Third Sunday in Lent

March 7, 2010

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Marcus Pera

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke. (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 the 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.’”

The Gospel of our Lord.

In the name of Jesus, sisters and brothers, grace, mercy, and peace be unto you. Amen.

What time is it? There are a whole lot of ways to respond to that question. Is it real time, or is it symbolic time? Is it time as it is, or is it time as metaphor? Is it time like 8:30 a.m. in the morning? Or is it time like the psalmist says, “My times are in your hands”?

There is a musical titled High School Musical 2, and it responds to the question, “What time is it?” And the refrain, I think it’s the second song, goes like this:

What time is it?

Summertime!

It’s our vacation.

What time is it?

Party time!

That’s right, say it loud.

What time is it?

Time of our lives. Anticipation.

What time is it?

Summertime!

School is out. Scream and shout.”

And if I were a graduating high-school senior at that point in time, I would resonate with that description quite well.

There is also an expression of time within scripture that is very well known, in the Book of Ecclesiastes: There is a time for everything, a time for every season under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

And it goes on and on.

I think there is also a response to the question “What time is it?” in the Gospel Lesson this morning. And that might seem kind of kind of strange, because there is no reference to time at all in it. But I think there is that kind of response there, and I hope by the end of the sermon you will agree with me and understand why I say that.

And staying with this imagery of time, the first point I want to make is, it’s also time for the evening news. If you live in any major metropolitan area—and we obviously do here—the evening news has some of the most distressing news that you can listen to. The first usually about five minutes are a rundown of everything tragic and complicated and whatever in life today: Another shooting on the North Side. A car that veered off and went into the next lane and killed two people. A fire, and the best they can assume is the person was smoking in bed and was not able to get out. Another abuse case, and the person is wounded and taken to the hospital. And it kind of goes on and on. And when we have all of those references to that kind of time, it’s very difficult to understand it. Also, at least from the standpoint of what is called random kind of killing, the random kind of killing that when, for example, somebody is simply driving by and does some shooting and it happens to hit an eight-year-old girl walking by, and we ask the question: Why in all the world does something like that happen? Why in all the world do those kinds of things take place and are allowed to take place?

One of the illustrations of that recently that hit a little bit closer to home is one that I referred to right after it happened, but I want to refer to it again. And that was Ben Larson and his friends, his wife, and also his cousin, fourth-year students at Wartburg Seminary, who landed in Haiti the day before the earthquake; were there to help with the development of the Lutheran Church in Haiti, were in this mission house when the earthquake hit. And Minnesota Public Radio interviewed the wife and cousin, obviously trying to get that as a news item; and obviously it made sense to try to interview them. She described how she heard and saw what happened. She ended up being close to where his cousin was. She looked back and saw him underneath an archway and some pillars. She thought, “Good idea, smart. I’m going to go and join him.” Then there’s another series of shocks and, of course, some more crumbling, and the concrete roof came down upon him. She, after that confusion, tried to make her way back to a little hole where it kind of led into that area. And what a beautiful witness, she heard him singing. She thinks the song was, “Where Charity and Love Prevail.” And then she heard a little bit more song—he was an accomplished singer, guitar player, and whatever, a writer of songs—and then, “May God’s peace be with you all,” he was singing. And then it went quiet, and evidently that was the point of his death. And the people asked, they asked because his mother was a Bishop in the La Crosse Area Synod and an ELCA pastor; his father an ELCA pastor, as well. These three fourth‑year seminarians, how do we answer this kind of thing? How do we make sense of it? How does it happen?

Well, those are the questions that continue to come. And it seems to me that there is a misunderstanding that so often is responded to in those kinds of situations, what I would call a wrong kind of theology. And it’s interesting that in each of the three lessons for today there is a possibility of offering words that simply are not good theology in that kind of situation.

In the first one, there at the end of the lesson, you recall it said, “My ways are not your ways and my thoughts are not your thoughts.” A lot of times that can be offered to someone who has experienced either some random loss or whatever; and if you think about it, offered in that kind of a way, what it is really suggesting is God’s thoughts were different, but God still had control of it and God still maybe caused it. That becomes some of the implication.

Or in the second lesson for today, which is a very difficult lesson from a lot of standpoints, but it ends with saying, “God will not test you beyond that which you are able.” And it’s interesting to hear it once again; there is comforting news in that from one standpoint. But if it is misapplied, it seems to suggest that God is the author of or issued whatever the person is experiencing and simply won’t let it go too far. And then God becomes an author of evil once again, or badness to people.

