How Patient Is God?

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.’”

I don’t know about you but I don’t like scary movies. I know there is a long history of classic horror films going back almost to the beginning of cinema with such great actors as Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931), Claude Rains in Phantom of the Opera (1943), Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932), and Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolf Man (1941). Of course, one of the scariest movies ever made was Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho in 1960 and some of us of a certain age still haven’t recovered from seeing that when we were teenagers. The tradition of scary movies has continued, of course, with the likes of the Freddy Krueger films which began in 1984 with Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street.

There are lots of others and many imitators. It seems like a new horror film comes out every month or so. Some are reasonably well done in terms of production values and others are purely exploitive and silly. But I don’t like any of them nor do I go to them, watch them on late night TV, or rent them. I guess real life is scary enough for me.

But today’s text has a little bit of the scary-movie feel to it. Part of what makes scary movies scary is that you never feel safe. The monster or the bad guy or the evil may appear to have been vanquished but you know it’s going to get bad again. You can tell by the music and the lighting. And that’s the way this text works.

It begins when some people ask Jesus what he thought of a recent story they saw on the evening news. Some Galilean Jews who were offering their sacrifices at the temple in Jerusalem were killed upon orders of the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate. We don’t know any other details about the tragedy except that its gruesomeness fits what we know about Pilate. Out of cruelty he not only ordered the murder of these religious pilgrims but had their blood mingled with the blood of the sacrifices they were offering. It was more than murder. It was a hate crime against Jewish religion.

Quite curiously Jesus didn’t care to talk about the tragedy nor did he affix blame or criticize Pilate. Our sympathies might be aroused by this horrifying religious persecution. We certainly see enough of this sort of thing in our own evening newscasts and morning papers, whether in Iraq or Darfur or the Congo. We can get all churned up talking about such things and assessing blame. But Jesus wasn’t interested in discussing it.

In fact, he brought up another tragedy that happened awhile before. Some kind of tower near Siloam, near the pool in Jerusalem by the same name, fell down and 18 people were killed. It was the kind of senseless accident that we see all the time in the news. People love to talk about why bad things happen to good people but Jesus would not be drawn into such speculation.

So here was one tragedy caused by human evil and another tragedy caused by so-called natural evil and Jesus wasn’t interested in idle discussions about other people’s sufferings or deaths. Those who asked Jesus about these things assumed that calamities and suffering were evidence of God’s judgment on sinful behavior. Almost everyone thinks this way. We do. When bad things happen to us, we think and perhaps even say, “What have I done to deserve this?” And when bad things happen to other people we tend to think and perhaps even say, “They got what they deserve.” And how often have we heard and perhaps even said that we shouldn’t help people who suffer or the government shouldn’t help people who suffer because they made bad choices and they just have to live with the consequences of their choices.

Jesus pushed a question back to his questioners: “Do you think these people suffered because they were worse sinners than others?” The implied answer, of course, is “No!” and he goes on immediately to say, “You better repent while you still have time.”

Then he ups the ante even more. He tells a parable of a barren fig tree and the owner wants it cut down. Not only is it unfruitful but it wastes the soil where another tree could grow and produce good fruit. Clearly it’s a parable about God’s judgment and this is the scary-movie aspect of it. If human evil doesn’t get you like Pilate’s cruelty got the Galileans, and if natural evil doesn’t get you like the 18 people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time when the tower fell on them, then you’re still going to face God’s judgment. Just like a scary movie, you’re never safe.

It reminds me of a verse from the prophet Amos where a man escapes from a lion only to be met by a bear, and when he escapes from the bear and thinks himself safe in his own home, he rests his hand against the wall and is bitten by a snake hiding there.[1] If people don’t get you and if the hazards of the natural world leave you untouched, the judgment of God still awaits.[2] So you better repent. This seems like a very scary-movie kind of text.

