Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday March 20, 2022 – 3rd Sunday of Lent
Reading: Luke 13:1-9
I have a 22-year-old shamrock plant in my living room. Back in 2000, I was visiting a friend in Ottawa, I admired her shamrock, and she said, “Do you want some?” and before I had a chance to reply she had yanked out some of the roots and put them in a yoghurt container for me. I brought it back to Thunder Bay in my carry-on luggage – that was pre-September 11 when luggage was less-carefully scrutinized – and got a pot and some soil for it. My first ever house plant.
After its initial airplane ride, that plant has moved several times. When I went overseas, it went to Dad’s house in southern Ontario, then back to Thunder Bay 3 ½ years later. It moved to Kenora, back to Thunder Bay, to Halifax, to northern BC, and now it is in New Brunswick.
This plant has died off several times. Once I froze all of the leaves on it when I was going to be travelling for a couple of weeks so decided to bring it to the hospital where I worked at the time to be cared for. This would have been a good idea except for the fact that it was in the middle of a northern Ontario winter when I transported it to the hospital! Another time when I re-potted it, it didn’t like the new pot and all of the leaves withered up and fell off. Most recently, it picked up an infestation of some sort of insect when I stayed at Dad’s house as I was moving here, and I eventually ended up pulling all of the leaves off in order to treat the soil and scrub the pot with an insecticide.
And each time this shamrock plant has seemed to die, it ends up growing back and putting out flowers and bringing me joy. In 22 years, I have never given up on this plant – I’ve never thought that I should pitch it and start over with a new one. Why would I throw away a living plant?
Jesus tells a story about a fig tree growing in a vineyard. Now the main purpose of fig trees is to produce figs, but over the years, this fig tree has never produced any. But the gardener doesn’t want to give up on the fig tree. When the landowner suggests cutting down the tree so that it doesn’t continue to leach nutrients from the soil that might be better left for the grape vines, the gardener pleads on the fig tree’s behalf – he doesn’t want to give up on this tree. He wants to nurture it along – to give it some extra manure, maybe prune the branches a bit – he thinks that if he gives it a bit of extra attention, then it will produce fruit.
I confess that I’ve always found this to be a challenging parable, mostly because of the final line and how it has been interpreted. The gardener says, “If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
This parable has often been read as a straightforward allegory – the landowner is God, the gardener is Jesus, and we are the fig trees. When our lives don’t bear fruit, Jesus pleads to the one whom he calls father on our behalf; and God gives us one more chance to bear fruit, but the threat is there that if we don’t bear fruit then we will be cut down like that fig tree.
And I don’t know about you, but to me this interpretation paints a very troubling picture of God – of a God who condones violence, who makes our existence conditional on the fruit that we are expected to bear. And that doesn’t fit with my understanding of a God whose very essence is unconditional love.
So I when I read the parable this week, I turned back to look at the situation that made Jesus tell this parable to see if there might be some alternative wisdom in it.
Jesus and his disciples are on their way from Galilee in the north, heading south towards Jerusalem, and some people came up to him and told him that Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed a group of Galileans who had been in Jerusalem, offering their sacrifices in the temple, so that the blood of the people was mingled with the blood of the animals that they had sacrificed.
And this is an outrageously horrific story. They should have been able to feel safe there in that place of worship, and instead they were brutally murdered.
And it is right when we feel outrage and fear when we hear stories like this. I can almost hear the unspoken words in this story from the people around Jesus – “What do you want us to do about this horrific massacre? Shall we rally a group of people together and head off to Jerusalem to kill Pilate in retaliation? We want to do something!”
This story holds particular significance right now if we were to substitute the name Pilate with the name Putin. Some people came up to Jesus and told him that Putin was killing thousands of innocent people in Ukraine. And the natural response is outrage and fear and horror, and probably a desire for retaliation.
But that isn’t the response that Jesus gives. First of all, he clarifies that bad things happen in the world – evil is a reality in this world that we live in – and so horrific events that happen don’t happen as a punishment for sin, they happen because of the evil that is in the world.
And then Jesus goes on to tell a parable about grace. The fig tree that isn’t bearing fruit isn’t cut down, but instead is given another chance. Its story isn’t over yet. It hasn’t earned the right to this second chance – after all, it hasn’t born any fruit, which is the primary reason for a fig tree to exist – and yet it is being given another chance. This is the very definition of grace. An unearned, undeserved gift.
It is as if Jesus is saying, in response to the massacre, that retaliation isn’t the answer – grace is. Grace is the only thing that can defeat evil, because grace plays by rules that evil can never understand.
I was talking with a friend and colleague this week, trying to figure out where we can see God in what is happening right now in Ukraine. The first answer that we came up with is the well-known quote from Mr. Rogers, who said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” And so we can believe that God is working through everyone who is helping in that part of the world – inspiring generosity and giving courage and strength to the helpers.
The second answer that we had to where is God in Ukraine goes a bit deeper and maybe touches a bit closer to this story from Luke’s gospel. That because of Good Friday. Jesus was killed by the Roman state, represented by Pilate. And when we believe that Jesus was God in human flesh, then we also have to believe that God was killed by an oppressive foreign power. And because of this, we have to believe that God is with the people who are being killed by an oppressive foreign power in Ukraine, because God has been there before.
And yet even as he was being killed on the cross, Jesus didn’t choose retaliation – he chose grace instead. He didn’t use the powers of God to zap the ones who were crucifying him and smash the cross to splinters. Instead he forgave the people who were crucifying him and loved the bandits who were being crucified alongside him. And on the third day, we saw that grace had indeed defeated evil, and with the Easter resurrection, we have a new source of hope in the world.
This isn’t a fast process – you have to go through Good Friday in order to get to Easter; but every Good Friday is always followed by Easter.
This also doesn’t mean that it’s easy. It would be so much easier to retaliate and to repay violence with more or stronger violence. But unfortunately that will keep perpetuating cycles of violence. The only way to break the cycle of violence is to refuse to participate in it – to choose grace over retaliation.
And not only is this slow, and not only is this hard, it also doesn’t make any sense at all. Easter makes no sense at all. Resurrection and new life shouldn’t emerge out of violent death. But as followers of Jesus, this is the story, this is the narrative that is at the heart of who we are.
Some people come up to Jesus and tell him about a horrific massacre that has taken place, and instead of proclaiming the need for retaliation, Jesus tells a parable about grace, he tells a story about a fig tree that is given another chance, despite all of the signs that it should be cut down.
And do you notice that the story of the fig tree is open-ended? We don’t get to find out what happens a year later when the landowner returns to inspect his vineyard. Does he find the fig tree bearing fruit? Or is it still stubbornly refusing to produce any figs? And more importantly, if there are still no figs to be found, what happens next year? Is the fig tree only given one second-chance? Does it only have one opportunity to respond to the manure and pruning and extra care? Because I read this story as a story of grace, and because I believe that God’s grace is without limits, then I also believe that if the landowner returns next year and still doesn’t find fruit, that the gardener will be given another chance to nurture it along. Because the landowner isn’t going to give up on the fig tree, just as I’m not going to give up on my shamrock plant, and just as God isn’t going to give up on any one of us. Thanks be to God! Amen.
“Ukraine Under Attack – Week 4 – March 18, 2022”
Photo Credit: manhhai on Flickr
Some people come up to Jesus and tell him
about a horrific massacre that has taken place…
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