Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Luke 13:1-9
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  March 24, 2019

People haven’t changed much over the two thousand years since the death and resurrection of Jesus.  People, then, as now, avidly discuss the latest news of death and destruction and try to understand its significance.  Today we talk about shooting sprees and human trafficking. Back then toppling towers and military murders were on people’s minds. We do not know precisely what tragedy is referred to in today’s Gospel lesson, all we know is that several Galileans were killed near the temple by Pilate’s soldiers as they offered sacrifices to God. Nor do we know much about the collapse of that tower in Siloam, other than that eighteen people died. All we know for sure is that then, as now, tragedy struck and people were left trying to make sense of the senseless.

Whenever bad things happen, whenever senseless things happen, the human instinct is to try to make sense of it. We ask, “Why?” Why did my mom die early? Why was our child taken from us? Why did God allow me to get cancer? Why did that car have to be there? We all want to know why certain things occur, and that can sometimes be a good thing. For example, when buildings collapse, like the tower in Siloam, investigations are done to find out why it fell so that changes can be made and such things prevented in the future. Generally speaking, wanting to know why is not a bad thing, but sometimes “Why?” can lead us astray.

Luke 13 is an example of just that: “At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. It is apparent that, whether by word or by implication, those who came to speak with Jesus thought that the murdered Galileans somehow, on some level, must have deserved to die. Because Jesus sets them straight, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? I tell you, no…Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no.”  Jesus tells them that they can’t make sense of the senseless by blaming others. Such conclusions be they about dead Galileans or about car accidents or cancer, are not Biblical or even reasonable. Bad things don’t only happen to faithless people. Read the book of Job and you’ll find that the very reason that the Devil afflicted him was because he was so faithful. Now, does that mean that we should then assume that everyone who hasn’t been affected by tragedy is faithless? No, none of these conclusions stand up to the first level of scrutiny.

But we like to find answers, not necessarily because they always add up, but because it makes us feel safer. We love to study correlations. We think about the culpability of people who hang around the wrong places and then end up as victims, statistics are published on the connection between school shootings and institutions which encourage bullying, we look at the sometimes predictable downfall of celebrities who live life too fast and too wild—we focus on these things, in part, to return to the delusion that it couldn’t happen to us. We focus on these correlations because then we can avoid considering ultimate consequences and the changes that should take place in our lives. We cannot make sense of the senseless by blaming the victims, or by implying that somehow they had it coming. In Jesus’ eyes, the truly senseless tragedy is that his people could ever think like this.  

Jesus, instead, teaches that there is only one response which makes sense in these situations. He said it twice in our lesson today, “But unless you repent, you will all perish too.”  In other words: Even if we can’t make sense of the senseless, Repentance makes sense.

This call to repentance may seem strange to us, because we usually think of repentance as asking for forgiveness for our own sins. But Jesus is talking about repentance more broadly. Don’t just repent when you mess up, Jesus says. Repent when any bad thing happens. As crazy as it may sound, Jesus teaches us to repent of things in which we aren’t even guilty. Repentance, in this broad sense, becomes more than just a response to guilt. It becomes our way of life. The first of the 95 theses Martin Luther nailed to the Castle Church door comes to mind: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Repentance in this sense is not a transaction with God for the temporary relief of guilt. Repentance is a turning away from anything that is not right in this world, and turning toward the one who can make all things right. It is a constant and consistent return to our God of mercy. Jesus teaches us to turn to God and ask for mercy anytime we realize the effect of sin, whether it be in us, in others, or in this sinful world where tragedy is known to strike.

Do you know what was one of the best attended Sundays in the recent history of American churches? It wasn’t an Easter Morning or a Christmas Eve. It was September 16, 2001, the Sunday after 9/11 when two towers fell killing not just 18 but thousands. Pretty much everyone came to church that weekend. That is the fruit of repentance in the broad sense. The real kind that makes you hug your wife and kids because you know it could just as easily have been you on those planes or in those towers. The kind that results from asking, “If it had been me, would I have been ready to meet my Maker?” Repentance isn’t about Karma or any other explanations we reach for in order to try to get back to normal as soon as possible. Repentance is a turning to God in honest consideration of his mercy and your own mortality.

