The Storm Tree

Tree of Love - Loves Storm (2018), by Dan Niebrzydowski

Propers: The Third Sunday in Lent, AD 2022 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

It is hard to shake the persistent myth that in this life we ever get what we deserve. We are raised with the implicit assumption that if we do a good job, then we’ll get a good return. Isn’t that what the celebrities and CEOs are always telling us? “I got here by working hard.” Well, I’m sure you did. But don’t the poor work hard? Don’t a lot of the poor work a lot harder than you?

Similarly, competence is no guarantor of success. You can do a good job and still fail. It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That’s not weakness; that’s life. Don’t assume that you’ve earned your ascendancy, and don’t assume you deserve your defeat. This is not a world in which only good things happen to good people, and bad things only happen to bad people. Would that it were—maybe.

Pastors are as susceptible to this as anyone. I mean, in seminary we understand that it’s not easy out there. But we all suspect, I think, that it’ll be different for us. We’ll do a good job. If we just preach the Word rightly and administer the Sacraments faithfully, then the Holy Spirit will move and our people will flourish, and we’ll never have to worry about things like money or volunteers ever again. Right? But really, that’s just a Lutheran spin on the prosperity gospel, which is no gospel at all.

Today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke starts off with some people telling Jesus about the death of certain Galileans, “whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices.” Now, we don’t know the context of this. Pilate was a cruel and a violent man. Presumably these Galileans had gone up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifice at the Temple, and Pilate had made an example of them. Perhaps they’d offended him. Or perhaps he’d just had indigestion. It’s hard to say.

Jesus grew up in the Galilee, so this is not some idle tale to Him. This is news about His neighbors, perhaps His relatives. Galilee’s not that big. And one wonders: were the people who told Him this lamenting, gossiping, mocking? We don’t know. But implicit in the conversation is that they had somehow deserved it. You don’t just get killed in the midst of your sacrifice, profaning the blood of the offering with your own, unless you’d done something really naughty. Perhaps it wasn’t Pilate who punished them. Perhaps it was God.

From a literary standpoint, mind you, this passage is foreshadowing. Luke chose to include it in his Gospel, and at this point in the narrative, because we know what’s coming, don’t we? It won’t be all that many chapters before Jesus goes down to Jerusalem, and Pilate mixes His Blood with the Passover sacrifice. If these Galileans had it coming, does that mean Jesus has it coming? That would make sense in a world where we all get what we deserve.

“Do you suppose,” asks Jesus, “that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered thusly? How about the 18 who died recently when a tower fell on top of them—did they all have that coming?” No, He says. “But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Oof. That’s a little harsh, don’t you think? And then He launches into this parable:

A man had a fig tree, He says, planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit and found none on it. So he said to the vinedresser, “See here. I’ve been looking for fruit on this fruitless tree for three years now, but all it’s doing is wasting the soil. Cut it down.” But the vinedresser replied, “Let me work on it. Let me fertilize it. Give it another year, then come see how it’s doing. You may get some fruit out of it yet. If not, well, you can always cut it down then.”

Again, not the most reassuring message from our Lord and Savior. Now, part of what makes a parable a parable and not, say, a fable, is that there are layers to it. Parables contain a plurality of meanings, of interpretations. And this parable of the fig tree may be allegorized in several ways. The vineyard is a classic biblical image for God’s people Israel, and the fig tree in the vineyard would be—Jerusalem, perhaps? The Temple establishment?

Jesus indeed visits Jerusalem several times during the three years of His earthly ministry, each time criticizing the powers-that-be, seeking the fruit of faith and good works; until that fourth year when Jesus Himself becomes the strange fruit hanging from the Tree of Life. So yeah, maybe this is Jerusalem. Maybe we’re safe.

But doesn’t that contradict what we just heard Jesus say? Didn’t He just warn us that bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve it any more than we do? Why would He then follow that up with a parable of a fig tree getting what it deserves? We’re right back to the notion that the good get good and the bad get bad. And that’s precisely what Jesus denies—not only here in His teachings, but from that Cross on which He hangs. Rome’s justice, let us be clear, is not God’s justice.

For that matter, neither is unforeseen catastrophe. Towers fall. Rivers flood. Russia invades Ukraine. Is that the justice of God? Is that what they deserve? Or are we once again blaming the victim in order to feel better, more secure, in ourselves? We want to imagine that tragedies have a reason, a purpose, behind them, so that they aren’t just senseless death and suffering. But the real reason why bad things happen to good people is because it’s a broken world: a world in which Christ suffers with the suffering, to raise us all up from the grave.

Let us assume, for the moment, that we are the tree of the parable, planted within the vineyard: each of us, rooted in Israel, in the greater people of God. The very first Psalm—and Jesus had the Psalms all memorized, mind you—tells us that those who trust in the Lord, who meditate on His Law day and night, are like trees planted by streams of water, which all bear their fruit in due season.

When hardship comes, they do not wither, whatever the weather, whatever the season. The Lord is their support. The wicked are not so; they dry up and blow away. Now that seems to me like a pretty clear connection for Jesus to make, that tree in Psalm 1. And this changes how we read His parable.

See, it doesn’t mean that you need to do good—or at least stop doing bad—otherwise you’ll be punished. God hasn’t come to earth to spank you. “Repent,” Jesus says, and repentance means to change your mind, to be turned around within. It comes from a Hebrew term meaning to go back, or to go home: back to God, home to God. Do not focus on the transgressions and tragedies of others, Jesus is saying. Judge not, lest ye be judged. Rather, change the one thing that you can: yourself.

Turn your mind to God. Make your heart’s home in Him. Be rooted in the Word of the Lord, quietly producing the fruit of faith, no matter the season, no matter the weather. Draw your sustenance from Him like a tree planted by a flowing stream. Then, come what may, you will not be surprised. You will not be dismayed. You will naturally produce the fruit of good works, the fruit of loving-kindness, regardless of your circumstances. “And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.”

Remember what it is He said: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” And “likewise” here refers to the people in that tower being caught suddenly by tragedy, unawares and unprepared for death. But if you repent—if you turn to God and make Him your home—if you meditate on His faithfulness and His support day and night—then your inner peace will be able to weather any storm, any season, with dignity, grace, and good fruit. St Paul puts it this way:

If God is for us, who is against us? … Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? … No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Tyrants can murder us. Towers can fall on us. Or maybe it’s just the stresses of life that wear a piece of us off every day. No matter. Our victory is in Christ. Our salvation is assured. Come what may, it will not take us unawares. Planted by streams of living water, sustained by the incarnate Word of God, we stand amidst the storms and vicissitudes of this fallen world quietly producing the fruit of good works, the fruit of our faith, the fruit of Jesus Christ.

So that even if we are cut down, a shoot shall arise from our stump. What then can flesh do unto me?

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.