Fourth Sunday of Lent
March 10, 2013
God’s judgment and God’s mercy converse
by Marilyn Zehr
Text: Luke 13:1-9
Sometimes the scripture texts for the week set up a clear and comfortable parallel. A consistent theme emerges within them and it is clear what I should emphasize in my sermon.
This week a theme did emerge in two of the texts – that of Judgment and the question of God’s final mercy – and yet each one seemed to be saying something different. And so this morning’s sermon will by necessity need to be a conversation between the questions raised by the texts – primarily the ones in Corinthians and Luke.
Is God a God of Judgement or mercy and what is the role of repentance?
I raise these questions because the texts raise them, but it seems to me that this particular conversation is a little out of vogue. For many years in the church we have emphasized the God of mercy and compassion – slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. If this is deeply true about God, why bother with sermons about judgement and repentance?
The easy answer: because our scriptures ask us to or point us in that direction, but as the sermon unfolds we might find that there is a deeper reason.
Starting with Corinthians, Paul compares the new community of Christ followers to the ancient Israelites – a community of newly freed slaves in the desert. Each of these two communities, according to Paul, has a new identity formed by the cleansing waters of baptism and spiritual food.
In the desert, Paul says, baptism took place through the cloud and the sea and the spiritual food, hear manna, and water from the rock sustained them. For Christ followers this same identity is formed by the baptism of water and the Holy Spirit. And then the communion meal of bread and wine sustains them. The allusion is clear. Paul wants the new Christians in Corinth, many of them Gentiles, to know that they are intimately linked to the ancient Israelite tradition.
And in each case, these newly freed people with their new identity as people of God have trouble knowing how to live.
And so Paul alludes to the stories of God’s judgement on those desert wanderers. They desired evil, they were idolaters (not loving and serving the One God above everything else), they indulged in sexual immorality, they complained and they put God to the test and in each case God summarily struck them down by serpents, by the destroyer, by plague, and according to Paul these things were written to be an example.
I struggle with Paul’s hermeneutic, his way of interpreting the Scripture, but there we have it. Paul points to a God of judgement who apparently puts to death those who are part of God’s newly formed community and whose sins range from things as seemingly mild as complaint to as serious as worshipping other gods.
I realize that Paul is dealing with the infamous Corinthians here – dwellers in an urban economic hub who were struggling to figure out how to live Christ following faith in a pluralistic society (called pagan then), but really, is the consequence of sin so directly – death?
Turning to Luke. How does Jesus link sin and death in Luke 13? In this passage Jesus is confronted by the tragic information that some Galileans died at the hands of the Romans while worshipping in the temple.
Jesus, the Rabbi, or teacher, turns this into a teaching moment by referring to this tragedy and another one, the death of eighteen people in Jerusalem who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them.
The first was a death of Galileans by an act of violence at the hands of men. The second was a tragic but accidental death of people in Jerusalem.
In each case Jesus asks a similar question,
Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
Do you think the ones from Jerusalem who died beneath the tower of Siloam were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?
Jesus answers his own rhetorical question – twice (for emphasis)
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.
At first glance this is perplexing.
If their death in these tragic ways was clearly not linked to their degree of sinfulness – not more or less sinful than anyone else – whew – then how is it that all will perish as they did unless one repents?
The consequence of sin without repentance is still death.
Then he told them this parable:
“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.
13:7 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?’
13:8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.
13:9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”
In this parable, judgement and mercy begin their conversation. – The owner of the fig tree expects fruit – in fact a tree with no fruit is wasting soil, he says, – so – cut it down. Is this a harsh but fitting judgement?
And the gardener asks for mercy for the tree – for one more year noting that he will do everything he can to encourage fruit, but in the end will concede – “if it does not bear fruit you can cut it down.”
Where do we go from here?
Quite simply, it matters what we do.
Think about the children among us for a moment. Very early on in their lives we hope that they learn that certain actions bring certain consequences. If a child grabs a toy from another child tears follow and we respond with age appropriate lessons on sharing. If a teen stays out too late a consequence might be an earlier curfew. If homework is not done, restrictions on technological use might be imposed. What about adults? What kinds of consequences do we suffer for our actions? If we use harsh words with someone that person will become cautious around us. If we make poor choices about eating or sleeping properly we may not have the energy we need for our daily tasks. If we are not disciplined about our work we may not get done what we had hoped. If we don’t take time to play, we may not be able to do well what we are otherwise called to do. If we use more of the earth’s resources than the earth can regenerate we drastically alter the very foundation upon which we depend for our lives. Clearly certain actions lead to certain consequences. And our scriptures tell us in numerous places that sinful actions – those that separate us from God, others, ourselves and creation – lead to judgement and death – this is what Paul is saying, this is what the prophets say, this is even what Jesus says,
“Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” “If it does not bear fruit, cut it down.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to hear that we will perish or be cut down. I want to hear that I/we will live and live well.