As Jesus said, “Unless you repent, you will perish too.” The fact of the matter is, that whether it is today or 50 years from now, whether tragedy strikes tomorrow or old age catches up with us, the wages of sin is death. In fact, Jesus is using the physical fate of those tragic victims as symbolic of the spiritual fate of unrepentant sinners. “Unless you repent, you will perish too,” does not mean that if we repent we will never die physically, it means that we need to repent or else we will perish eternally. So on our final day, it will be clear that the question we should be asking now isn’t whether or not someone else’s death make sense, or whether or not they deserved their death at the time or in the manner it came to them. It will be clear, on our last day, that the question we should have been asking all along is whether or not our lives make sense. Are our lives bearing fruit for God out of gratitude for the grace given us? Are we living in true faith?

Which brings me to Jesus’ parable about a fruitless fig tree: “He told them this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it, but he did not find any. So he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?’  But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.’” A fruitless tree would be a problem for any vineyard owner, but a fruitless fig tree in a Middle Eastern vineyard is especially bad. These days we have drip irrigation and plenty of water, but in that arid land the tree would take large amounts of scarce water and absorb precious nutrients at the expense of the other plants in the vineyard. So, what would you do in a situation like this? If you have any sense, you’d say the same thing the vineyard owner said, “Cut it down! Why even let it use up the soil?”(Luke 13:7). The meaning of this parable is at first quite terrifying. When God, our great vineyard owner returns for us, he’s not going to ask if we identify as a Christian or if we belonged to a certain church. He’s going to check our branches, and he’s either going to see fruit or he is going to chop wood.

But thankfully this is not the end of Jesus’ parable. The gardener intercedes, saying that he will fertilize and dig around the tree to see if it will bear fruit. And although nothing further is said, we assume the owner allowed this mercy. The fig tree is given a temporary grace-period, instead of its due destruction. I love this parable because of the one who tells is.  Isn’t this what Jesus did for you and me? He took the ultimate consequence of all sin and died the death we deserved. He stepped in front of God’s ax at the cost of his own life on the cross so that we could be given grace. And our risen Savior now comes to us with an urgent message of love: “Repent, turn to me and I will give you my life! You can have my fruit and I will save you! Whoever believes in me shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Talk about making sense of the senseless; how can you explain this love which Jesus has shown to us? Jesus says, “Repent and I will never let anyone cut you down. I will work in you to produce the fruit which God desires.”

Think of it this way: This spring I’m going to try and grow some grass in the wilderness that I call a “backyard”. I’m going to sink a shovel into the cold compacted ground, wiggle it back and forth a bit and then push the handle down in order to turn some dirt over. The gardeners with us right now can probably already smell what I’m talking about. I’m going to do this because you can’t just toss seeds on hard ground and expect something to grow. You’ve got to break the dirt up, you’ve got the turn the ground over and rake it thoroughly. After this winter there’s going to be all sorts of debris and dead stuff that will need to be removed so the seed can take root. You need to loosen up the soil so that the roots can get the air and water they need to grow. The same is true of us spiritually. Over time the human heart can get hard and cold, just living in this world and from all sorts of other influences and worldly ideas that seem to seep into it without our noticing. But when we repent, the Lord unearths the sinful attitudes and mindsets that crop up. With loving care Jesus, our Divine Gardener, wants to work the soil and prepare the way for the message of the gospel, so that we receive it, so that we drink deeply of his forgiveness, so that we are warmed by the sunlight of his love, and ultimately so that we grow healthy  spiritual fruit to God’s glory.

Do you realize that’s exactly what he’s trying to do whenever we hear about a shooting in New Zealand or Galileans slain in the temple courts? Could this be a partial explanation as to why that tower fell on those eighteen people so long ago? Could this be a partial explanation to so many of the terrible things that happen in this world, or at the very least the one good thing God is constantly seeking to work out of the senseless tragedies sin causes in his world? The Divine Gardener digs with such things to soften up hearts in the hope that his love for them will finally sink in and they will finally repent and grow as they should to eternal life in Jesus’ name.

My friends, the next time you watch the news don’t just block out yet another story of a senseless shooting or a child abduction, and definitely don’t dismiss it with some commonly-held but mistaken notion about why it would never happen to you or your kids. We hear tragic news all the time and it is easy to grow numb, but we must not for there is a greater purpose. Even if you can’t make sense of the senseless, Jesus has taught us the only response which makes sense. Live a life of repentance. Turn to our God of mercy and find peace and hope. Pray on behalf of individuals and their families, and ask God to empower you to help them as you are able. May the Spirit produce faithful fruit in your life and may you rejoice in the senseless love of Christ.

Amen.