This Lent season, we are looking at the teachings of Jesus, specifically parables. We talked on Sunday about how parables are meant to collide with our lives and our faith. That is apparent in our scripture for this week.
Luke 13:1-9 Common English Bible
13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. 2 He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. 4 What about those eighteen 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? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”
6 Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 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?’ 8 The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. 9 Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”
Would you say Jesus is political?
What would you say if political was defined as… relating to the public affairs of a country.
Just look at our gospel reading today. Some people come to Jesus and tell him about the Galilean Jews who were killed by Pontius Pilate. In his response, Jesus brings up the collapse of the tower of Siloam. Here are two current events—one an act of deliberate violence, one an accidental disaster—that become topics in Jesus’ teaching.
Jesus doesn’t shy away from addressing contemporary topics. He speaks directly about death and disaster and the theological interpretations of these events. For Jesus, it is important—perhaps even essential—to consider what is happening in the world around him.
If the politics of Jesus day don’t cause a collision in your soul, what about Jesus’ call to repent?
Who doesn’t love to be told to repent?
Feeling the collision yet?
Tragedy, the call to repentance, and then a nonproductive fig tree is now under the spotlight.
What is this passage saying to you?
It would be very easy to read a passage about repentance and for us not to engage in the business of repentance ourselves.
It would be possible for us to think about repentance and not to engage in repentance.
It would be possible for us to think about others who need to repent and not to repent ourselves.
May the grace of the Holy Spirit speak to us as we read this passage and give it the attention it requires.
Through the power of the Bible may we do more than learn about repentance but would be moved to repentance
May this passage collide into you this week… over and over.
Let’s talk about it on Sunday.
~ Pastor Dustin