Let’s also look again at the Luke 13 text. What does Jesus mean that we will perish as they did. Beyond the facts, how did they perish – the
Galileans at the hand of Pilate and the one’s from Jerusalem under the tower? If we were mourning these deaths, we would say that these deaths didn’t make sense. Their deaths
by these tragedies were in fact without meaning. Death by murder and accidents are what we call senseless deaths. And so by extension if we do not repent, then we too will die senselessly, without meaning. (I need to thank a conversation with Tim Reimer, pastor of Danforth Mennonite Church, this week for helping me make this leap). Beginning at the beginning, to be human is to be born and to live and to die. None of us will escape death or at the very least death to this world as we know it and experience it in these bodies. But we may die senselessly – without meaning – and in this way “perish as they did” – if we have not found the way of repentance and a way to bear fruit.
But here is where mercy enters the conversation again. The fig tree cannot bear fruit by itself. The gardener in this parable will provide it with the nutrition it needs by digging around it and adding manure and giving it more time. When I shared with you the story of the fig tree during advent – you may recall that a fig tree will not, or cannot bear fruit without the symbiotic relationship it shares with the fig wasp. I realize that fact is probably incidental to this parable, but it happens to be true. The ability to repent, change, bear fruit and creatively participate in a meaningful life already requires mercy. And that mercy is available wherever we turn. It is available for us in those who pray for us, those who care about or love us, and those who help us. Friends, family and even strangers can all be bearers of mercy. But according to our Christian narrative most of all it is available in the one we call Christ; the one we seek to follow. Repentance requires that we open ourselves to Christ’s mercy. When we repent and follow Jesus, the sins that steal meaning from our lives and prohibit the production of fruit, these sins are forgiven.
Now that mercy has moved in – has judgement left the conversation?
Not if we let the parable of the fig tree have the last word. The parable of the fig tree keeps the conversation open. We don’t know if the fig tree bears fruit or not. If it does not – it will be cut down.
What of mercy and judgement then?
In my consideration of this topic this week I came across an ancient rabbinic parable that addresses this question of judgement even beyond death, after the barren fig tree has been cut down so to speak if repentance before death does not take place. This is a question that preoccupied the hellfire and brimstone preachers of my youth and added fuel to their fire. If there is no mercy beyond the grave (as we are led to believe also in Matthew’s famous story of the sheep and the goats, or Luke’s story of the rich man and the poor man named Lazarus who ate the crumbs beneath his table) then so much greater the urgency to repent before one perishes.
Again, this issue is not one we have considered too much in church since that time because of our desire to avoid unhelpfully making people feel guilty – but since our scriptures do raise the question, let’s allow the conversation continue.
Here is the Rabbinic parable.
In this world, he who is crooked can be made straight and he who is straight can become crooked, but in the hereafter he who is crooked cannot be made straight, nor he who is straight crooked. ……. Consider two wicked men who associated with one another n this world. One of them repented of his evil deed before his death while the other did not, with the result that the former stands in the company of the righteous while his fellow stands in the company of the wicked! And beholding him he says, “Woe is me, is there favour shown here? We both of us committed robberies, we both of us committed murders together, yet he stands in the company of the righteous and I in the company of the wicked.” and they [the angels] reply to him and say, “You fool!….after your death did not they drag you to your grave with ropes?… And your associate understood and repented of his evil ways, and you, you also had the opportunity of repenting and you did not take it.”
He thereupon says to them, “permit me to go and repent!” And they answer him and say, “You fool! Do you know that this world [the hereafter] is like the Sabbath and the world whence you have come is like the eve of the Sabbath? If a man does not prepare his meal on the eve of the Sabbath, what shall he eat on the Sabbath?
Curious to me is that the story in Luke that follows immediately upon the open-ended parable of the fig tree and the call to repentance is the story of Jesus healing a bent over (crooked woman) who had been that way for 18 years – on the Sabbath. He even calls her a daughter of Abraham – linking her to the ancient Israelite story where, according to Paul, so many perished under judgement.
If Jesus or Luke or both knew the ancient Rabbinic parable I just read – one wonders if the placing of this story, the healing of the crooked woman, daughter of Abraham, on the Sabbath immediately following the passage for today meant for us to wonder about the possibility of how far God’s mercy through Jesus actually extends. How far into the past and how far into the future does God’s mercy reach? Today I will leave it as something to wonder about.
There is no question in my mind that judgement and mercy will continue to converse. Both of them are important. Both of them are critical components of our Biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation and especially through the Christ story. It matters what we do or our lives are senseless and we will perish as they did. And it matters that every moment of our lives here and beyond require mercy. Let us not take either lightly. Amen.