Lent 3  Family Service

Gordon McPhee

                                            Luke 13: 1-9

In the NIV Bible this morning’s passage in Luke is entitled “Repent or Perish”. I thought I should soften that title just a bit, so this Homily is called “One more year”.

This is one of those passages that we don’t dwell on a lot. We know the parable of the Prodigal Son and the Sower Sowing Seed but this fig tree parable is a bit harsh and it begins with the strange dialogue about the Galileans and the eighteen others who were killed.

But it in fact starts with the words “at that time”; “Now there were some present at that time”, which makes us ask of Luke the question, “what time was that?”

If we look back Luke begins this section of his Gospel in chapter 12 with a series of very difficult teachings and parables; that are, and here I get to use a big word I learned in my studies at McGill, eschatological; relating to death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind. End times.

We usually think of the “end times, end of the world” stuff as apocalyptic, but that word just means a revelation from God.

The book of Revelation is titled “the apocalypse of John”, meaning it was a revelation from God to John, it is an eschatological revelation, about end time and hence the confusion of the meaning of the word apocalypse.

Let me summarize some of those teachings leading up to our reading today: Jesus says -

“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed”

“I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell.”

“whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God”

“You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

“… You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

“… The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.”

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, … Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.  … They will be divided, father against son and son against father,”

“Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”

It is not surprising then, in this context of Jesus’ difficult teachings, that Luke has presented that someone would bring up a rather significant, almost eschatological event in, what was for them, recent history.

“the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.”

No one has exact information about what particular event this text is referring to but from some external sources we do have enough information to make a pretty good, educated guess.

About four years before this time, Pilate had been appointed governor of Judea and established his headquarters in Caesarea, northwest of Jerusalem, because it was a port city built relatively recently by Herod the Great, so it was by standards, modern. He made the mistake of moving his legion to Jerusalem along with the banners and shields emblazoned with animals and other figures which the Jews considered idolatry that was contaminating the holy city, and in a spectacular standoff with Pilate’s army the hundreds of Jewish protestors knelt and bared their throats to be slaughtered, by which act they won the day, leaving an embittered Pilate to remove the offending symbols.

Pilate later began a project of modernization in Jerusalem by bringing running water to the city via an aqueduct to the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. But he wanted money from the Temple to help pay for it, money consecrated, Corban, to God.

There was an uprising amongst the Jews for which Pilate prepared himself, remembering his first defeat, by sending troops disguised as Jewish citizens into the crowds but he had miscalculated the zealous nature of his troops, and this resulted in a slaughter including a number of Galileans, who were at the temple offering their sacrifices.

It is to this event that Jesus is being asked to answer the question “where was the kingdom of God when these innocent Galileans were killed right there in the Temple or was this retribution for some guilt of their own.?”

Jesus, in his response, also alludes to the “eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them”, which, it is believed, refers to a construction accident during the building of the offending aqueduct to the pool of Siloam. Which is, probably not coincidentally, the same pool of Siloam where John records Jesus healing a man blind from birth.

Jesus’ response refutes the opinion, which is always the popular one, that sufferings are the consequence and therefore the evidence of excessive wickedness. It reminds me of the error Eliphaz made asking Job “whoever perished being innocent?”

Jesus makes it clear that even though these people perished, they were not greater sinners than anyone else.

A response that again leads us back to the blind man at the pool of Siloam in John’s Gospel. Seeing the blind man his disciples asked, “who sinned this man or his parents?” to which Jesus replied, “neither”. The message from Luke and John is the same.

In this way Jesus directs the thoughts of his questioners back to themselves.

Jesus says “But, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Not meaning a moral edict that their sins would catch up to them, or us, in some disaster but that they would perish in the same manner; which is to say, at the hands of the Romans; it’s a prophecy. If they continued on as they were with rebellions and plots, they’d be committing national suicide.

And as we know from history, this prophecy was partially fulfilled in 70 CE with the destruction of the Temple. However, the later Bar Kochba revolt from 132 to 135 CE finished the job. The city was raised to the ground, an estimated 2,700,000 were killed and enslaved, and according to one 2nd century Roman historian Cassius Dio “nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate”. Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman secular city called Aelia Capitolina and a temple to Jupiter built where Herod’s had been.

Jesus was calling them to repentance, to prevent the Messianic nation from extinction. The phrase “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” should not be mistaken as an allegorical call to us for repentance.

And then, to drive home his point, Jesus tells one of his poignant parables, the fig tree that bore no fruit. And I think we can see the parallels with the context just illuminated.

There is one fig tree in the vineyard of grapes, the children of Israel. But for years it has born no fruit for the owner.  So, he tells the gardener to cut it down, it is just wasting space and resources. But the gardener stands in the breach and asks for one more year, one more season for the tree to bear fruit.

This represents God’s long-suffering grace to his people Israel. If they will repent, the doom prophesied will not befall them. And much more, the gardener will dig round it and fertilize it, meaning everything that could be done to lead them to repentance would be. And yet, history reveals, even this was not enough.

Our mistake in trying to understand this passage is in taking it allegorically and applying it to ourselves today. Jesus is talking to and about the Israelite audience of that time. We’re not the fig tree that has one more year, or else.

But we can take the imperative of the story and apply it to our world.

There is a time limit, both to this world when Jesus will come again, and, for most or all of us, a time when we will leave this world. Most of us live like that is a long way off, but Jesus has told us none of us knows when either will occur, so we should not be like the obdurate Israelites of his day, we should live like it will be soon.

We’re also told, in 1 John 2:1 that “we have an advocate with the Father - Jesus Christ, the righteous One”. someone standing in the breach for us, asking for just ‘one more year’, to dig round and fertilize; to have every opportunity to repent and stave off the prophesied destruction.

And you might say to me “what destruction”, we believe in Jesus, everything is fine. And I would say, isn’t that what the Jews of that day said to Jesus recorded in Matthew 3:9 “And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’”

Salvation is not about the badge you wear, Anglican or even Jesus; salvation is found in repentance which is what Jesus is calling each of us to bare out in our lives. To come, daily, humbly, with penitent hearts before our God confessing our sins because Jesus has opened the way for us to do that. Daily renewing our relationship to the Father in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit, a relationship that begins and is sustained by repentance and forgiveness and renews our fellowship with Him each day.

I’m not the fig tree, but what happened to the fig tree could happen to me if I forget that bearing fruit in Christ Jesus, in season, is what I need to be doing, what I need to be seeing in my life.

An appropriate message I think as we travel through Lent towards Easter.

Allow me read you some verses from the Old Testament reading in Isaiah 55 prescribed for today. Verses 1 & 2 and 6 & 7.

“Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.

Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Amen