Untitled Sermon (3)

Introduction and Text

Before we dive into our scripture passage for today, I want to help us get oriented. For the last few weeks, we have been jumping around int the story and so it is easy to not know what is happening in the bigger story Luke has been telling. Two weeks ago we went back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and his temptation in the wilderness. Last week, we jumped ahead to the transfiguration.

After the transfiguration, when the glory of Jesus was revealed to Peter, James, and John, we are told in Luke 9:51 that Jesus set our resolutely to Jerusalem because the time for Jesus to be taken up to heaven was drawing near. Later, near the end of chapter 13, we learn King Herod the Tetrarch was trying to kill Jesus in Galilee and in our text this morning, people come to Jesus to warn him Pilate is killing Galileans in Jerusalem. There is no safe place for Jesus anymore. The tension is palpable. The danger is clear.

As we approach the word of God let us pray for his blessing on its reading.

Lord God, help us to know your ways; teach us your paths. Lead us in your truth, and teach us, for you are the God of our salvation; for you we wait all day long. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Luke 13:1–9 NIV

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ ”

L: This is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!

P: Praise to you, O Christ!

False Idols

When you read the Bible, do you ever wis you could see a newspaper from the day in question? I feel that with our text today. What happened that led Pilate to kill the Jews worshipping God in the temple? What is this tower of Siloam and why did it fall?

Neither of these stories, what little we know of them, are particularly surprising. Pilate was a brutal leader and would have had no problem killing some Jews in the middle of the temple if he thought there was any chance of a riot. One time, Pilate took money from the Temple and used it to build an aqueduct in the city (perhaps this is project could be tied to the Tower of Siloam which would have been built near the pool of Siloam). When the Jewish people found out and protested, Pilate sent in the troops and massacred the protestors. Pilate met any sort of rebellion or protest with brutal overwhelming force.

So maybe there is a way to make sense of these two stories. The first story is obviously about religious pilgrims from Galilee going to worship in the Temple. Something happened in the worship, maybe it was some boisterous singing about the greatness of the Jewish people and their God, maybe it was a story retelling how God delivered them from the oppressor Egypt and he could do it again. Whatever happened, Pilate saw it as a threat and sent soldiers into the temple where they murdered these Jewish believers and their blood spilled in the temple mingling with the blood of the sacrifices.

Galilee was one of the centers of religious and nationalistic fervor among the Jews. Many there longed to overthrow Rome and re-establish God’s kingdom on earth again. Less than a days walk from Capernaum was the fortress city of Gamla, fortified and armed by the people preparing to rebel against Rome. There were many Jewish nationalists in Galilee, 2 followed Jesus, Judas Iscariot and Simon the Zealot were both revolutionaries who favored war with Rome before following Jesus.

Jesus says to the crowds, do you think you are any better than these zealots? Is your sin any less? You better repent or you will face the same brutal death.

It never seems to end well when people mix their religious beliefs with their national pride.

CS Lewis, the author of the delightful children’s books the Chronicles of Narnia, was also a skilled defender of the faith and thinker. He famously said that patriotism, that love of home and family that extends to love for our country should lead us to appreciate that other people experience this same love for their family, home, and country. Just as we feel pride in our country, so does a Mexican citizen or someone from China or France.

In his brilliant short book The Four Loves, he highlights 4 steps to an idolatrous nationalism. First there is a healthy patriotism. But then added to that patriotism is a refusal to acknowledge the sins or mistakes of our nation’s past. Every mistake is washed away or denied and instead the nation is viewed as holy and without blemish. Which creates the third belief that ones nation is somehow superior and better than all the other nations of the world. If those three ingredients are mixed together, we come to the obvious conclusion that our nation has an obligation to the rest of the world, to right the wrongs, to police other countries, to civilize the savages.

CS Lewis wisely wrote these words about his own country’s dance with nationalism when he said:

If our nation is really so much better than others it may be held to have either the duties or the rights of a superior being towards them. In the nineteenth century the English became very conscious of such duties: the "whit man's burden." What we called natives were our wards and we their self-appointed guardians...our habit of talking as if England's motives for acquiring an empire...had been mainly altruistic nauseated the world. And yet this showed the sense of superiority working at its best. Some nations who have also felt it have stressed the rights not the duties. To them, some foreigners were so bad that one had the right to exterminate them. Others, fitted only to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the chosen people, had better be made to get on with their hewing and drawing...And both [sentiments] have about them this sure mark of evil: only by being terrible do they avoid being comic (TFL, 27).

