Third Sunday in Lent; 20 March 2022; Lent 3C (RCL); Exodus 3:1-15; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9.
I have always been puzzled (and remain so) by the first verses of this Gospel reading. The commentators point out the assumed connection between catastrophe and sin: sin brings down God’s judgment in the form of disaster. So, read the other way, disaster must imply God’s judgment; ergo a person must have sinned.
But, the Book of Job addressed that problem, and called into question the standard equation. But, why would Jesus jump directly from a report of Pilate’s evil act to the need for all of us to repent? There is no evidence in the text that those who reported the death of the Galileans at the hand of Pilate in the very act of offering sacrifice raised the question of the moral status of those Galileans. Why would Luke have Jesus do so?
It is a perennial question: why do the righteous suffer? But, here Jesus seems to imply that we can escape suffering by repenting: unless you repent, you will perish just as they did, or as those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell. Does that mean if we do repent, we won’t perish? Not a happy thought.
And the connection to the parable of the fig tree doesn’t help much. If we bear fruit, we won’t be cut down. The only credit I can give Luke here is that least he doesn’t have Jesus curse the fig tree. In Mark’s Gospel, on his way into Jerusalem, Jesus passes a fig tree without any fruit (and it wasn’t even the season), and cursed it. In Jerusalem, he caused a riot in the Temple, driving out the sellers of animals and overturning the bankers tables. On the way out of Jerusalem, his disciples saw that the fit tree had withered. Mark is making clear that Temple worship is no longer fruitful (the fig tree as a metaphor for Israel).
Here, the owner of the vineyard wants the tree cut down, but the gardener forestalls him. In Luke’s Gospel, John the Baptist tells the crowds to bear fruit worthy of repentance — or else. We have the same message here. The only difference is that the gardener will dig manure around our roots and give us a year’s reprieve.
I suppose we might say, Do you think those Ukrainians are worse sinners than anyone else? Don’t think you’re any better than them. The same thing could happen to you. Bear fruit worthy of repentance to avoid that fate. I’m not sure that is what we need to hear at the moment.
Instead, Moses’ encounter with God at the bush is more hopeful. God says, I have observed the misery of my people. My frustration is that God doesn’t just smite the Egyptian and be done with the suffering. Instead, he appoints Moses to go confront Pharaoh and lead the people out of Egypt. And then leads them around the wilderness for forty years! And then we have all that sordid history of the Judges and the monarchy. God may have observed the misery of God’s people, but we don’t do very well at alleviating it. Unless you repent, you will also perish, and perhaps even if you do. We need to be tending the fig tree of God’s righteousness.