Facing Life, Bearing Fruit
(shared with the people of Friendship Church, March 14, 2004)
Back in the day when farm folks didn’t get to big cities very often, a young boy went on such an excursion with his grandparents. After stopping at a few places, grandma could tell that her husband and grandson were less interested in shopping than they were in exploring. So, she arranged to meet them later at a particular landmark and let them go. Soon, they came to a large skyscraper. They eyed it up and down and decided to have a closer look. As they approached the building, they saw something they’d never seen before: a revolving door. They couldn’t quite figure it out when they saw a stunning thing. An old haggard woman, stooped over, with a cane, walked through the revolving door and out came a young, shapely, attractive girl. Hardly daring to believe the miracle he’d just witnessed, the grandfather became agitated, turned to the boy, and said, “Tell your grandma to get over here right away. I’ve got a door I want her to walk through!”
We have to be careful about jumping to conclusions too quickly in life. The easy answers that seem so obviously true can be dead wrong. One day, Jesus met people who were abuzz about a recent event. People from Jesus’ native region of Galilee had been massacred by the Roman governor Pilate. Their blood, the people told Jesus, was mingled with the blood of the sacrificial animals at the temple in Jerusalem. Evidently, these people had been murdered in the very act of worshiping God. From Jesus’ words to them, we glean that this crowd had jumped to a conclusion about people who would have died such untimely and tragic deaths. Jesus asks them:
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did."
It’s amazing to consider how quickly we condemn people for the tragedies that befall them. Desperate to make sense of life’s senseless suffering, wanting to believe that there is something about us that will give us a pass when it comes to the possibility of tragedy, we adopt easy answers.
Sometimes we offer such explanations of tragedy to make ourselves feel superior. When AIDS first hit the radar screens of our consciousness, those who engage in the homosexual life style were the hardest hit. I remember a woman approaching me at the time and saying that God was giving those people a message. She was shocked when I disagreed with her. I told her that like her, I thought that homosexual behavior is contrary to the will of God. But if God passed a death sentence on every human being who did things that are contrary to the will of God, the population of Planet Earth would be erased in a second! The Bible makes it clear that we all fall short of God’s minimal expectations for human beings. We all sin. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus–an act God did for us–proves that God loves sinners and isn’t out to get anyone.
Jesus drives this point home in our lesson for today when He mentions another event which must have recently happened in Judea. He asks the crowd so quick to offer easy answers for others’ misfortune, “How about those eighteen people killed when the tower of Siloam crashed down on them? Do you think that they were worse sinners than everybody else and that God targeted them that day to die?” To this explanation, Jesus gives a resounding NO!
We live in an untidy world where bad things happen and there are no tidy explanations for when they do. Part of growing up as followers of Jesus, Jesus Himself seems to be telling us today, is accepting the ambiguities of life on this planet where sin and death still have their say. We don’t live in a perfect place and this side of heaven, we won't.
Some people observe these realities and fall apart or adopt the ethic of ‘eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’
Still others slump into despair or cynicism.
But for the follower of Jesus Christ, none of these reactions will do. That’s because unlike any other group of people in the world, the follower of Jesus Christ always has hope!
After confronting the crowd–and us–with the sobering fact that suffering happens in this life, Jesus tells one of His parables, a story. In it, a man plants a fig tree. Apparently, you don’t even look for a fig tree to bear fruit until three years after you plant it. So, six years after planting the tree and three years after he began looking regularly for fruit to show up on it, the man who planted it has had enough. He says to his hired hand, “Cut the thing down! It’s wasting soil!” But the hired hand–the gardener–begs the owner to hold off on his decision for just a little while. He asks for permission to lavish the tree with some TLC for another year. Then, he says, if it sprouts figs next year, great! If it doesn’t, then he’ll happily cut it down.
What exactly does this little story mean? God lavishes one blessing after another on us. The greatest blessing of all, of course, is His offer of forgiveness and life forever with Him which He gives to us through Jesus Christ. Followers of Jesus have no reason to be paralyzed by fear or indifference or laziness in our lives. Jesus, the great God-Man went to a cross, taking the penalty for sin that you and I deserve. On the third day following His death, He rose again. Like the gardener in the story, for as long as we live on this earth, Jesus, the Risen King, gives us everything we need to “bear fruit,” everything we need to live meaningful, purposeful lives. That’s why, just before telling the story of the fruitless fig tree, Jesus says, “...unless you repent, you will all perish...” Literally, Jesus says, “...unless you are repenting, you will all perish.”