Nationalism is dangerous, this undo pride in our nation, but it becomes deeply toxic to our faith and world when religious faith is twisted and used to support this nationalistic pride. It becomes an idolatrous faith that blurs together God and country. This is the sin of the zealots of Jesus day. It is a struggle for many yet today.

We saw this just two weeks ago today as the head of the Russian Orthodox church blessed the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a spiritual war for the soul of the Ukrainian people. The whole rest of the Orthodox church, Catholic church, and numerous protestant denominations have condemned the invasion as immoral and wrong, but the Russian church blesses the violence and war as somehow saving the Ukrainian people from the sins of the western world. The amazing thing to me is that he preached this sermon blessing a war on a Sunday set aside to emphasize the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation as followers of Christ.

We saw this same struggle in Germany in the 1930s when the German Lutheran church was so focused on being good Germans that almost all of them supported and blessed the Nazis. Almost none stood up and said this wrong as the disabled, the Romas, and the Jews were taken away. Being a good Christian meant being a good German.

And again in Serbia as Orthodox Christians committed atrocities in the name of Jesus and their nation. In Rwanda as Christians committed terrible acts against Muslims in the name of national purity. And of course, similar stories could be found of Muslims and Hindus and other committing violence on behalf of the their religious nationalism.

This I would argue is the sin of the Zealots. The sin of those killed in the temple. And, as Jesus warned them, the path they were on, the path of violence and nationalistic pride would lead to their ultimate destruction and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. This noxious brew brings hell on hell on earth time and time again.

Then Jesus turns his attention to a different tragedy. A tower near the temple fell on 18 people. Some have suggested this might be a tower built by Pilate as part of the aqueduct he built with stolen temple funds. Could be. Honestly, no one knows. Maybe this is a story of senseless tragedy. A reminder that all of us could stand before God at any moment and so we all need to repent.

But I wonder, perhaps, this story is a rebuttal to those who think they could never fall for the idolatry of their nation. Those who look down on people the zealots, the culture warriors. But we all have idols we can put alongside God.

Maybe the people in the tower were those who cooperated with Rome. The ones who were willing to compromise on the commands of God to get ahead. Those who were willing to take money stolen from God if it meant they could get wealthy themselves.

The reality is we all have idols we can be tempted to put alongside God. For some it is our nation. For others it can be our career or competence or family or wealth or our appearance.

We all need to hear Jesus call to repent and give our heart back to God and his kingdom and not the kingdoms of this world.

Waiting for Fruit

This is the message of Jesus in all four gospels: repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. For three years, Jesus has been preaching this message and now, as he turns his eyes toward Jerusalem and the cross, there is not much fruit to see.

One of the most common images in the Old Testament for the people of God is that of a vineyard. And so it does not take much leap at all to recognize Jesus is looking for fruit among the people of God. Have they heard his message? Have they repented from the false gods they have been following and turned to seek his kingdom or peace, justice, and love?

Just a few weeks later, Jesus will enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and the people will wave their palm branches, the rough equivalent of Ukrainians waving their flags now as Russia seeks to occupy their nation, as they shout for Jesus to be their king and God to overthrow Rome. Jesus is grieved by their response, he weeps as he looks on Jerusalem and says:

Luke 19:42 NIV

and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

And then predicts their destruction. There is no fruit. Jesus called them to the way of peace and reconciliation and they are shouting to make him king. The stay on the path to war and rebellion. The way of religious nationalism always leads to destruction. It may work for the state, but it always destroys the faith.

But this is fascinating to me. In Jesus parable, the gardener asks the owner to wait one more year before cutting the tree down. Give it one more year to bear some fruit. Just a little more time.

But that isn’t that part that fascinates me. The word translated as “leave it alone” is the word for forgiveness. It could just as easily be read to say, “forgive it for one more year…”

Our God is always ready to forgive. It is not too late to turn away from the idols of our world and to seek him instead.

But there is coming a day for us all when we will stand before God and we will have to give an account. Whose kingdom did we seek: Gods, the nation, our own… What vision drove our life, the vision of a renewed heaven and earth without war or crying or pain, a world where oppression and violence are no more or a small vision of a great nation or family or career.

People of Zion, what vision do you seek? What fruit will Jesus find on our vines? Are they the fruit of the his kingdom or some earthly idol?

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