Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable:

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked 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. Or those eighteen who were killed when the Tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I can dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Today’s Gospel always makes me feel like we’ve walked into the middle of someone else’s conversation. It’s that weird parable about the fig tree and the gardener, this stuff about the “blood of the Galileans,” and about those people “killed by the Tower of Siloam” … events not mentioned anywhere else in all of Scripture. So most of us need a little history and some context in order to make some sense of it all.

It’s helpful to know that there was more than one occasion where political unrest under Pontius Pilate led to ugly confrontations and uprisings between Roman officials and the local Jews, Samaritans, and other people of Galilee living under Roman rule. As you might imagine, these uprisings often led to the deaths of many people. So, when Jesus talked about “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices,” he was probably talking about something like that.

By the same token, nowhere else in the Bible is there any account of the Tower of Siloam collapsing. We do know that the Pool of Siloam – where Jesus once gave a blind man his sight back – was a ritual bathing pool, somewhere on the south-side of Jerusalem. Apparently, at some time in the days prior to this Gospel story, a tower in the city wall near those pools collapsed and killed 18 people.

So, Jesus is asking rhetorical questions about these events – and answering them for whoever wants to know. They were things anyone hearing him would have known about, of course. “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” In other words, “Did the Galileans bring their fate upon themselves?” “Did they deserve to die because they were trouble-makers and rabble-rousers?” “Should they have kept to themselves?” “Should they have known better than to get into it with the Romans?” “Should they have turned the other cheek?” According to Jesus, the answer is “no.”

And what about those people who were crushed by that falling tower? “Do you think they had it coming to them?” “Was their number up because they deserved something the rest of the city’s people didn’t?” “Was God waiting for those 18 particular people to be in that particular place at that particular time so that they could be smited for their particular sins?” Again, according to Jesus, the answer is “no.”

If we’re still having trouble making sense of this – if we can’t quite get ourselves back into first century Palestine – let’s fast forward to the 20th of March, 2022. The Gospel of Luke, the 13th chapter, might sound something like this…

“At that very time, there were some present who told Jesus about the Ukrainians whose blood Putin had mingled with their sacrifices … what about the ones who died in the basement of that theater in Mariupal?” And Jesus might have said, “Do you think that because they suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Ukrainians, or Russians, or anyone else for that matter?”

Or, “What about those 6 college golfers and their coach who were killed in the car accident in Texas on Tuesday? Did they deserve it?”

“Or the 5 people who died in 5 separate car accidents in and around Indianapolis, just this Friday? Could they possibly have had it coming?”

Or “What about the six million souls – give or take – who lost the pandemic battle with COVID-19?” Is their suffering a sign that they are somehow worse sinners than any of the rest of us?”

And what about the long list of prayer concerns in our bulletin? What about all of that cancer? How about all of those surgeries? What about all of the sickness and struggle sitting right here beside us today? At some point – and in instances so close to home – the rhetorical questions Jesus asks are hard to swallow – and maybe even a little offensive.

But that’s how Jesus means to get our attention and to assure us of something powerful and good and full of hope. No, God has not arbitrarily chosen to punish some and not others. No, when people die by the sword or by accident or by natural disaster, God isn’t trying to teach them a lesson or heap vengeance upon them or show them who’s the boss. No, when bad things happen to good people it’s not a test or a sign or a chance to weed out the good, from the bad, from the ugly.

Jesus is just acknowledging that bad stuff happens and, even though he’s Jesus, he doesn’t try to explain it, or rationalize it, or pretend we can avoid it. What Jesus does is hold it up before our eyes and remind us that, more often than we’d like to admit, the gift of our lives is fragile. And, more often than we’d like to admit, our lives come to their end – or at least encounter all kinds of struggle and sadness and disappointment along the way – without warning, without notice, without preparation, and without a whole lot of apparent mercy, enough of the time.

And then because of all of that… and because he’s Jesus... when he tells that strange story of the fig tree and the gardener and the owner of the vineyard? … he gives us something faithful and loving and gracious to do about it all in the meantime.

See, too many in the world would chop down the tree that wasn’t producing fruit and, so, too many expect God to do the same. Which is why, I think, we are so inclined to blame collapsing towers and unexpected disasters and deadly diseases on “fate” or “doom” or “the will of God” or God’s desire for more angels up in heaven.

But Jesus reminds us that “God’s will” is really all about second chances. God is like the owner of the vineyard, who gives us another year, or another day, or another minute to try again. To repent. To turn over new leaves. To plant different seeds. To try new ways of being in the world. To live new lives, in spite of ourselves.

Because repentance means to change, remember. To be turned around. To live differently. In many ways, I think repentance might mean we let ourselves be changed by the struggles of others; that we open ourselves up to the hardships that surround us; that we change our lives in order to make a difference in the lives of others.

We can repent by acknowledging that our lives – however long or short they may turn out to be – are blessed, generous, grace-filled gifts from God. And we can repent by not pretending we’re owed any of it and by not taking any of this for granted, for one more second.

And Jesus shows up to inspire all of that. Jesus, the Gardener, has our back. The love of Jesus means to care for us; to tend to us; to nurture and nourish us, like a Gardener tending to a bunch of less-than-fruitful fig trees, until we begin to turn things around, until we begin to live with that kind of repentance, more often.

As we continue making our way to the cross … as we continue to repent and to receive the forgiveness that’s promised to us there … we continue to draw close to this Jesus who doesn’t deny that evil exists, who doesn’t deny that death will come, who doesn’t pretend that this life of faith is an easy one every step of the way. (Calvary and his crucifixion make that clear.)

What we are promised is that ours is a God of second chances: second chances for turning and repentance and for change; second chances for love and forgiveness. And second chances – in spite of ourselves and the world where we live – for new life, for hope, and for God’s love in Jesus Christ, who keeps tilling the soil of our hearts; who keeps working the land of our lives; who keeps patiently planting seeds and pulling weeds and choosing to give us another chance, until we get it right…until we rest assured in the hope of God’s life everlasting, in this world and the next.

Amen