Jesus isn’t saying that in order for us to live, we have to go around with glum faces feeling sorry all the time. This is what He’s saying...
Yesterday, during Catechism class, Cori volunteered to be an object lesson. Tim asked her if she liked snacks. She said yes and he handed her a bag of chips to hold. He asked if she liked to sleep. Yes, she answered; so, Tim threw her a pillow to hold. Cori said she also liked soccer. So, she got a soccer ball to hold. She also said yes to reading for school and reading for pleasure and got books to hold symbolizing those loves. As you can imagine, after a few moments, Cori’s arms got pretty full. Then, standing here with all this stuff, Tim pulled out a rope and said, “Cori, you’re in the middle of a flood. The waters are rising. You need to catch this rope in order to be pulled to safety. What do you have to do?” The answer is obvious: to live, Cori had to be willing to empty her arms of everything but that rope.
That’s what Jesus means when He tells us to be repenting. You see, there are two parts to repentance. There is sorrow for past sins, to be sure. But there’s also opening ourselves to go where God sends us, do what God wants us to do, be who God wants us to be. To be repentant means to hold on for dear life to Jesus Christ no matter what fake comforts and joys the world may offer to us. When we live each day with a life style of repentance, God sets us loose to live with all the passion and power we were made to have as human beings! That’s what the Bible and Jesus mean when they talk about you and me “bearing fruit.”
Ever since I lost the primary election on March 2, I’ve had people trying to console me. I never needed consoling. I did what I did because I knew that Jesus Christ has set me free, not to succeed, but to try...to live...to risk...to do my best in all aspects of my life. This includes the political arena, an area in which I felt I could in practical ways, love my God and love my neighbor. That’s bearing fruit and that’s what I want to do with my fleeting time on earth.
When we make living a repentatn life style our aim, win or lose, you and I can’t do anything but succeed because win or lose, seeking to love God and neighbor, we know that God is with us!
The novelist Herman Wouk, who wrote The Winds of War and The Caine Mutiny, once visited David Ben-Gurion, the first president of modern Israel. Ben Gurion kept telling Wouk, that as a Jew, he should move to Israel. “Here,” Ben-Gurion told him, “you will be free.” Wouk could hardly believe his ears. “Free?” he wondered. Israel was surrounded by enemies and some roads in the country were impassable after sundown because of sniper fire. What did the old man mean by saying he would be free? “I did not say safe,” Ben-Gurion replied, “I said free.”
Many of you are familiar with the series of novels called, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. In these novels, children from our world keep having encounters with another universe in a land called Narnia, most memorably with a Christ-like figure named Aslan. In the book called, The Silver Chair, two children are joined by a strange creature from that land in liberating a prince named Rilian from the enchantments of a devil-like witch. But they find Rilian in an undeworld city whose inhabitants they feel certain will fight their escape with tooth-and-tong. No longer under any spell, Rilian and the others were all free, even if they weren’t safe. That’s why Rilian tells the others, “Let us descend into the city and take the adventure that is sent us.”
As long as you and I live here on this earth, God makes no guarantees about our being safe from the tragedies and losses that may be sent to us. Jesus says that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. Cancer, bankruptcies, tragedies, defeats, mishaps, and even death come to Christians and non-Christians alike.
But only followers of Jesus Christ, absolutely certain that we will live with God forever, are free to live life to the maximum, loving God and loving neighbor with passion, seeking to be and do our best no matter how hard the devil, the world, and our sinful selves may oppose us...to take whatever adventure is sent to us.
For the follower of Jesus, the key issue isn’t how many days to our lives; it’s how much life in our days.
This morning, Jesus’ message for us is simple: “Be free, be fearless, and live like people who, through Jesus Christ, have been given eternity!" Because through Christ, we have been given eternity!
[The inspiration for this message came from the work of the pastors and staff of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church of Burnsville, Minnesota.
[The true story of Herman Wouk's encounter with David Ben-Gurion comes from Perfect Illustrations For Every Topic and Occasion, edited by the folks of PreachingToday.com and published by Tyndale.
[The joke about the grandparents and their grandson was told by Pastor Gerald Mann in one of his audiotaped messages.
[I heartily recommend The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis to children of every age. I have read the series several times. ]
