Luke 13:1-9 - Lent 3 - 2022

The church that I served at in Colorado while I was in seminary had a pretty interesting executive pastor. His name is Bob, and he is a saint. But a quirky saint. Bob had this habit of carrying a sharpie with him, and every now and then, in some room of the church, on some surface, in some corner, he would inscribe with that sharpie a Bible reference. It was always the same Bible reference. Amos 5:4. Amos wrote to the people of Israel, calling them, urging them to turn back to the God who had created them and redeemed them and guided them and loved them. And Amos 5:4 says this: “For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and live.” In Bob’s mind, that pretty much summed up the entire biblical message. Seek the Lord and live. If you looked carefully as you walked the halls of this church, you would see Bob’s inscription all over. On the wall here, the white board there, the door sign here, the toilet paper dispenser there, the ceiling fan here, the window pane there. The message was everywhere, “Seek the Lord and live.” Turn back to God, and you will know life. It was the message of repentance, and it was all over the church. And it is all over our text this morning.

While Jesus was speaking about many things, but mainly preparing for the coming judgment of God, someone came up to him with news regarding a horrific event that transpired in Jerusalem. Evidently, a group of Jews from the region of Galilee were executed in the temple courts as they were making their sacrifices to God, so that their own blood ran together with the blood of their sacrifice. We’ve heard stories like this in our own time - Christians who were killed while worshipping at church. These stories are tragic, and they bring forth from us incredible emotional pain and sympathy. But that is not how first-century Jews would have first reacted to news like this. Instead, they would have assumed that these Galileans were dastardly sinful people - godless people - and their evil end was the just dessert for their evil hearts. They would have assumed that their suffering was evidence of God’s judgment on their sin.

And before we huff and puff about how that worldview is so primitive, I think after just a tiny bit of reflection we’ll come to see how prevalent that mentality remains to this day. Whenever disaster befalls our enemy - whether that’s a personal enemy or even a national enemy - and we think to ourselves or say to our buddy, “They are getting what they deserve,” we are perpetuating this ancient line of thinking. Or, to take it a different direction; whenever disaster befalls us or our loved ones , and as if by a reflex, we are flooded with fear that God is punishing us for our unfaithfulness - when we do this, we have fallen into this ancient paradigm, that our suffering is evidence of God’s displeasure with us.

So when the crowd around Jesus hears this report, they would have immediately assumed that the Galileans who were killed were receiving the just wages for their sin. And Jesus knows that they are assuming this, which is why he says what he says:

2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

Jesus knows how the mental equation goes. It goes like this: if a person experiences suffering because God is punishing them for their sins, than it follows that a person who is experiencing relative peace in their life must be living in a way that pleases God. So it must be that there are two categories of people: there are people like these Galileans, who’s lives are filled with sin and rebellion against God, and they experience God’s righteous judgment; and there are people like, well, like us, like the folks in the crowd around Jesus, who’s lives are peaceful and calm and mostly comfortable, we are not being murdered, we don’t have towers falling on us, which must mean that we are on the straight and narrow path, walking perfectly in sync with God.

In that worldview, who needs to change their ways? It’s the people who’s lives are in disarray, who are suffering great illnesses, who are stuck in cycles of poverty, who are experiencing great hardships. Obviously they have offended against God’s holy laws by what they have done and what they have left undone - I mean look at the state of their lives! They need to repent, which is to say, they need to turn away from their sinful ways and turn to Jesus - to his grace, his forgiveness, and his way of life.

Jesus immediately sees through the mental gymnastics at work. In the crowd’s mind, who needs to repent? “They” do. The others. And Jesus says, “Yes, ‘they’ do. But so must you.”

Just because your life is peaceful does not make repentance unnecessary. You cannot look to your comfortable life and declare that you are pleasing God. Just as personal hardship does not equate to God’s judgment, personal comfort does not equate to God’s blessing.

We so desperately want there to be a “them.” We so desperately want there to be a camp of people who’s sins truly deserve the judgment of God. We want there to be this camp of people, so that we can feel like we are set apart from them. That’s what this crowd had done. In these people who had suffered these terrible circumstances, they wanted to see a camp of people, set apart from themselves, who were so much more deserving of death.

But Jesus does not allow us the distance from this group that we desire. He says, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” We are all equally deserving of death. We are all equally deserving of judgment. There is no “us” and “them.” Paul says in Romans that there is no distinction: for all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.

In fact, Jesus drives the point further for the crowd. He says that their comfort in life is a testament to God’s mercy, not his blessing.

6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

In the parable, a guy has a fig tree that’s not producing any fruits. For three years, he’s tended to this tree - but nothing comes from it. It’s useless to him - just taking up space in his orchard. If he was smart, he’d cut it down! But his buddy urges him to give it another year. He’ll dig around it so water can access the roots better, and he’ll use extra fertilizer. This tree will never have it as good! And hopefully after this special treatment, it will bear fruit.

So why is the tree getting the spa-treatment? Is it because it deserves it? No! It’s because the landowner is showing incredible patience in giving the tree yet another chance. Jesus uses this parable to demonstrate for the crowd that their relative comfort in life was not a sign of God’s approval. It was a sign of God’s mercy.

So this parable serves as a warning. If the tree does not change course and begin to bear fruit, it will be cut down. The parable serves as a warning, but it is also dramatizes the hope of blessing. Because even though this tree has a long history of producing nothing of value, there is yet hope that it might change. It might yet produce fruit.

By urging us to repent, Jesus is inviting us into that hope of blessing. And to be sure, it is a little abrasive - the way that Jesus is going about it. But he’s having to break through our own false confidence that leads us so often to believe that we don’t really have much of a need for repentance. Jesus is being abrasive here because he knows the danger of that position. Because if and when we find ourselves in that place of false confidence, we are insulating ourselves and cutting ourselves off from the one who brings forgiveness, salvation, and renewal. We aren’t actually distancing ourselves from "those sinners,” we are distancing ourselves from Jesus.

Every single week, we sit or kneel before the cross and we confess the ways that we’ve wandered away from God and offended him. We do it every week. We confess when it’s been a tremendously successful week, and when it’s been a failure. We confess when we’ve never felt more spiritually alive and when we’ve never felt more spiritually barren. In every season, every disposition, every state - the rhythm of our worship is the same. We acknowledge our unfaithfulness, and we humbly turn to Jesus in repentance. Because that rhythm is necessary for knowing the life of God. The rhythm of repentance is the lifeblood of our salvation - because through it we are given the opportunity to be forgiven, accepted, made whole, and ultimately made new in Christ.

When we turn from our sin and turn toward Jesus, he’s not rolling his eyes. He’s not tapping his feet impatiently. He’s not taking us back like a teenager who’s begrudgingly following his dad’s orders. When we turn to Jesus, feeling humiliated by our constant failure to be faithful to God, we see our Mighty King beaming at us with joy. The Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, declare that it is with great joy that God welcomes home the repentant heart. There is no shame in it. There is only joy.

So make it the rhythm of your life. Make repentance your habit. Make it your routine. Do not stray too far from it. Do not allow your comfortable circumstances to infect you with a false confidence that finds repentance unnecessary. Hold fast to the rhythm of repentance - because it will always lead you towards Jesus. And where Christ is, there is grace, forgiveness, and newness of life.