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Today’s Gospel story presents two significant disasters. One is the brutal act of a homicidal leader, Pilate, who mixes the blood of those he murders with the sacrifices he offers to his god, Caesar. Human sacrifice is a gruesome act designed to terrorize the people. The tyrant loves to make people afraid.
The other disaster is the collapse of the tower of Siloam, which kills those who happen to be living there. It was an accident, probably due to low building standards coupled with the ambition of men who want to build high towers for their glory and profit. Some things never change.
In both cases, the victims are perceived by the people around Jesus as targets of divine punishment—evidenced by victimhood itself. In other words, it was believed that when bad things happened to people they must have done something to deserve it.
And if the correlation between the person’s action and the event of their suffering can not be easily drawn then people would say–it’s because they did something to make God mad enough to punish them by the crimes of Pilate or the crumbling of Siloam.
Even today we blame the victim. It makes us feel safe and the world more predictable. If we are good, and live clean lives, and follow the rules, we will be fine. But it turns out that is not exactly how the system works. It turns out that we’re all sinners, and we also will all die. At least that is what Jesus seems to be saying in today’s Gospel: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” (Luke 13:3,5).
So where’s the Good News here? It turns out we find it in the garden where the fig tree stands. Let’s take a look.
There was a fig tree that had borne no fruit. So the owner of the garden said to his gardener: “Cut it down. It’s wasting space. It’s not doing what it was made to do. Let’s get rid of it.”
But the gardener replied (and here’s the Good News): “Let’s give it one more year. Let’s put in the effort—dig around it, fertilize it, tend to it—and see if we can get it to bear fruit. And if after a year it still doesn’t bear fruit, fine, I agree with you—we’ll cut it down.”
So, what’s happening here? Let’s begin by asking: “Who is in this story?” Well, we have Jesus telling it. We have the garden owner, which, let’s say, is God. We have the thing, a fig tree in this case, that is not flourishing. And, we have a gardener, which, it turns out, is you and me.
We are the gardeners and the invitation is: Don’t miss the moment to tend your fig tree. Don’t miss the moment to tend your fig tree. And here’s why. Two reasons. First, because it may have bearing on our long-term relationship with God. I bring this up because of the context in which the parable is placed, with questions about God, sin and death.
Now while I am completely sure that accidents which befall us are not a result of God’s wrath; I’m not completely sure that our activities in this life have no bearing on our long-term, eternal relationship with God. I don’t know, but I suspect there is some correlation…so I suggest we live under the assumption that they are connected somehow.
And even if they are not connected–even if God could care less about what we do in this life; that Pilate is seen, somehow, in the same way as Mother Teresa–nonetheless, a life of repentance is still a better way to live, because it creates a better world in which all people can live. Mother Teresa’s world is better than Pontius Pilate’s.
Which brings me to the second reason we should not miss the moment to attend to the fig tree: the activity itself aligns us with the hope of God. The Apostle Paul says it best in his letter to the Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” ( Rom 15:13). Hope is alive when we are aligned with God.
It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are beckoned to the fig tree which is in front of us… towards the hope of joy and peace released when we attend to it. So, don’t miss the moment!
It is easy to do. For me, it happens in at least three different ways: When I perseverate about the past. When I ruminate about the future. And then there is the time I waste judging other people and taking glee in their difficulty. Germans call it schadenfreude. All three cause me to miss the moment, as they crowd my heart with an ugly brew of depression, anxiety and spite. Depression over having missed a past moment. Anxiety that I might miss a future moment. And spiteful glee in seeing someone else miss their moment. And all the while the fig tree in front of me is bearing no fruit.
Jesus says don’t miss the moment to tend the fig tree.
When I think about the fig tree my mind returns to the book of Genesis, to the very first chapters, where we find Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. There were fig trees in that garden. There Adam and Eve did their work, not worrying about the past, not anxious about the future. They were active in the moment–joyful, peaceful–doing whatever work needed to be done in the garden.
And I don’t know what that was in particular, maybe combing lion manes, or trimming the hooves of the wildebeests, or tending the flowers, or plowing the fields. Probably all the above. Everyday the same, or everyday different–true for them, true for us as well.
We all have our fig tree. It is impossible to miss if we are aware of where we are in the moment, in the context of our lives–and there is no moment that is more or less worthy than the moment we are in, which is why we are in it.
So do not perseverate over the past, nor be anxious about the future. Tending your fig tree will open a release valve through which the Holy Spirit waters the world with joy and peace. I’ve seen it before.
I remember a parishioner named Barbara (Himmelman). She was really old and the longer I knew her the older she got. Anyway, along the way she lost her ability to walk, then her ability to hear, then her ability to see, then her control over her finances, and then what she could order for dinner. And along the way her fig tree changed: from family, to service, to philanthropy, to encouragement, to prayer, to eternity.
But before that last change took place, I would visit her in her room and (yell): “What are you up to?” even knowing that she’d been lying in that same position for months. And she’d whisper: “I’m praying.” And there was a joy. And there was a peace.
Just as Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening, so too did Barbara, as she lay upon her bed in front of her fig tree tending it with her prayers. Jesus’ invitation to us is to tend our fig tree as well, wherever it happens to be right now: Our work, our family, our philanthropy; the need to work for forgiveness, the call to be kind… In these ways we embody the hope of God, the radiance of God, the peace and joy of God.
And that is a light that produces a lightness of being, a hope they cannot be stolen by the hand of a tyrant or an accident that may happen. By tending our fig tree we will find that depression diminishes, anxiety dissipates and spitefulness flees.
Don’t miss the moment to be filled with joy and peace through the power of the Holy Spirit so that hope may fill your heart and abide in you; for this is our calling as a community…to be people of hope.
This is a place of hope, and your presence here in worship, giving thanks to God, is an act of rebellion. It says to the tyrant: you have no power over me. It says to the calamity: you have no power over me…because there is a God; a God who is greater, known incarnationally through the person of Jesus Christ and released upon the world by the power of the Holy Spirit.
To be a follower of Jesus is an act of rebellion against the hopelessness of the world. This is our calling at Epiphany to be a people of hope.