Luke 13:1-9
Repent or Perish
13 At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. 4 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 other people living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”
The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree
6 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. 7 So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘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?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”
Today, we’re turning to the Gospel message in this tryptic of verses this week mediating on suffering. Here, we get Jesus responding to the news of the death of Galileans at the hand of Pilate with a response that, like the God we were introduced to in Exodus, is unexpected and paradigm-shifting. Presumably, the implication of the fate of these Galileans is that they suffered and died for the sake of some wrong they committed – that Pilate acted here as an (unwitting) proxy for God in meting out justice.
But, Jesus rejects this framing.
Without ever getting into the specifics of their wrongdoings – which may have been manifest – Jesus rejects the idea that they suffered for their sins. “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” he asks his listeners.
The question answers itself: of course not.
God does not meet wrong doing with suffering like this, and God does not richly reward the holy for their good deeds. We are all subject to the power of death, regardless of birth or class or race or act. God, as we have learned, desires an end to suffering, but God is not a magician. God is not manipulating our actions and the world around us to punish the evil and reward the good. The good and the bad that happen just happen; the reward (or punishment) any of us receives is simply the natural reward of doing good, or evil. We are free people, with wills all our own, and we live in a rational and comprehendible world. God addresses suffering through our hands and feet, requiring us to respond in ways that reflect God’s own love and compassion and justice, and most importantly, with overflowing and abundant grace.
The parable Jesus tells here is one that makes that grace known to his hearers. Despite the wrong the fig tree has done – its repeated failures to do its duty and to produce fruit for the world – the gardener counsels grace to the landowner. Another year, he begs, much like Abraham begging God for just ten more holy ones in Sodom to ward off wrath.
This is grace at work; this is what Jesus wants for those who we are quick to condemn and judge. In the context of suffering, we see here the ultimate divine response to the suffering of the world – the radical extension of grace further and further, in ever widening circles to the world, not in spite of the suffering we experience, but as the only explicable response to it.
This is a passage that preaches.
In this part of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus provides the clearest debunking you can imagine of the linkage between sin and suffering. People don’t die, or get sick, or have setbacks, because they committed some terrible sin for which they must provide recompense. “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”, he asks his listeners. Of course not, is the implied answer here. Anything these poor people did in their life, good or bad, has no bearing on their fates, in this life or the next.
Grace, Jesus tells us, supersedes all we can do and be. This is what the story of the fig tree tells us. Whether or not we deserve condemnation or punishment for our sins – and, undeniably, we all do; we have all caused suffering, intended or not – all of us are recipients of grace, the freedom from eternal punishment for our inherited limitations as mortals.
How does suffering factor into this? God again is the great liberator, this time from the idea that we could ever be eternally separated from God’s love because of our failings. God eases the suffering of humanity by ensuring us of our goodness and our worthiness. Suffering does not represent our depravity, and does not define us.
Reflections
Where is grace at work in your life?
Do you wish God rewarded and punished in a more explicit way? Who do you feel deserves reward? Punishment?