Lent 3 -2025
Luke 13:1-9
Marian Free
In the name of God who alone is perfect and who overlooks our imperfections. Amen.
If you are like me, there will be times during a service, whether it be the Daily Office or the Eucharist, when a reader concludes the lesson with the words: “Hear the Word of the Lord” and you think to yourself, “No! not really!” Many of our biblical stories, particularly those in the Old Testament are unedifying, and yet, following the rubric, we dutifully affirm them as the word of the Lord. On occasions it might be more truthful to assert: “Here we see an example of human frailty” or even for the reader to say: “This is the word of the Lord???” Have you ever hesitated to respond: “Thanks be to God”? Are you, for example, anxious that you are affirming the rape of Bathsheba when you thank God for that story?
While the Old Testament has many stories that seem to tell us more about the nature of humanity than of God, the New Testament has its share of apparently shocking and unedifying passages. Take this morning’s gospel for example. It is difficult to understand why Luke would feel a need to refer to such a violent and gruesome event as the killing of Galileans and mixing their blood with sacrifices. It is even more difficult to understand this account when not even Josephus can point to a specific event to which this might be referring.
Even more confusing is Luke’s change of tone. As Luke has recorded the story Jesus, has until now, been focused on healing and wholeness, but in this passage Jesus’ attitude appears to change from encouraging to threatening, from healing to judging. At first glance Jesus seems to be justifying the bloody death of the Galileans and those crushed by a tower. as a warning to his listeners. “Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Are we all to suffer an unexpected and gruesome fate “unless we repent”?
The reality is just the opposite. Using these examples of unexpected and violent death, Jesus is making it clear that the external circumstances of a person’s life (success or failure, wealth or poverty) and the circumstances of their deaths (violent or peaceful) are not evidence of their sinfulness or not. Indeed, making comparisons is futile, because not only does it pit people against each other, but comparisons of this kind allow one to feel superior, self-righteous and proud which are themselves sin.
In the end, sin, is sin is sin. There is no scale against which sin is measured – a little bit of sin, or a vast quantity of sin. A person has either sinned or they have not, and few, if any could claim to never have sinned. Everyone of us needs to turn our lives toward God and godliness over and over again. It is the honest acknowledgement of who we are that establishes a right relationship with God, not a belief that because we are better than Sarah Jane or Billy Joe, we will get off more lightly or that we will scale an imaginary ladder of righteousness OR that our good deeds are in some way balanced against our bad deeds.
Pilate’s violent suppression of opposition was well-known, and the Galileans had a reputation for being rebellious. We only have a snippet of what was certainly a much longer conversation, but Jesus has clearly discerned that what lies behind the report is a desire on the part of ‘those present’ to be reassured that the suffering of the Galileans was not meaningless but was in some way a consequence of their behaviour – that God allowed it, or worse orchestrated their death because their sin warranted it.
Jesus is challenging a widely held contemporary view that a person’s situation in life was a sign of their righteousness (or lack of it). He is pointing to the reality that life is unpredictable, and that suffering is random – good people are just as prone to die in road accidents as are sinners, good people are just as likely to lose homes and livelihoods in natural disasters as are bad, good and evil people alike may be struck down with life-threatening diseases. Life’s circumstances are not external signs of God’s approval.
What is more as Jesus goes on to suggest, there is no one who is perfect. Everyone has to repent; everyone is called to turn their hearts and lives over to God. We may smugly think that we do not break the 10 commandments, but that very smugness is a demonstration of a pride that indicates dependence on our self, not on God. We may pat ourselves on the back because we have never told a lie, but that very fact may hide a failure to have been truly honest about how we really feel and think. Sin is usually much more subtle than we give it credit for and whether we own it or not, we are all sinners, in that our lives do not fully reflect the divinity that lies within.
BUT – do not despair. Jesus, having brought his listeners back to reality, tells a parable reminding them of God’s forbearance and of second chances. A non-productive fig tree is taking up space in the garden that could be used for a fruit-bearing tree. It serves no other purpose. It should be cut down and replaced. But no, it is given another chance. The gardener will do all that is possible to ensure that it bears fruit. Only if, after the tree has been given every opportunity to bear fruit, it remains barren, will it be chopped down.
So it is with us, God is endlessly patient, forever giving us a second chance, always believing in the goodness in us and overlooking the rottenness and God will keep on giving us a second chance unless we absolutely refuse to take advantage of it.
The Season of Lent provides an opportunity for us to acknowledge the frailty of our human nature (which we share with all humanity), to submit ourselves to the gardener’s care and to allow ourselves to be transformed.
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This quote doesn’t quite speak to the point, but it does serve as a reminder that sin can be more dangerous when it is subtle than when it if blatant.
Swallowsrest 