The Good Gardener

 Sermon preached on the 3rd Sunday in Lent at St. Thomas' Church, Bath, NY:  1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

          This time the questioners were not there with a trick question. It was not their goal to trap Jesus into an answer that would turn the political and religious authorities against him.

           They were honest people asking an honest question. I assume it was a question that the people of God had been asking as long as anyone could remember.  I know it was a question that people have been asking ever since.

           Why?

           Why suffering?  And why, especially, innocent suffering, be it at the hands of a ruthless government or a random catastrophic event of “nature”?  Why?

           And their question came, as this question often does, with an assumption.  Perhaps the innocent were not so innocent.  Were they being punished for their sin? Or for their lack of faithfulness?

           Before we wrestle with Jesus’ answer, let’s contemplate how this question pops up in our own lives. Oftentimes it is a simple, “Why me?”  And the assumption is that I must have done something wrong, or, perhaps, I did not pray enough.

           Sometimes it comes up from the opposite direction.  An acquaintance of mine several months ago got some horrible news. Cancer had returned and she was given three to four months to live.  Two weeks ago, after weeks of intense treatment, a scan showed her to be cancer free.  Amazing news!  She is grateful beyond the telling.

           A mutual acquaintance called it a miracle.  She declared that clearly God isn’t done with her yet. And this is the power of prayer.

           I want so much to believe those things.  And I do not want to say that this is not a miracle.  It certainly is miraculous!  And I add my profound gratitude to hers.  But I am also left with profound questions.  Did God choose her to live and a cousin of mine—a good man—to die a gruesome death from brain cancer?

           In another approach, throughout the pandemic we are still going through, I have often heard, “When it’s my time it’s my time.”  The clear implication is that someone—God, fate, “the universe”—decides when it is my time to die. Is that what faith in God means, to succumb to a fatalism about life?  God is “in control” so whoever dies today, well, their time was up.

           And then there is St. Paul’s contribution to the question:

 No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

           Much mischief has come from these two verses.  They are often shortened to something like, “God won’t give you anything more than you can get through.”  And it gets applied to physical ailments as well as moral quandaries.

           But Paul is talking about moral temptations.  “Temptation” is really the better translation than “test.” The key is in the next verse which is unhelpfully left off. Paul says, “Therefore” (hear that connection word “Therefore!”), my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.”

           So don’t ever let yourself apply these verses to physical ailments.  Do not use these verses to lessen the impact of the suffering of others.  That is not what Paul was talking about.

           So back to Jesus’ answer about the suffering of innocents.  He replies clearly and simply.

           “No.”

           “Do you think they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you.”

           God was not punishing those Galileans or those upon whom the tower fell.  And I do not believe he was limiting his comment to those two situations.  The answer is “No.” No, God does not punish people because they somehow deserved it more than anyone else.

           Then, I have to say, Jesus messes with our heads a little bit, nay, a lot.  “But,” he says, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”  Is this a sleight of hand? Giving good news with the one hand and bad news with the other?

           No, I don’t think so.  I think it is simpler than it sounds.  All that Jesus is saying is that we are all going to die, and our death is not predictable.  Jesus has taken us back to Ash Wednesday. “Remember that your are dust and to dust you shall return.”

           And Jesus is saying, “Be ready.”  Don’t put off turning to God today because you think you’ve got until tomorrow, or next year. Or, as St. Paul said in Second Corinthians, “See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation!” (6:2).

           One can still hear in that a potential threat, however.  Many the evangelical sermon includes the warning to get right with God because you don’t know when you’re going to die! You don’t want to get caught at judgment day without your house in order.

           But then Jesus tells a parable.  It’s simple. A person’s got a fig tree.  It should be producing figs but it’s not.  I need to get rid of it, she says to herself, because it’s just taking up space.  But her gardener says, “Let it alone.  Let me try again. Let’s re-evaluate next year. You can cut it down then if you feel you must.”

           Does this mean we only get one extra chance?  I don’t think so, and here is why not.  The gardener says, “Leave it be, wait.”  The Greek word is ’άφες.  Another translation of aphes is “forgive.”  It is, in fact the word Jesus uses from the cross, “Father, aphes, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (23:34).

           The gardener is Jesus who says aphes, forgive.  And I think that gardener says give it one more year with his fingers crossed behind his back, and that is not just wishful thinking. I also see it in the text.

           The gardener says, “If it bears fruit next year.  Again, not the only way to translate what is there.  The text does not say “next year.” That is an assumption. The text says εἰς τὀ μἑλλον, “in the future.”

           I see that difference and I ask to myself, “What happens ‘next year’ when the owner and the gardener get to this tree again and it has still borne no fruit?”  I hear the gardener say, “Aphes, forgive.” I hear Jesus say, “Aphes, forgive, in the future.”

           We’ve covered a lot of ground. A brief summary.

1. Let’s be careful of what we attribute to God and not attribute to God. We must resist the temptation to decide for ourselves for what God is or is not responsible.  If life gives us sorrow or suffering, it is enough to know that God shares that sorrow or suffering. If God gives us good things, it is enough be grateful.

·      2. We can be definite about one thing:  We cannot equate human suffering with punishment for sin.

·     3. St. Paul’s encouragement that God will not give us more than we can handle should not be applied to physical human suffering.

·      4. Jesus wants us to keep our death always in mind, not as a threat to worry about, but as a sense of urgency to be as right with God as we possibly can all the time. “Repentance” is not an act in a moment of time. It is a way of life.

·      5. Our judge is Jesus, the good and patient gardener who is aways ready to say “Aphes, forgive” and has a somewhat fuzzy sense of time, “In the future.”

          There remains an urgency to get right with God, but the urgency does not require anxiety.  For the judgment for which we prepare will be presided over not by the impatient landowner, but by the good gardener.