessed -which is actually meant to signify being made holy or consecrated- has become a self congratulatory term for getting it right, working hard or following the rules just enough to get the reward which God owes to those who are …“blessed”.
She went on to describe this perspective as the reason her neighbor came to her door after hearing the news of her diagnosis
Knocking on the door to tell her husband that everything happens for a reason.
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| Parents Käthe Kollwitz |
To which her husband inquired “I’d love to hear it”
“Pardon?” replied the wide eyed neighbor
“I’d love to hear the reason my wife is dying” responded the soon to be widower and father of Bowler’s toddler son.
Dr. Bowler was a little more gracious than her husband and certainly more gracious than I would have been if it were my wife.
She recognized why this response is so common when we are confronted with these types of tragedies.
She said that we need order in the midst of the chaos, because without reason we are left vulnerable and helpless in the face of tragedy and uncertainty.
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Today’s Gospel doesn’t provide that order.
Jesus does not calm the waves of our anxiety in the face of such uncertainties.
He assures the audience that these tragedies do not befall those who are slightly less blessed or those who are slightly more sinful.
Tragedy and death is the reality of living in a broken world,
a perfect creation made imperfect when a human hand couldn’t resist a piece of fruit, from what most in Jesus’ community would have envisioned as, not an apple, but a fig.
And he warns that they too, unless they repent will be ruined, just as those who have perished were ruined,
Just as you and I are ruined.
Ruined by not only sin and our mortal existence, but ruined by our inability to repent.
And repentance is the remedy to this state of ruin.
Repentance is a hard theme to address, not only today but in todays gospel.
Repentance for us, and obviously for the crowd gathered around Jesus, is a listing of things you don’t do, you can’t do, you shouldn’t do.
But it is a hard concept to grasp, because up until this point, examples of true repentance are rare.
Repentance at this time is a practice of personal atonement for individual sin,
Asking for forgiveness out of concern for the punishment that will be faced for failing to discontinue the sin
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| Repentance Frank Troy |
Because repentance is not just a turning away from sin but it is what we turn toward.
Repentance is a turning toward the life that God intended for us to live.
It is living into an existence modeled in the Christ, an existence in which we reach toward God rather than inward toward ourselves.
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One of the books that has influenced me so deeply that it inspired the naming of one of my children, was Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
The novel is a story about a confederate civil war soldier -Inman- who becomes disillusioned by the war and the tragedy he has witnessed.
The novel focuses on Inman’s journey home after he deserts and his reflections on what he has seen not to mention the woman -Ada- he hopes to return home to find.
Towards the conclusion of the book, Inman finds Ada and upon being reunited decides to reveal his dream to marry her.
But as he shares his hope with Ada, Inman also reveals his scars and despair when he warns;
“I’m ruined beyond repair, is what I fear. And if so, in time we’d both be wretched and bitter”
But Ada replies by reassuring him; “I know people can be mended. Not all, and some more immediately than others. But some can be. I don’t see why not you.”
The parable Jesus uses to follow up his observations on these tragedies, is an attempt to refocus our attention towards this true sense of repentance, rather than just a mere discontinuation of sin.
Fig trees were, and still are today, a tree that is both domesticated and grows wild throughout the Middle East.
There is a big difference between the trees that grow wild and the ones grown in orchards, however.
Fig trees have an aggressive root system, that left unchecked, can grow wildly and out of control.
The larger and more aggressive a root system, the larger the tree,
But a fig tree’s root system, if not kept under control, usually attacks any surrounding root systems it is competing against, killing the other plants around it.
A larger fig tree also produces less fruit, and the fruit it does produce is usually of poorer quality.
So, if a fig tree in an orchard is not producing, it doesn’t only mean a poor crop of figs, it means there is a potential threat to all the other trees in the orchard.
It is only logical to not only cut down the tree, but to uproot the tree, eliminating the threat it poses to the entire orchard.
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| The Optimistic Gardener Duy Huynh |
But the gardener offers another solution,
For those of us who have not raised orchards of figs, we usually focus on the manure part as a compassionate act, which it is, but it is also an act of containment.
When the root system of a fig grows out of control, it was and is still a common practice to dig around the root system and wall it in with bricks while using manure in order to enrich the contained soil,
This would contain the growth of the root system, contain the growth of the tree, and improve the chance of a fruitful harvest.
But most importantly of all, if contained, the invasive roots will not destroy the other plants in the vineyard.
One of the most powerful points this parable makes pertains to each and every one of us,
The deeper we reach into the pain, fear, and ruin of this life, the more we not only ruin the fruit we could produce but the more ruin we inflict on all those we come into contact with.
Gripping tightly to this life, while reaching down and holding onto our fleeting existence, our resentment, the scars of our past.
The parable calls us to let all of that go, releasing our desperate grip on that which will eventually fall from our grasp one day anyhow,
And the parable also calls us to trust in the One who will provide the rich soil, enhancing our lives, ensuring that by being fed we will instead turn upward, producing the fruit of the orchard rather than the ruin of that orchard.
But as long as we breathe life, we will revisit our fears, our pain, our ruin, our scars.
We cannot escape the limits of this life, but the promise of the fruit we can bear gives hope.
And we can not only be the recipients of that hope, but the deliverers of it.
Over the past 11 years since returning home I have learned to face the families of the Marines and Sailors from my battalion killed during my deployment.
For years I dug my roots deeply into my anger and grief, holding onto that pain as if it was a responsibility I was obligated to bear.
Until one Memorial Day, I introduced one of my figs, my daughter, to a parent at her son’s grave in Arlington.
That was a day I will never forget, because that day she assured me, as she took my daughter into her arms, that I had made good use of the manure we had shared in both of our lives.
But there was nothing I did with that manure that was particularly special,
We only need to find the confidence in a God that can plant a tree in the manure we have made out of this creation.
Because God does plant a tree in the manure at Golgotha,
Where the tree of that cross bears the fruit which contains the hope that can feed us all.
Amen
Sources
Bowler, Kate. ‘Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me’. SundayReview(The New York Times), February 19, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/death-the-prosperity-gospel-and-me.html?_r=1.
Eltagouri, Marwa, Liam Ford, Blair Kamin, and Chicago Tribune. ‘Church Death: Family, Friends Remember “Sarah Smile”.’ September 5, 2014. Accessed February 24, 2016. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-woman-dead-after-stone-falls-from-historic-south-loop-church-20140904-story.html.
Frazier, Charles and Frazier. Cold Mountain: A Novel. Toronto: Random House of Canada, 1998.
