Nurture

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

March 24, 2019

3 Lent C

Just a week ago, 50 faithful Muslims were massacred in two houses of worship in Christchurch, New Zealand.  This week, major flooding has both killed hundreds of people in Zimbabwe and left large parts of Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin underwater.  Do you think that because these people suffered in this way, they were worse sinners than other people?

Jesus is asked these very questions this morning when he is approached by some people who tell him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices.  Jesus himself raises the issue of the 18 people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them.  While there is no historical evidence that either of these events actually occurred, nonetheless they raise the issue of why bad things happen to good people, which is a very common question, and a question many of us hold in our hearts these days.  In fact, Jesus assumes that is the people's question.  "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than everyone else?"  Jesus' answer to his own question is a bit unsettling.  "No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."

If Jesus has just stopped with "No, I tell you," that would have been an incomplete, but satisfactory answer.  While the answer would not tell us why bad things happen to innocent people, at least we would know that the sin of the victims was not responsible for the disaster.  But Jesus does not stop there.  He goes on to say "but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."  How do those ominous words answer the question of who is to blame for such disasters?

To further complicate matters, Jesus then tells the people a parable about a fig tree that does not produce fruit.  The absentee owner of the fig tree wants to cut it down.  Land is precious and should not be wasted on trees that do not produce.  But the gardener wants to fertilize the tree and give it one more chance to grow and produce fruit.  What does the fig tree have to do with the people's perceived question about whether the Galileans suffered because they were worse sinners than anyone else?  Will God really chop us down if we do not produce the fruit we are called to bear?

Jesus' talk about repenting, perishing and cutting down fig trees is harsh.  But what happens if we hear the gospel reading through the lens of the reading from Exodus?  In that story, Moses is beyond the wilderness when he encounters God in a burning bush. What does God say to Moses?  God does not say "See the suffering of my people in Egypt?  Such suffering is punishment for their sins."  No, God says "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey."  God has heard the cries of those who suffer and has compassion on them.  God is going to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey.  Does this sound like a God who would cause towers to fall on people, or gunshots to destroy their lives?

When we hear the parable of the fig tree through the lens of the story from Exodus, we hear not judgement but compassion and second chances.  The fig tree was not cut down after one year of bearing no fruit, nor after two years.  Only after three years, was cutting down the tree even being considered.  Who would have held out hope for three years that a barren tree would all of a sudden start producing fruit? Even then, the gardener wants to dig around it and give it more fertilizer, giving the tree every possible chance to produce.  The Hebrew Scriptures are full of images of God as the gardener-from Genesis 2 where God plants a garden in Eden, to references to God planting the Hebrew people in the Promised land in the book of Exodus, God is often the One doing the gardening. The God who heard the cries of the people in Egypt and led them through the wilderness and into the land of milk and honey is a God who tries and tries to get us to bear fruit, who, when others would completely give up,  provides more nurture and more fertilizer before finally calling a dead tree a dead tree.

Jesus' one word answer to the question of whether the victims of such tragedies are worse sinners that others is the word "no."  Our God is a god of grace and mercy whose desire for us is a land of milk and honey.  Lent begins on Ash Wednesday with the clear message that life is short and fragile as we are anointed with ashes and the words "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."  Jesus' call to repent is the call to make right our relationship with God and our relationships with other people and not procrastinate in doing so. The parable of the fig tree tells us that God provides us with nurture and care to help us bear the fruit we are called to bear.  When taken together, Jesus calls us to repent of those things that prevent us from being nurtured and bearing fruit and to believe and trust in the God who calls us to fullness of life.

Amen.