We don’t like to hear Jesus talk this way. Many of us come into this room on Sunday mornings weighed down by burdens and guilt and perhaps even fear and this word from Jesus sounds harsh and unforgiving. But I agree with one preacher who said this text challenges because we have sentimentalized Jesus so much. He is just our good friend, our good buddy, our therapist who always affirms and never criticizes, who always blesses and never curses. And yet today’s text presents us with an unsettling, judgmental Lord.[3] What do we do with such a scary movie kind of text? I think we take it seriously and we also look for its grace, because there is grace even in a severe text. In fact, there are two kinds of grace here.

First, there is grace when Jesus challenges the assumption of a one-to-one correlation of suffering and sin. Even many faithful Christians automatically consider any significant setback and especially any serious illness as evidence that God is punishing them. But by not speculating on the cause of suffering, Jesus says “no” to that way of thinking. He also says “no” to a false sense of security. If things are going well for us right now, it doesn’t mean that we are living the godly lives Christ expects of us.

In other words, we cannot tell from what happens if someone is or isn’t right with God. We assume a quid pro quo system of divine reward and punishment. We assume that people get what they deserve. We like to think this way when things are going well for us because it suits us to think that we deserve what we have. We don’t like thinking this way when things go bad for us. We tend to feel then what have I done to deserve this? Or we act like God has it in for us.

Jesus is saying we can’t make calculations like this and this is grace, my friends. It is grace because it makes us examine our lives. How is it with us and the Lord? Circumstances, whether good or bad, don’t tell us and all of us need to grow in our discipleship. That’s why we repent. Repentance is less about being sorry for our sins and mistakes or trying to be good so bad things won’t happen to us. Jesus calls us to repent so that we turn away from living for ourselves in order to live for God. We all have room to grow in that.

The tragedies in the text have in common that they both happened quite suddenly. Without warning, worshipers in Jerusalem were overcome by the cruelty of an evil ruler. Without warning, a tower collapsed on people going about their daily business near the old city wall in Jerusalem. The suffering was sudden and unexpected and no chance of repentance remained for them.[4] So it’s grace to hear a call to turn to God now while we have a chance.[5]

The second kind of grace is the promise of the Lord’s help. Think back to the parable of the fig tree. A three-year-old fig tree was mature and if it had not produced figs yet it was not likely to do so. So the owner naturally wanted to cut it down. There was no hope for it. But the parable indicates there is always hope. The gardener said, “Let’s wait a year. Let’s pack some manure around it to see what can happen.” In other words, it was an act of extraordinary grace to extend for another year. But there is hope because God is abidingly patient. The call for repentance is not to make us fear God like a scary movie where we never feel safe. Repentance calls us to live now in the light of God’s patient grace.

I ran across an example of this repentant life last week in Philip Yancey’s new book on prayer, a book I’m enjoying a lot. He writes about a Catholic Worker soup kitchen in Los Angeles where the day’s work begins with this prayer: “Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our brothers and sisters who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give to them through our hands this day their daily bread and, by our understanding love, give peace and joy.”

One volunteer said that often this initial prayer does not suffice: “No sooner are these words out of our mouths than the vigorous chopping of vegetables for the soup and salad begins, as we prepare for the thousand-plus meals we will serve in a few hours. As a result, sometimes I get all caught up in the heavy responsibility of our task, and I have to take a step back to repeat the words of the prayer again. And then I remember, ‘Oh yes, I’m not in charge. God is. Somehow, there will be enough food; somehow, there will be enough time to prepare it; and somehow, there will be enough volunteers to serve it. Somehow, we will get through the day.’”

Yancey discovered that during the food preparation, one person volunteers to go off and pray for an hour. The crew insists on this practice even though the extra pair of hands could be chopping vegetables or making coffee. They want it to be God’s work, not theirs. They believe that by eliminating the time for prayer they would be giving in to the workaholism of our culture. In addition, one morning a week the entire community gathers for a half hour of meditative prayer. Yancey concluded, “For activists on the front lines, prayer serves as part oasis and part emergency room.”[6]

That’s the repentant life. It’s less about sin and more about connecting our lives intentionally each day to God.

