A sermon preached on March 24th, 2019 based upon Luke 13:1-9
This past week, the ordeal I have been going through that has led to my suing Wells
Fargo and the State Police hit the news. The reporter from the Daily Record asked me,
“Have you preached on this yet?” I told him that I hadn’t, but this morning I will.
(In this part of the sermon I reviewed what I have been through with my false arrest
when Wells Fargo provided the State Police with ATM photos of me making legitimate
deposits in their request for photos of someone who made fraudulent check deposits on
the same day. It’s complicated, and for detail I invite you to go to my Facebook page
where I have posted articles about what happened, as well as a summary of what took
place.)
My lawyer encouraged me to get the story of what happened to me out in the press as a
way to bring public pressure on Wells Fargo and the State Police regarding their
irresponsible actions. He connected me with a Star Ledger reporter who wrote the first
article. The reporter commented that what I had been through must have been a “test
of my faith.” I responded that no, I hadn’t seen it this way. Rather I was inclined to see
my ordeal as an opportunity to serve God by getting some light shone in some dark
places.
The reporter didn’t include my response in his article. He preferred his “test of faith”
angle, and included the notion that this must have been that for me.
Which brings us to this morning’s Gospel story. Jesus is headed to Jerusalem where
he knows he will lay down his life in love for all people. People are talking about a
horrible injustice that has recently occurred: Some Galilean pilgrims to Jerusalem were
slaughtered by Pilate’s soldiers while they doing what the Torah commanded them to do
– offering sacrifices in the Temple.
In large portions of the Old Testament there is this understanding that if we keep faith
with God and do right God will reward us with a happy and prosperous life, and if we fail
to keep faith and do wrong God will punish us in this life. People are wondering how
this applies to the Galileans who got slaughtered.
“That’s a bunch of crap!” I paraphrase, but Jesus vehemently rejected the notion that
the Galileans must have done something bad for which they were being punished. The
lives they lived were no worse than anybody’s else’s.
The interesting thing to me is that the reporter’s question regarding whether my recent
experience had been a test of my faith was coming from the same place. Hey, as a
pastor whose devoted his life to trying to serve God and doing good, you must feel let
down by God that allowed you to go through this.
If this is what my Christian faith has been about, then even though I haven’t been
passing fraudulent checks, I have been passing a fraudulent faith. How could I believe
such a thing when I’ve known plenty of people who have suffered far worse things than
what I’ve been through recently.
Bad things don’t happen to us because God is punishing me.
In the Gospel story, Jesus goes on to bring up another terribly tragic event. This one not
regarding injustice – rather, it’s one of those instances where people happened to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time. I tower collapsed in Jerusalem and 18 people died
as a result. No, says Jesus, this has nothing to do with God punishing anybody.
The same is true when somebody gets a diagnosis of cancer or has a loved one die in a
car crash.
Bad things happen in life. There is a mystery as to why these happened, but one thing
is sure: it is not about God punishing people.
Sometimes if we wait long enough, we begin to see good things come out of bad things
that happen. For me, this didn’t take that long. It provided opportunity for me to
recognize how blessed I am to have a family and a congregation that love and support
me.
And, as I said to the reporter, it has provided me with an opportunity to shed some light
in dark places because there are a lot of people who are less fortunate than myself –
people without the capacity to hire a competent lawyer and people who have had
previous arrests – who in my same situation could easily have been pressured into
taking a plea bargain in spite of their innocence because the prospect of getting
convicted was too real and too dangerous. If by calling attention to what happened to
me I can make it slightly less likely for Wells Fargo and the State Police to allow
something like this to happen in the future – well, that would be a good thing.
In referencing both of the bad things that had happened recently in his day, Jesus goes
on to call all people to “repent.” We tend to grossly misunderstand what it means to
repent. It is not about feeling miserable about yourself for being a sinner. The Greek
word for repentance means to change your mind – that is, to stop seeing life the way
the world has trained us to see it, and instead to see it as God sees it. Specifically, to
see it less through the lens of our tiny little ego and see it instead as undergirded by
God’s great love that knits us all together.
