This week I was watching a particular politician on television. This politician was interacting with a group of reporters and answering their questions. Contrary to my usual response to politicians these days, I was deeply impressed. I was struck by this politician’s ability to think on his feet, his wide-ranging grasp of numerous issues facing our country, and this politician’s ability to articulate positions in a way that was at the same time captivating and compassionate.
As I have been meditating on our Gospel passage for today, I have been struck by how much Jesus is like that politician. In fact, we never see Jesus giving a rehearsed speech in the Gospels. Rather, he answers the questions of his listeners and tells stories off the cuff that are both captivating and compassionate in their outlook. One thing that is different about Jesus, however, is that unlike the politicians of our time who are dealing with temporal issues, the topics that Jesus deals with have eternal import.
Let’s listen in to what Jesus has to say in Luke 13:1-9…
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, 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; but if not, you can cut it down.’”
As Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he knows he is going to die, he offers us a word about Pilate, about Pain, and a Parable. First, let’s look at what Jesus says about Pilate…
Pilate
In this passage we have references to two disasters that have no independent corroboration outside of the New Testament. That doesn’t mean these events did not happen. It just means that we don’t know much about them.
The first reference has to do with Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. According to this story, Pilate murdered some Galileans as they were offering their sacrifices in the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and Pilate mixed their human blood with the blood of their animal sacrifices.
Again, we know nothing of this incident from any historians outside of the New Testament. But what we see of Pilate in this story fits with what we know of Pilate from other sources.
For example, around this same time Pilate had decided, rightly, that the water supply to Jerusalem needed improvement. However, he proposed that the project be paid for out of funds from the Temple. The Jewish people balked at this idea. William Barclay explains,
When the mobs gathered, Pilate instructed his soldiers to mingle with them, wearing cloaks over their battle dress for disguise. They were instructed to carry cudgels rather than swords. At a given signal they were to fall on the mob and disperse them. This was done, but the soldiers dealt with the mob with a violence far beyond their instructions and a considerable number of people lost their lives.
In addition to this incident, Jesus mentions 18 people on whom the tower of Siloam fell. Again, we have no independent historical corroboration of this incident. But it would appear that both the incident involving Pilate and the one involving the tower of Siloam were well known to Jesus and his fellow Jews.
The way these two incidents are presented in this Scripture would be similar to someone in our day asking, “Why did God allow thousands of people to die in the 911 attacks?”
That question leads to the second thing we see in this passage.
Pain
We see here something about the Problem of Pain. The broader question is: why does a good and all-powerful God allow pain in the first place?
Some Jewish people in days of old answered this question by saying that God allowed pain as a punishment for sin. They rigidly connected sin and suffering. According to this way of thinking, if you are good you will not suffer, but if you are bad then you can expect pain in life.
This way of thinking is represented in the Old Testament story of Job. Eliphaz asked Job, “Who that was innocent ever perished?” But in fact, the whole book of Job was written, at least in part, to counter this way of thinking. And Jesus flatly denies any truth to this position.
Jesus asks the question, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” And Jesus answers the question without equivocation, “No, I tell you.”
Then he asks a second question to make his point utterly clear, “Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” And again, Jesus answers his own question in the negative: “No, I tell you.”
Thus, Jesus makes it completely clear that there is not a direct correspondence between sin and suffering. It is not a case of tit for tat.
Parable
However, that is not the end of the story. We must also examine the parable that Jesus tells in this passage. The parable is all about a fig tree that a man planted in his vineyard.
Now, the first thing you need to understand is that the fig tree was a well-known symbol for Israel. So, the fig tree represents Israel, and according to Jesus’ story, Israel (the fig tree) has not been producing fruit. The owner of the vineyard has given the fig tree plenty of time to produce fruit, three years in fact. But the fig tree still hasn’t produced a single fig.
Now, a fig tree takes lots of resources out of the soil. The owner of the vineyard is obviously concerned that the fig tree is going to cause harm to his vineyard and is wasting resources. So, the owner of the vineyard tells his gardener to cut it down.
This is where the story gets interesting. The gardener pleads with the owner of the vineyard to let the fig tree live for another year while the gardener tries to do things to make the fig tree produce fruit.
Does the owner of the vineyard represent God? Does the gardener represent Jesus? We do not know. Jesus does not explain the story. However, what Jesus says here, and his lament over Jerusalem in verses 31 to 35, seem to connect with what Jesus will say later in Luke 21.
During the last week of Jesus’ life, right before he went to the cross, “When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God,” Jesus said,“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”Then, fourteen verses later, Jesus says, “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.”
Thus, Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple which, in fact, happened in AD 70. What Jesus foresees happening to Jerusalem leads him to invitehis fellow Jews to make what I call a Paradigm Shift.
Paradigm Shift
What is a paradigm shift? The phrase became a buzz-word in the 1990’s but its roots go back further than that.
“Paradigm shift” was a concept identified by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn in 1962 meaning “a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline.” Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kung later applied Thomas Kuhn’s theory of paradigm change to the entire history of Christian thought and theology.
I believe Jesus was inviting his fellow Jews to make a paradigm shift in regard to their thinking about Rome. As Jesus predicted, the view of the Jewish Zealots, like his own disciple, Judas Iscariot, would eventually win out. The Zealots wanted to overthrow the power of Rome by violent rebellion. Following this paradigm eventually led to a protracted war and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome.
By contrast, Jesus was inviting his fellow Jews to follow his pathway of non-violence. Unfortunately for them, Jesus’ fellow Jews chose not to listen to him.
Of course, Jesus does not use the phrase “paradigm shift”. Rather, he uses the word: Repent. Twice Jesus says, “but unless you repent, you will all perish”. What Jesus predicted, did quite literally happen. Many of his first century listeners perished in the destruction that Rome visited upon Jerusalem.
“So what,” you may ask, “does Jesus’ invitation mean for us today?” Certainly, we are not faced with the possible destruction of Jerusalem as Jesus’ contemporaries were. But Jesus’ invitation comes to us just the same. He invites us to repent.
Luke uses the word “repent” more than any other author in the Bible. The word appears 14 times in his Gospel and 10 times in his second volume, the book of Acts. So far in Luke’s Gospel we have seen John the Baptist proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. (Luke 3:3) We have heard Jesus say, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32) So, repentance involves turning away from sin, away from all the ways in which we fall short of God’s plan for human flourishing. Repentance also involves turning toward forgiveness, toward the love of God and walking in that love. In a nutshell, repentance means a change of mind that results in a change of direction.
Is it not interesting that when non-religious people think of religious people, they often think of them as close-minded, hidebound, unwavering?
One of my favorite authors, Sheldon Vanauken, once said,
The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians—when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.
But here is the thing…if we are really following Jesus Christ then we will not be somber, nor joyless, nor self-righteous, nor smug, nor narrow, nor repressive. The reason we won’t be is precisely because Jesus calls us continually to repentance—to a change of mind. And if one is going to change one’s mind, then one must have an open mind. One must be a continual practitioner of intellectual hospitality, always open to new ideas. I wonder: how might Jesus want us to open our minds, and even change our minds today? Do you know what is worse than “hardening of the arteries”? “Hardening of the categories” is much worse.
I believe Jesus wants us to remain soft and supple, pliable under the touch of the great Potter who is God. Are we that way today? Or do we need the spiritual rain of the Holy Spirit to soften us?
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