Some who were
present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed
while they were offering sacrifices. He replied, “Do you think the
suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the
other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and
lives, you will die just as they did. What about those twelve people who were
killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more
guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell
you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they
did.”
Jesus told this
parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking
for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come
looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never
found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s
nutrients?’ The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will
dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next
year; if not, then you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:1-9
As people told Jesus about those murdered by Pilate, I
wonder if they expected to hear that their death was tied to some sin on their
part. Jesus’ response about the people killed by a tower leads me to believe
that might have been their motive. Instead Jesus tells them that there is no
difference in the ones who died and the ones who are listening to Jesus teach.
He takes the spotlight off these victims and places it on those standing before
him.
We are likely to ponder such matters as well. We want to
know how God is going to treat others or we try to link disaster and other
tragedies to sinfulness, instead of reacting with love and compassion or
looking inward at our own lives. We want to be thought of as “good people” and may
use our lack of exposure to difficulty as a sign that we are favored over
others.
But Jesus demonstrates that being “good” is not the same
as bearing fruit. He tells them (and us) to change our hearts and lives, and
goes on to demonstrate what he means with a parable, where our “goodness” is
likened to a fruitless fig tree that does nothing but soak up the Word and
produces nothing from it. It takes the nutrients but does nothing with them. Am
I guilty of going through the motions of being a “good Christian” while at the
same time judging and criticizing and living unmindfully of others and of God?
But then Jesus, the gardener, comes and offers us another
chance. Yet it is a chance with conditions. Jesus takes the law and prophets
and applies them to us, in terms we cannot squirm out from under. It’s not
enough to follow the law. We are to love others as ourselves. The prophetic
word was not only for those to whom it was originally addressed. It is for us
as well. We are told that it is blessed to be poor, to love our enemies, to
give without reserve, to forgive without keeping score. We bear fruit not by
doing the minimum required. All that does is produce the tree. We bear fruit by
self-sacrifice, generosity, compassion and love. When we are focused on the bare
minimum, we don’t bear fruit. It is by going beyond the minimum, by not even
considering the minimum as a “good” standard, that we bear fruit.
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