I suspect that the first half of today's gospel text is sometimes used as a club, demanding that people "REPENT NOW!" But please... keep reading. That's not what Jesus is saying at all. It's all about grace.
The lectionary texts on which the sermon are based are:
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
Have you ever heard the saying “I don’t have to be the fastest, I just have to be faster than the slowest!” There are other versions, like “I don’t have to be the fastest, I just have to be faster than YOU” which, of course, is a more personalized version of the same thing.
What do you think about that?
It seems pretty reasonable, doesn’t it? As long as someone else takes the heat, I’m ok! Whew!
But…. Well… what if you are the slowest?
And beyond that… what does that have to say about the ways we think about the slowest?
Saying “I just have to be faster than you” makes it pretty clear: the “you” is less important than me.
And I’m willing to sacrifice others to save myself.
AND it’s ok! Because if somebody is slow they probably don’t deserve to live anyway, right?
Well…
Today’s gospel lesson has Jesus saying… mmmm… no. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
In this section of Luke, Jesus has been teaching people using stories, and in this part his people are telling him some stories, too.
Like… what about those Galileans that Pilate desecrated? Both the Galileans and the Jewish sacrifices?
And what about those people that got knocked over when a tower fell on them? Talk about bad judgment!
But y’know, Jesus has a way of understanding human nature, and knowing what’s behind their comments. And on this one, I think Jesus knew that these folks were trying to justify themselves… to say…
Well… we aren’t SO bad.
Sort of like saying… “we ran faster than they did, so that’s something, right?”
As if they deserved it then those horrible unpredictable things would happen to THEM.
But that is not why Jesus was there. He was not there to line people up in some kind of worst to best order.
It’s really hard to put other people before us, though. But Jesus isn’t saying here that we need to put other people before us. What Jesus is saying is that we need to realize that we are all in the same place.
Yep… we are pretty willing to sacrifice each other to preserve ourselves.
If you pay attention to political arguments these days you know that it’s super-hard to have a real conversation. Instead, when confronted with information, it is a very common strategy to point out what’s wrong with others rather than admit the failings of those we support. You want to talk about what my team did? Well, WHAT ABOUT WHAT YOUR TEAM DID? We sacrifice another to preserve our own self-image.
It starts early! Listen to squabbling children, and see just how long it takes before one of them, when faced with some facts about their own behavior, rely on that old chestnut… HE STARTED IT!
We toss blame back and forth like a hot potato, as if it is possible to settle things by putting our behaviors in some hierarchical order. As if some of our misdeeds are worse than others.
But here’s the big news: Jesus said THAT IS NOT HOW THINGS WORK. He did not come to have us line people up in some kind of worst to best order, based on criteria that puts us at the top!
Quite the opposite, in fact. In the second half of our reading, Jesus replies to his friends’ stories with a parable:
The fig tree hadn’t produced fruit for three years. This upsets the owner who wants to cut down that tree. He does not want to waste his good soil on a tree that won’t even give fruit!
But here are some facts about figs and fig trees:
It takes AT LEAST two years before a fig tree will start bearing fruit, and sometimes as long as six years!
So the owner of the tree was being pretty impatient. He was expecting that tree to get it right the first time, to produce fruit pretty much at the earliest possible time.
But the gardener said, wellllll… let’s give it a little longer, ok? Some nice compost. Some good pruning. And maybe it will bear fruit next year?
How gracious that gardener is!
God is patient with us, too.
Now, while God is being patient it can seem pretty yucky… I mean, do you know what’s in compost? Yuck! But the compost is what feeds the fig tree, and in the same way, the hard and yucky parts of our life help us to grow and become more the people we were born to be.
It is by coming through the trials of life that we learn about our gifts, and all the ways our lives can bear fruit. Jesus is pointing us to a life in which we each become who we were born to be, nurtured and pruned and surrounded in compost so that we bear fruit. And it takes a lifetime to grow a person.
Jesus is saying, throughout this passage, that God does not buy into rewarding folks based on who is best able to sacrifice others.
In fact, God – in Jesus – sacrificed himself for others. This is not to say we should sacrifice ourselves, though! Quite the opposite!
Jesus did all the sacrificing when he stayed fully divine, but also fully human, and lived in this broken world.
Jesus did all the sacrificing when he lived a sinless life, and was killed for it… but then was resurrected.
Compared to that Jesus we are ALL unworthy! If Jesus had lined up people based on worthiness, he would have been at the top of the list, and the rest of us wouldn’t even be on the same page.
Instead of letting the rest of us go to the fate we so richly deserve, Jesus took on our pain and suffering and brokenness.
Instead of sacrificing others to save himself, Jesus… who had no reason to be sacrificed, gave himself up for the rest of us who don’t deserve it.
And in turning things EVEN MORE upside down, he did not live his life lifting himself up above others. He spent his whole life teaching and loving and resurrecting and helping and generally showing us how a human life could be lived.
So the guy who could have lorded his divinity over everyone else, didn’t.
The guy who would have been perfectly justified in saying “I’m faster than any of you, not just the slowest!” didn’t.
And now we are not on our own. Jesus has fulfilled the law and we are free.
Free to give up comparing ourselves to others.
Free to admit the ways we miss the mark.
Free to LIVE, knowing that we are all equal:
* Equally sinful
* Equally redeemed
* Equally loved
So today, let that love shine forth towards everyone. It is no longer about being faster than the slowest one but being fully, joyfully, delightfully, and completely redeemed by the one who turned the race upside down!
Amen.
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