That’s the change that needs to take place in all of us.
Jesus proceeds directly to tell a short parable. There are three characters in the
parable, assuming a fig tree is a character. A vineyard owner discovers that a fig tree
he had planted hasn’t produced any figs. He is angry and wants to have it chopped
down right then and there. Why should it take up space? His gardener counsels the
vineyard owner to have patience. He offers to loosen up the soil and to add to the soil a
bunch of mineral rich donkey poop (manure). Give the fig tree some time and see
whether it starts producing figs.
What does it mean? Well the first thing to say is that parables don’t have a single
meaning; they invite us inside and we can hear different things at different times.
A common interpretation of this parable is to turn into an allegory: The vineyard owner
is “God the Father” and the gardener is “God the Son.” Two thirds of the trinity are
having a disagreement. Maybe we need the Holy Spirit to give an opinion and break
the tie.
That’s nonsense, of course. As Jesus says in John’s Gospel, “the Father and I are
one.” They don’t have disagreements. Jesus reveals the heart of God.
Perhaps a more helpful way to approach the parable is to see the vineyard owner as
being who we often want God to be. Be that God that much of the Old Testament tells
us you are. Chop down the bad people who make life so hard at times for the rest of
us! Reward the good people! Make life fair!
Whether this would actually be good news or bad news to have God act like this
depends upon whether we identify with the fig tree. As long as we can comfortably say
we’re not the fig-less fig tree than maybe that would be good news.
But with a little personal reflection, I think most of us can recognize something of the fig-
less fig tree in ourselves. A great deal of the time we are stuck in that ego-centered
view of life in which everything ultimately revolves around ourselves. If we were created
in order to be a vessel of God’s love, how often can we confidently say we have been
that?
Not so much, I suspect.
So when we begin to recognize ourselves in the fig-less fig tree then the words of the
gardener begin to express some good news of patience, mercy and grace.
I marvel at the way the words of the gardener hold together in tension two qualities. On
the one hand, there is some accountability implied in the gardener’s words. Sooner or
later the fig tree has got to get it’s act together and start producing figs. And yet the fig
tree needs help – it needs grace. That’s what the gardener is offering to provide in
loosening the soil and adding donkey poop. Donkey poop is grace.
I came across this essay written by a columnist named David Cook entitled, “The Two
Lives of Tyler Moore.” He describes a 28 year old African-American man named Tyler
Moore who he got to know in his city of Chatanooga. At the age of 14 without a mother
or father Tyler joined a gang. By 18 he was in prison serving a four year term where the
rage that lived inside him just deepened. He was released from prison at 22 and
returning to his neighborhood with the same rage he was back in prison six months later
where he served another two years.
It was then, as Tyler put it, he woke up. The guards moved him in with an older, wiser
inmate who managed to pierce Tyler’s illusions. “This old guy tells me, ‘You can be
angry at the world or you can get your mind right.’” Taking this to heart, Tyler’s
awakening began. He read a thousand books in prison. He spent a lot of time
meditating and praying each day in his cell. “You have God and the devil residing in
yourself,” he said. “It’s up to you who you choose.”
Since being released from prison four years ago Tyler has been on a mission. With the
help of someone willing to give him a chance he secured jobs to support himself with –
something that can often be very difficult for a felon.
“I preach accountability,” he says to both Black and White folk. Everybody has a role.
“Don’t blame,” Tyler says. “Only see solutions. Always practice love.”
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The author of the column concludes: “There are many types of prison; you and I may be free to come and go as we please, but if we are locked in habitual mental |
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patterns of destruction and negativity, then we are not free at all. “There is no life beyond repair.” I am struck in the story of Tyler there is that same mixture of accountability and grace. It was grace that placed Tyler in that cell with the older, wiser man who could challenge his illusions and mentor him. It was grace in finding someone willing to give Tyler a steady job when his incarceration ended. But he had to choose to respond to the grace – he had to take responsibility. So must we all. |
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will respond to it. When grace appears, will we welcome it? If there is an opportunity to bring some good out of what is clearly bad, will we take it? |