Sermon prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church, Auburn WA
by Gregory S. Kaurin, Pastor
3-7-10
Text: Luke 13:1-9
Time to Compost
I’ve been able to get into this parable for a couple reasons. Yesterday was, actually, a great day for composting. The boys got themselves good and muddy while Pauline and I worked our compost into the garden.
Second, we have an apple tree that we’ve been trying to save and train. We moved in about seven years ago when it was growing at a horrible slant to the ground. I remember my father-in-law looked at it and said it needed to be replaced, but that just made it a challenge.
I worked and shifted the ground around the roots, so that we could gently ease it up and anchor it upright. But we usually get no more than a couple apples. We’ve added fertilizer, pruned it, without result. Now we’ve got most of the branches spread and growing horizontal to the ground… maybe this year. If not this year, then next.
Apparently, I have a thing for our sick little fruit trees. Near the apple tree is a little cherry tree standing chest high that someone apparently hacked on or ran into with something. Most of the main trunk had died by the time we got it, but a living portion and branches were coming up from the root and have been slowly enveloping the old trunk. Again, the cherries are few, and those we get aren’t great for much except for vinegar or other kinds of infusions. And last spring, I started a doubtful experiment with a cutting from a pear tree. Doesn’t have much chance, and I was ready to pull it up last fall, but Pauline told me to leave it for a year, and that sounded so Biblical, I decided I’d better give it that chance.
But why? Why work so hard for what is clearly, in my case, not about productivity. The vineyard owner was right, at least from his perspective. It’s wasted space; cut it down!
The more I’ve turned this passage over, the more I’m deciding that it doesn’t seem to work to try to figure out exactly who each character represents. Some say the owner is God, and Jesus is the gardener, we’re the tree, grace and forgiveness is the manure…it’s just not working for me. Instead, he just seemed to lift it up as a real-life example of patience. It’s kind of like Jesus is saying that, just as a gardener is patient and skilled, how much more God must be as he waits for fruit.
And the other interesting thing is that it’s a cliffhanger. What happens the following year? Will it give fruit? Does it get cut down? So then, what might God do to us? Keep that in mind; we’ll come back to it.
First, I think we need to look at the verses just before the parable again. Only Luke mentions this; it was recent local news, breaking news that was brought to Jesus, but the real question or assumption was there, that maybe it was just as well: did those Galileans deserve what they got? Listen [again] to Luke 13:1-5 [from the Message].
“About that time some people came up and told [Jesus] about the Galileans Pilate had killed while they were at worship, mixing their blood with the blood of the sacrifices on the altar. Jesus responded, ‘Do you think those murdered Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans? Not at all. [But] Unless you turn to God, you, too, will die. And those eighteen in Jerusalem the other day, [Jesus goes on,] the ones crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse citizens than all the other Jerusalemites? Not at all. [But,] unless you turn to God, you, too, will die.”
People look at these tragedies and wonder about God; maybe they deserved it, some divine wrath? And Jesus answers, “No, this wasn’t wrath; they weren’t any better or worse than those around them.”
But almost in the same breath and sentence, Jesus tells them, warns us, that unless we are turning to God, what is our path? Where’s it lead? To death, down into death’s dark valley. What was Jesus saying to those news-bearers?
See, this happens. They were on the hype of rumors and speculation, and mentally trying to separate themselves from those that died. Why them, and not me? Maybe somehow they deserved it, those Galileans. Them.
I think of the earthquakes in Haiti, then jumping over to Chile, Japan, and Taiwan as people are trying to make sense. Maybe you heard Pat Robertson talking about some old pact with the devil. Or, folks blaming other folks for living where they do, such as living on this ring of fire, or near the coast or active volcanos, or on flood plains. Do they deserve what they get? Are they worse sinners? How did Jesus answer that? Not at all, it’s not about that.
As I have chewed on this text, I feel like Jesus is saying, “Stop worrying about making sure that you somehow stand above, are smarter, outrank, are better or more pure than this or that group. Instead, simply come to God knowing that we are sinners, in every aspect of our lives in need of forgiveness, and in need of the Spirit’s strength and direction to get out of our Valley.
In a very startling way, Jesus was trying to say, “It is not about them. I’m interested in you. Let go of your deadly comparisons and pride, then follow me from death into life.”
And then he tells this story about a gardener who was patient with a fruitless tree for at least a year, worked in the manure, grace, patience and forgiveness like compost…but then Jesus left its fate up in the air. What happened the following year? Did the tree give fruit? Did the gardener ask for more time, or let the owner take it out?
I’ve been thinking about some of what Pastor Jon was talking about on Wednesday with our meditation on the 23rd Psalm, how Jesus, our Lord and Good Shepherd, walks with us even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Even as life gives us—or we choose—Dark Paths, we have a Shepherd who doesn’t abandon us to them, sends goodness and mercy chasing after us, when? All the days of my life.
And last night it suddenly occurred to me that Jesus gave an unbelieveable ending to the cliffhanger for the tree. A normal owner would tear it out. A normal gardener might give it a year, maybe two. But Jesus decided not to abandon it at all. It was the tree, the image of Jesus on the tree that came to me. The fate of the tree was going to be death, period. Except that Christ became the tree, hung himself from it, died for it and with it. The tree dies. But, the so-called fertilizer is more than patience and forgiveness. It is his sacrifice, his blood. And as he was raised from the dead, the tree is given a new life.
What does it mean? It means we are called just like those who listened to Jesus to let go of trying to make ourselves worthy. The gospel of grace does not depend on our purity or righteousness. Truly experiencing his grace depends on realizing that I am not somehow a touch or a grade better than anyone, but like everyone, I am far short of God’s glory, lacking enough fruit to make up for the space I take up in his vineyard. Only Christ’s life saves me, only his work through me provides any of the fruit I long to give. And only his life brought me back to life. Thanks be to God. All thanks be to God. Amen.
