It's Not About Being Harmless

Text: Luke 13: 1-9

Why do bad things happen to good people? And just as hard, why do creeps get away with murder? It’s a question --a mindset really-- that’s been around forever. We hear it a lot in scripture. Bewilderment at the unfairness; and beneath it, this notion that surely, surely God rewards the good, punishes the wicked. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Until you’ve lived a little … until calamity strikes, and tragedy befalls the good, what then do we make of that?

In that scene in Luke’s Gospel, people were talking about the latest tragedy circulating in the news – in this case, the murder of some Galileans who were worshipping in Jerusalem. How dare harm come to them … faithful, God-fearing people … why would God let that happen? They were trying to make sense of the horror when Jesus interrupts their conversation …
“Do you think it’s because they were sinners that God didn’t spare them and they died so tragically?” he asks them. “And what about those 18 who were crushed that day when the tower collapsed in Jerusalem – do you think they were worse offenders than everyone else in the whole city?”

Why God didn’t spare those people, Jesus doesn’t say. Nor does he try to defend God. Instead he challenges the formula head on:
“You think they died tragically because of their sin? NO! Jesus says. It’s not like that!” In other words, Forget the formula! You might wish it was that way … that God would cast a protective shield around the good … and up and smite the sinners … but we’re not living in that kind of universe.

And then Jesus says, “but unless you repent (meaning: change your mind -- get a different mindset), you’ll die like them.” What does he mean by that? I don’t know. Is he saying, if you don’t move beyond that way of seeing things, you’ll die as tragically as those Galileans
for there is so much more to our life with God and God’s life with us
when we get beyond the formula.” Is that what he means? I don’t know.

But it is like Jesus to want more for us. More of what is true. More of what is truly of God. So instead of a formula he offers a parable
which not only serves to open our minds to a new way of seeing. Mostly parables completely up-end our way of seeing, and in a flash,
give us a glimpse of the oh-so-strange-to-us wisdom of God!

“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard,” so begins Jesus, the storyteller. Already we might wonder, what’s that about?! … in the midst of all those orderly rows, he introduces a fig tree?
Sounds like a Free Spirit. A bit of a rebel, perhaps!

One day he walks through the vineyard … right up to the fig tree.
He’s come looking for figs. He’s expecting to find figs.
But there were none.
He calls to the gardener, “look at this.” He shows him the tree.
“Not one fig. In fact for 3 years now … not a fig, not one.
Cut it down, he says. Why should it be wasting soil?”

We might think the gardener, of all people, would have noticed.
But maybe he was too busy to notice with a whole vineyard to tend.
Maybe he thought so long as it was looking sturdy and leafing out,
that all was well; or good enough.
Maybe he didn’t understand the owner’s intent in planting it …
Maybe it never occurred to him that it really much mattered to the owner.

It’s all occurring to him now! The owner had the tree planted expecting it would be fruitful – not ornamental … not simply taking up space! The gardener is taken aback at the order to cut it down.
It seems harsh … premature. Suddenly he’s awake to the possibility that this tree could produce. Suddenly he remembers not just what the tree is about, but what he’s about. All kinds of things come to him as to how he could encourage its growth. For starters he could loosen the soil around it, add manure. He persuades the owner to give it one more year. In that time, he’ll tend it, and feed it, as though it was meant to be fruitful.
“If it bears fruit next year,” he says to the owner, “great.
But if nothing comes of it, he says, you can cut it down.”

There’s something wise about the way a parable works … instead of persuading us with argument or logic, a parable has this way of drawing us in, kind of unwittingly, into a landscape that’s familiar except there are just enough twists to expose our bias, and we realize we’re being offered a new set of bearings.

What if God is like this vineyard owner?
with the freedom and the imagination to plant a fig tree in the midst of a vineyard?
What if God plants not just for fun, and not just for the beauty of it, but with a purpose in mind?
What if God notices, actually cares whether or not there’s fruit?
What happens when we give God room to be confrontational ?
when we permit God to ask: what’s with you? where’s the fruit?

Imagine God calling us over, like the gardener, to look closely?
Imagine God showing us what is really ours to see?
Imagine it dawning … oh yeah – there was supposed to be fruit.
Imagine hearing, “get rid of it! why should it waste the soil?”

Do you notice a protectiveness rising. The desire to let it live,
to give it a chance, to do something that will bring it along.

If you were to ask for a year of grace, what would you do to cultivate this life that’s given into your care?
What might fruitfulness look like?

Just when we might have imagined that it’s the harmful things we or others do that stirs the judgment of God, Jesus lands this parable that opens up a whole other possibility.
Ever thought that what stirs God’s judgement is the harmless life? Ever thought that God loves us enough to challenge us about our fruitlessness … ever thought God loves you enough to call you into the fullness of who you are given to be? What, after all, is this gift of life for that we are given?

Once we’ve met God in the vineyard, our hearts are tuned for
that kind of encounter almost anywhere.
Some years ago, Craig Keilburger spoke to a packed house at the the MacPherson theatre. Maybe some of you were there. Craig is that 12 year old boy --now in his 30’s -- who began the Free the Children campaign, when eating his breakfast one morning, he read an article in the Toronto newspaper about a 12 year boy shot dead in India for speaking out against child slavery. The evening he was here in Victoria, he was speaking to an audience of young people already eager to make a difference … and there were adults too. At one point he challenged the adults – parents, teachers, ministers, whoever we were. He asked “what do you hope for your children? … the young people in your circle. What do you hope in terms of who they will become? “Whenever I ask this question, he said, “people describe qualities like caring, considerate, helpful, generous, courageous. And then I ask them, so what are you doing to cultivate that? What experiences are you providing these young people to encourage that along? It’s amazing to me,” he said, “how surprised many adults are with themselves. How with that question, they realize the disconnect between what they hope and what they provide.”

That night, in Craig’s question, the owner of the vineyard spoke …
asking about the fruit … reminding us that fruitfulness matters …
and that it doesn’t automatically happen.

Whether we’re talking about our life as a congregation or our lives as individuals, I wonder if Jesus, through this parable this morning,
isn’t challenging us to look at our lives through the eyes and the heart of the One to whom all life matters.
And to remember again, in case through busyness or complacency or fatigue or overwhelm, or through whatever might distract us, we’ve lost sight of it .... we’re challenged to remember again that we are given life in order to bear fruit.
It’s not about being harmless … it’s about being fruitful!
It’s about cultivating life that bears fruit.

If you were to ask for a year of grace,
what would you do to cultivate this life that’s given into your care?
“What are you doing with your one wild and precious life?”