The third one is one in which Jesus responds to the situation, which could have been evening news as well. Here you have Galileans; and Pilate, when they are offering sacrifices, comes and kills a bunch people; just plain state murder; brutality on the part of leadership. And then what about the people of the tower of Siloam that fell; eighteen of them killed as well? And I suppose you were wondering, those people, were they not as good? Should they have repented more so? Were the others more offended? And Jesus answers with a straight word and simply says, “No.” But you can hear what comes afterwards in the wrong way as well, because he said, “Unless you also repent you, too, will perish,” almost giving an understanding or an implication that because they didn’t repent they were cut down and cut low.

Well, that isn’t the kind of message that I want to be leaving in any of these lessons today. I think a person who exemplifies this so very well was a former chaplain at Yale University, William Sloane Coffin. You maybe have heard of him. After he was finished at Yale, he went on to Riverside Church in New York; an extremely gifted person; gifted intellectually, gifted speaker, gifted preacher. And he has a son Anthony that was 26 years old at the time. They had written already a couple of books together.

And what happened is, Anthony was living in Boston, and one evening made his way back from New Haven to Boston. He got close to Boston, and it was raining, visibility bad. His car veered off into the Boston Harbor, and he was killed. It was as little as a week later, I think, a little over a week, that William Sloane Coffin entered the pulpit and preached, probably trying to make theological sense out of it some way himself. But he tells the story in the account of someone who came into the house, a woman—and he heard other similar messages—and she had, I think he said, 18 quiches to bring over. And then she said something about, “The will of God, I just don’t understand that.” And he came up to her and kind of lit into her, he said. And he said, “It isn’t God’s hands that pull the trigger. It isn’t God’s hands that go around the knife. It isn’t God’s hands that grasp the steering wheel.” And, “No.” Then he said, “When that car went into the Boston Harbor, God was the first one that wept.” God was the first one that wept. Yes, God is not the author. It is not the will of God that these kinds of things happen.

Well, let’s get back to my original question and point then and say, the Gospel Lesson for today says something about “what time it is.” Now is the time. Jesus isn’t beyond using this, and maybe we need to hear it in that kind of a way of using it as well. And that is, when you hear every night, or when you see, or when you experience these stories and situations and events, maybe it’s a good time to take a look at our own life and reflect on our own life, and look at our own walk, and see if we are walking as God’s baptized people. It is a kind of call to repentance, an ongoing one. Repentance, in Luke, has at least as one of the meanings, “to bring forth the fruits of repentance.” Luther said in the first of the 95 Theses, “When our Lord Jesus Christ said repent, he meant that the whole life of the Christian should be one of repentance.” The whole life should be, meaning that there should be fruits that can be seen as well.

And here’s where the parable comes in for today. Here you have the parable of the tree, and it is not bearing any fruit. And you have it growing the period of time, three years, when it should start being fruitful some years after that, and yet it isn’t bearing fruit. But the person says, “Don’t axe it down at this point, but let’s nurture it, let’s give it manure, let’s give it fertilizer, let’s do the kind of things in order that maybe perhaps it will begin to bear fruit.”

And the interesting thing about that is, it’s kind of saying that when we experience the good news and the goodness of the caretaker, it is then that something happens within, that begins to be able to lead to that kind of fruit bearing in a tree, in a person, and in a life.

I think there is no more beautiful expression of Gospel than is in the beginning of that Isaiah Chapter 55 that was read here. They almost ought to have a megaphone today to shout it out, when he says, “Ho.” “Ho, all you that are thirsty come and get water. Come to the water. Those of you who are hungry, those of you who are thirsty and have no money, come, buy and eat without money. Come, get milk and get wine, without money and without price.”

What if we advertised every Sunday “Free meal here, no cost, no price.” Wouldn’t it make sense that people would come through the doors to see what it was all about?

I am kind of reminded of the commercial of National Car Rental. I’m always intrigued by this one with John McEnroe—and you have probably seen it—and he is stomping through. And he says, “National Car Rental. You can have any car in this row.” And he over-responds, and he said, “What do you mean? All are free, any car in this row?” And the guy smiles and he says, “Any car.” And John says, “Oh,” and walks off and grabs one of them.

Come, buy without money and without price. The table is set. The invitation is there. The time is now. The transforming goodness of God is present, to enter our lives and to transform us in order that we might be fruit-bearing people.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.