Luke 13:1-9
1 At that very time there were
some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled
with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, "Do you think that because these
Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other
Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they
did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on
them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in
Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as
they did." 6 Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted
in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he
said to the gardener, "See here! For three years I have come looking for
fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be
wasting the soil?' 8 He replied, "Sir, let it alone for one more year,
until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well
and good; but if not, you can cut it down.' "
Six years ago this past Friday I was
sitting beside the hospital bed of a total stranger. I was spending the
semester as a chaplain at Hillcrest Baptist Hospital in Waco, and it was my
last visit for the day. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, and out of common
courtesy and common sense, I ignored it. I left the patient’s bedside after
prayer and reported to the room where our class of chaplains debriefed before
being dismissed for the day. I walked out the sliding doors at the front of the
hospital, across the road, and through the parking lot before I realized I
still had a missed call and (as it turned out) a voicemail on my phone. It was
my friend Chris, his voice laced with an odd tone of concern: “I just wanted to
call and see if you had heard anything from your family. Are they ok?”
As you can imagine, I was bit confused. Why was he asking about my
family? Did he know something I didn’t know? I decided I’d call him back when I
got to the seminary (I had a class that night), so when I sat my books down on
the table in the classroom I pulled my phone out and called Chris. Before I
could even ask why he had left such a strange message, he asked, “How is
everyone?” “About the same I guess,” I said “why do you ask?” He said, “You
mean you don’t know?” By this point I knew something wasn’t right, so I asked,
“What’s going on?” Chris proceeded to tell me that an EF4 tornado had ripped
through my hometown of Enterprise earlier that day (I assume it was while I was
making my rounds in the hospital) and it was all over the news that the tornado
had hit the high school and a number of students had been killed in the
destruction. I told him I’d have to call him back, and I ran out into the
common area at the end of the hall where three computers were set up on a
counter along the wall. I Googled the words “Enterprise tornado,” and there on
the screen in front of me were images of what used to be my high school.
I called my parents (who both live in trailers but were fortunately well
out of harm’s way) and then I called my friend Steve. Steve is the
auto-mechanics teacher at Enterprise High School. When Steve answered his cell
phone, his voice told me he had been screaming, crying, or likely some
combination of both. He only had a few seconds to talk, but I remember him
distinctly asking me to pray; “Pray, Chris.” That’s all I really remember him
telling me. The news came later that evening: eight students and one elderly
resident died that day.
In the days that followed, people in
Enterprise began trying to put their lives back together…and they began asking
questions. “Why did this happen? Could this have been prevented if we released
the kids earlier that day, or would they have been caught in the storm while riding
the bus? Was there a better place for those students to take shelter? What can
we do to make sure this doesn’t happen again?” Of course, in the wake of such
tragedy and destruction we search for answers and try to imagine alternatives
to reality; we want to be sure we do everything within our power to avoid such
devastation again.
Perhaps it was with that same drive,
the drive to avoid a repeat of danger, that Luke tells us, “At that
very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose
blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” Now, there’s no
evidence of such an incident outside of Luke’s gospel, but that doesn’t mean
that it wasn’t in Pilate’s wheelhouse of tyranny. History tells us Pilate had
several similar episodes during his reign, so the likelihood that he actually
committed such a slaughter involving Galileans and their sacrifices is great.[1]
But why did this group decide to bring this up to Jesus now? Back in chapter 9, verse 51 Luke tells us “When
the days drew near for him to be taken up, [Jesus] set his face to go to
Jerusalem.” In other words, at that point in Luke’s narrative it became
clear that Jesus is determined to go to Jerusalem, a place where he would face
death. Perhaps these particular members of the crowd have caught on and so they
approach Jesus, telling him about the slaughter of these Galileans (perhaps
even these folks are from Galilee themselves) in order to prevent a second such
slaughter. Jesus, however, doesn’t seem to so much as flinch at the news or the
notion that a similar fate might be in store for him and his followers.
In fact, after he is approached by
such a concern, Jesus counters with another story of tragedy in verse 4 when he asks about the eighteen
killed when the tower at Siloam collapsed. Again, there’s no evidence of such
an incident outside of Luke’s narrative, but that doesn’t make it any less
true—remember, this is two thousand years ago; there aren’t exactly a great
deal of building inspections or maintenance regulations, so the collapse of a
tower or even the scaffolding used to construct or repair it is extremely
likely.[2]
Jesus’ point in responding to their concern about Pilate and the possible
recurrence of disaster is clear when he asks in verses 2 and 4 “Do you think these who died by the hand of
Pilate or in Siloam were any less righteous than the rest of the people in
Jerusalem?” His answer in both instances is nearly identical in verses 3 and 5: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as
they did." There was nothing necessarily evil or sinister about
those who died in Pilate’s slaughter or in the accident at Siloam. With those
words Jesus shattered a commonly held belief that untimely death or tragedy was
the result of sin.[3]
Of course, that is still a commonly
held belief today, for it wasn’t long after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New
Orleans that “the great” Pat Robertson took to the airwaves to tell his nearly
one million 700 Club viewers that the
hurricane was part of God’s judgment on America for legalized abortion. Hal
Lindsey (author of The Late Great Planet
Earth) pronounced Katrina as the beginning of God’s judgment on America as
well, and Chuck Colson believed it was God’s way of calling our attention back
to our nation’s lack of preparation for terrorist attacks![4]
The even sadder truth is that these three men were not alone in such
theological assumptions, but Jesus tears down their misguided theories with the
same words he speaks to dismiss the fears of those who spoke up from the crowd:
“Were they any worse than you, than us? “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you
will all perish just as they did." Those aren’t exactly words of
comfort are they? “No, they weren’t any less righteous than you, but you’ll
still die just like them unless you repent.”
