Third Sunday of Lent
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Readings: Isaiah 55: 1-9 and Luke 13: 1-9
“Those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Somebody said after last week’s service that they didn’t recall hearing the passage which was last week’s gospel reading. I daresay this morning’s reading from Luke may not seem terribly familiar, either. Firstly, the gruesome account of Pilate mingling the blood of some Galileans with their sacrifices. We do know something about this. Pilate, the Roman governor, proposed a new water supply for Jerusalem, which was needed. He wished to finance the project partly by Temple offerings that people had made, but the Jews were up in arms. A mob gathered to protest, and Pilate ordered soldiers to disperse the mob. The soldiers dealt with the gathering with a violence far beyond their instructions, and a considerable number of people lost their lives.
We don’t know anything about the collapse of the tower of Siloam. Presumably it was one of those everyday accidents which has its victims and survivors. The death of the one crew member of the oil tanker which caught fire after the collision in the North Sea last week: why him, and nobody else? Was he a worse offender than his crew mates? Jesus would have said, ‘No.’
Most of us don’t think in the same way today as people thought in New Testament times. Then, if you suffered misfortune, perhaps in a freak accident, it was assumed you must be sinful. But if you were a good, upstanding member of the community, wealthy and successful, then you must have God’s favour, and be righteous. Jesus tried to steer people away from thinking in that way. Elsewhere, he points out that God allows the sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and he causes rain to fall on the just and on the unjust. That is the way things are. When we hear of the suffering of people we love, or know, we may say “They don’t deserve that.” When we hear of the suffering of those we disapprove of, some corner of our heart thinks, “They got what was coming to them.”
But the message of Jesus in that gospel passage isn’t really about undeserved suffering or sudden death. Rather, he uses the two examples that were put to him to give everyone a warning. Incidentally, he may have had the future fate of Jerusalem in mind. He foresaw and foretold the destruction of Jerusalem, which occurred in AD 70. He could see that if the Jews went on with their intrigues and rebellions, the Romans would step in and obliterate the nation. So what he may have meant was that if the Jewish nation kept on seeking an earthly kingdom, and rejecting the kingdom of God, they could only come to one end.
The general theme of the readings today is the need to turn from bad ways to decent ways. The writer of Isaiah 55 certainly sees God as the one who can turn lives around. “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” In other words – if you’ve got the chance to change your lifestyle, then take it. The important message is that God is a forgiving God.
At the end of that passage, God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” Perhaps here is the key to unlocking the puzzle of why, sometimes, the bad get away with it, and the good suffer. God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways. We shouldn’t expect to understand the mind of God, and we certainly aren’t in a position to do so.
If we seem so far to have concentrated on punishment and judgment, then the marvellous little parable at the end of the gospel reading shows the other, very compassionate, side of God’s nature, which Isaiah hints at when he affirms that God “will abundantly pardon.” The parable again illustrates that God’s ways are not always our ways. The man who owned the fig-tree wanted it cut down because it wasn’t producing much fruit. But the gardener had a more constructive idea. “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. If not, then cut it down.”
The owner of the fig-tree was following his instinct and experience in wanting the tree cut down. A judge passing sentence on an habitual offender is going to have little confidence in the offender mending their ways. But Jesus, like a wise and caring gardener, knows the fruit trees and their capabilities. Jesus does not see us as ‘just another plant’ or ‘just another offender in the dock’, but as a sinner for whom he suffered, and a sinner to be given another chance: a precious person for whom Christ died. Notice, though, that God’s mercy will be balanced by judgment. The gardener was all for giving the fig tree another chance, but he knew the time would come when, if the plant hadn’t responded to his care and attention, he would have to cut it down. So, God is patient and will wait; he will give us second, third and fourth chances to repent and reform. But at some point, his mercy will be balanced by judgment.
The point is made that the fig-tree occupied a specially favoured position in the vineyard. Jesus once taught that people will be judged according to the opportunities they had. The parable also teaches that uselessness invites disaster. William Barclay says – ‘The most searching question we can be asked is ‘Of what use were you in this world?’ He also notes that nothing which only takes out can survive. The fig-tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil; and in return was producing nothing. He adds, “We have inherited a Christian civilisation and a freedom which we did not create. There is laid on us the duty of handing things on better than we found them.”
But returning to the more comfortable theme of God’s mercy; if we’re ever tempted to write people off, let us remember that Jesus, the tender of vines, usually did not. If we’re ever tempted to think, after someone doing bad things gets their come-uppance- ‘they got what was coming to them’ – let us remember that Jesus would have said, “No.” He is more likely to say, “Let me get to work on what this person has to offer. It may not look much now, but give me a little time to see what I can do.” Let us also remember that he says the same about you and me. We are all in need of the gardener’s painstaking loving care and attention.
If we could sometimes think more on these lines, we would be less likely to look for reasons for what happens to us or to others, or to be so ready to apportion blame for accidents or misfortunes. We will be more likely to think, “What can God do with this situation?” As Jesus said to his disciples who were asking who was responsible for a man being born blind – in John chapter 9 – who sinned? The man or his parents? “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”
Perhaps the message from all this is – simply – that we should be less concerned with other people getting their just deserts, as we would see it, and concentrate more on our own lives. Let us be thankful that God is disposed to give us chances again and again. But let us also live as if each day might be our last. That would concentrate our minds wonderfully to look at the important things in life, and so make the world a better place.