I searched and searched for the right ending to this sermon and yesterday I found a story about a young woman named Sharon Carr who was a student at Emory University in the 1980s.[7] I don’t know if this is the right conclusion but it spoke to me.

Sharon was dying of brain cancer. In fact, she did die before her 23rd birthday. When it became obvious that she would not live to see graduation, one of the deans from the university and one of the professors drove to Augusta where she lived with her parents, to see her and to present her with a real Emory diploma. It wasn’t simply a matter of pity, although pity was enough. But Sharon had written some of the most sensitive and faith-laden poems that any of them had ever read. Dr. Floyd Watkins, who published Sharon’s poetry posthumously, said, “In 39 years of teaching [literature] at Emory, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Such poems, such religious poems, such marvelous poems! And through her poetry, she was able to talk to God and to talk to others about her surgeries and scars and her doubts and fears. Sharon wrote:

“It was a small voice, insistent, exonerating, sensitive, and unflinching. It pulsed at the base of my neck, in that cavity between spine and brainstem. ‘Sharon,’ the little voice said, ‘the dying time has begun.’

“I know you are here, Immanuel, for every once in a while the red tide recedes and the light of your smile shines blue. … You came to me in my loneliness in the cross of your son.

“My body is trembling. Rottenness seethes in my bones and the flock is cut off from the fold. The scars across my head are stinging as thy wrath against the rivers, and I’m weary of being a rag doll amidst beauty, stitched together because she fell apart.

“I’m waiting for the day of trouble, the day when my puppet parts no longer have to be prodded and I can dance with you. The fig tree hath no blossom, Lord. And the final fruit has fallen from the vine. Only the rag doll has reason to rejoice, for there will be dancing upon the high places.”[8]

So Sharon, dying of cancer, envisioned dancing upon the high places with the Lord.

Even though she suffered greatly, even thought she died far too young, she filled her life with God. That’s what we are called to do and it is a gracious call that is also, at times, serious and somber because life, at times, is serious and somber. But life with God is not a scary movie. For we are safe. The Gardener is with us. How we respond to grace will be different for each one of us. But the day to respond is now.

[1] Amos 5.18-20: “Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light; as if someone fled from a lion, and was met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?”

[2] Roger E. Van Harn, ed., The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, The Third Readings (The Gospels) (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2001) 391.

[3] William H. Willimon, “Jesus the Judge,” Pulpit Resource 35.1 (2007): 42.

[4] Charles B. Cousar, Beverly R. Gaventa, J. Clinton McCann, Jr., James D. Newsome, Texts For Preaching, Year C (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, 1994) 217.

[5] Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, trans. and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. IV (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1967) 1001, 1002. “In the teaching of Jesus according to the Synoptists metanoeite is again the imperative which is indissolubly bound up with the indicative of the message of the basileia.” “In the preaching of Jesus faith grows out of conversion …, not as a second thing which He requires, but as the development of the positive side of metanoia, the turning to God.” Kittel’s discussion of repentance notes “its pitiless severity” but concludes that “the message of Jesus concerning metanoia does not drive us to the torture of penitential works or to despair. It awakens joyous obedience for a life according to God’s will. This is because metanoia here is no longer Law, as in Judaism, but Gospel.”

[6] Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006) 128.

[7] Sharon Michelle Carr, 1967-1990, was born in Fayetteville, NC on March 27, 1967, and was diagnosed with brain cancer in 1984. In 1985 she enrolled in Emory University as an undergraduate but had to withdraw in 1987 when her condition worsened. With the help of Dr. Floyd C. Watkins, Charles Candler Professor of American Literature at Emory, Sharon Carr’s poetry was published posthumously in 1991 under the title, Yet Life Was A Triumph: Poems and Meditations. Carr, Sharon Michelle, online, http://marbl.library.emory.edu/Guides/guides-lit.html, Internet, 9 Mar. 2007.

[8] W. Hamp Watson, Jr., “What Right Have You To Be Merry?” Glenwood Hills United Methodist Church, Macon, GA, online, www.sermonconnection.com, Internet, 9 Mar. 2007.