Now, what do you suppose Jesus meant
by that? Surely Jesus wasn’t trying to suggest to them (and to us) that if one
simply repents, he or she won’t have to worry about dying at the hands of a
madman or in some tragic accident? That surely isn’t the suggestions of a
loving God who weeps for the loss of twenty innocent children and six of their
teachers at the hands of an armed and unstable young man. That isn’t the
suggestions of a Christ whose heart no doubt broke at the loss and devastation
caused by an earthquake in Hait—a country already known as the poorest country
in the Western hemisphere. So surely Jesus isn’t implying that they’ll avoid
such a death; in fact, later on it will seem as if Jesus implies that they will
indeed die by the hands of persecutors if they decide to follow him. So what
did Jesus mean when he said, “unless you repent, you will all perish just
as they did”? Perhaps there is an answer in the little parable Jesus
tells them in verses 6-9 of our
text: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking
for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For
three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find
none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, ‘Sir, let it
alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it
bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.' "
It would’ve been a common
experience in their day: an owner of a vineyard would have left a steward in
charge while he attended to other business, then after three years (about the
time it takes for grapes to begin producing), he would have returned to see how
the vineyard was coming along. It wasn’t uncommon to plant fig trees and the
like along with the grapevines, but when the owner returns and finds that the
fig tree (which should have produced fruit for three years) is barren, he
instructs his gardener to chop it down. After all, there’s no use in wasting
good soil on a tree that doesn’t produce any fruit.[5]
The gardener, however, wants to give the tree one last chance, so the owner of
the vineyard makes a deal with him: he can try to revive the tree, but if there
are no figs next year, it’s coming down! Now what do you suppose such a story
has to do with tragedy and repentance?
Imagine what must be going on in the
minds of those who are following Jesus on his journey towards Jerusalem. They
know there’s a great possibility of danger there: they could be stopped and
killed by the Roman authorities who will stop at nothing to keep the peace and control
their citizens; they could be harassed by the religious authorities who are
angry and annoyed by Jesus’ teachings; even if they could manage to avoid all
that, there’s still a chance some part of that ancient city might just collapse
on them! Danger and death seemed inevitable in Jerusalem, and they just wanted
to avoid it, to prolong their lives as long as they could.
Don’t we do the same? Don’t we try to avoid danger whenever we are aware
of its presence? Don’t we try to prolong our lives by whatever means we can? No
one in their right mind lunges headlong into the path of destruction if they
hold the power to avoid it. No one wants to die when life is an
option—especially a long life. No one wants to be cut down when they are
healthy and alive with many years ahead of them. Maybe the gardener in Jesus’
parable had that same feeling about the fig tree: it was a young tree, with
plenty of years of growth ahead of it. Perhaps he hated to see it cut down so
soon. But what use is a fig tree—young or old—if it never bears any figs?
Maybe that’s the point of this little parable from Jesus. Maybe that’s
what he meant when he said, “unless you repent, you will all perish just
as they did." Maybe this isn’t a call to repentance in order to
avoid physical death, but a call to bear fruit! You see, whether it’s a
politically orchestrated massacre, an accident in ancient architecture, a
natural disaster, a head-on collision on I-20, cancer, or even old age, we will
all one day die. To paraphrase what is perhaps the best sketch from the best
comedy troupe in human history, one day “we will stop pining, we’ll pass on. We
will be no more. We will cease to be…expire and go to meet our maker…we will be
bereft of life, pushing up the daisies…ring down the curtain and join the choir
invisible!”[6]
Death is unavoidable, yet that doesn’t mean we should run and hide from it,
hoping to stave it off as long as we can.
Jesus says “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did” as a
call to each one who desires to follow him, who calls on his name, to turn from
a life of sin and mere existence, towards a life of brave faith and
fruitfulness. His parable illustrates the point so well, for we can exist like
a fruitless fig tree—growing taller, wider, and simply existing, yet serving no
purpose, bearing no fruit—or we can repent and begin living, unafraid of danger and death as we bear fruit for the
Kingdom of God.
On this side of eternity, we can chose to exist, caring only for
ourselves, preserving our way of life, our comfort. We can choose to avoid
danger and discomfort for the sake of prolonging our lives and our luxuries. We
can exist and grow as we breathe, eat, and age, but in the end we won’t be any
better than a fruitless fig tree—just a waste of dirt! But there is another
way; we can choose to live, to turn away from a life of mere existence, to
repent of our sins of self-satisfaction and self-preservation. We can repent
and let go of our fears of discomfort, danger, and death. We can choose this
day to repent of our sins, take up our cross, and follow Christ—even into
harm’s way. For when we repent of our sins we are not suddenly made invincible
to the realities of tragedy and biology; when we repent, we begin to bear fruit
in the garden of God’s kingdom.
So, as we draw ever closer to Jerusalem, to danger, to death, on this
journey with Christ, will you repent? Will you let go of whatever is holding
you back from joining Christ and his Church in his kingdom’s work and begin
boldly bearing fruit? Or will you cling tightly to your comfortable existence
and continue to be—like a fruitless fig tree—little more than a waste of dirt?
Let us pray…
[1] Darrel
L. Bock, Baker Exegetical Commentary on
the New Testament: Luke. Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, MI (1996). p. 1205
[2] Leslie
J. Hoppe, Feasting on the Word, “Third
Sunday in Lent: Luke 13:1-9.” Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY
(2009). p. 95
[3] Michael
B. Curry, Feasting on the Word, “Third
Sunday in Lent: Luke 13:1-9.” Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY
(2009). p. 93-97
[5] N.T.
Wrght, Luke for Everyone. Westminster
John Knox Press: Louisville, KY (2004). p.163
[6]
From Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
You can watch the sketch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npjOSLCR2hE
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