Sermon: Third Sunday in Lent, Luke 13:1-9

March 23, 2025 

Faith-La Fe Lutheran Church
Pastor Jonathan Linman

You’ve just heard an odd set of stories in today’s gospel reading, stories which only appear in Luke, but which might have made headlines in Jesus’ day. 

The first story is Jesus’ recounting how Pilate killed some Galileans and then mixed their blood with the blood of animals they sacrificed in the temple, a great offense to people of faith. Pilate basically made them into examples showing that he’s in charge. Imperial business as usual; same as it ever was.

The other is a headline story that brings back our memories of 9/11 and the collapse of the twin towers in the terrorist attacks of 2001. Apparently 18 people died when the tower of Siloam in the city of Jerusalem fell on them. 

Jesus recalls these two historical events basically to ask the question: do you think these people got what they deserved? 

What was Jesus’ answer? No. Jesus said, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way, they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell.” And likewise, “do you think the ones on whom the tower collapsed were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

But then Jesus called his hearers and now all of us all to repentance – for we’re all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God: “But unless you repent,” Jesus says, “you will all perish just as they did.” Jesus said this twice to drive home the point.

What’s the theological meaning of all of this? It’s this: the kingdom of God that Jesus proclaims is not about people getting what they deserve. The kingdom of God is not about tit for tat fatalism or determinism. The kingdom of God is not about reward and punishment. It’s not about the Hindu concept of karma, that the moral force of behavior in this life determines the quality of your life in the next.

No, the dominion of God that Jesus proclaims operates according to a wholly different logic. That’s why Jesus next tells the parable of the fig tree.

There’s a fig tree that’s not bearing fruit. The land owner wanted to cut it down. For three years, no fruit. Don’t waste the soil. It doesn’t deserve to live. But then the gardener intervenes: “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I 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.”

The dominion of God that Jesus proclaims is the domain of the second chance. It’s the reign of God known for patience and mercy and compassion. Not, “you get what you deserve!”

And look at the remarkable thing in this parable: the tree doesn’t really do anything. It’s just a tree being a tree. It’s the gardener who does all the work – digging around it and putting manure on it. 

You gardeners: what does digging in the soil around a plant or tree do? It opens up the soil to better receive water. It also introduces air, oxygen, to help feed the root system for better growth. Trees, like us, like all living things, cannot survive without water and oxygen.

You gardeners: what does spreading manure do? Manure is fertilizer that is rich with nutrients to feed the soil and that which is planted for better growth and productivity. 

When there’s enough water, oxygen and nutrients, then there’s a greater likelihood of bearing fruit. 

I know we’re not supposed to read too much into parables in the Bible. But I cannot help but think that in the parable of the fig tree, the landowner is God (the righteous God who demands justice). I cannot help but think that the gardener is Jesus who, on the cross, intervenes and pleads for mercy and patience. And I cannot help but think that the fig tree is all of us who are not bearing the fruit that God expects of us. 

What’s the meaning of the parable for us? We by ourselves cannot bear fruit on our own. We need Christ, our gardener, to intervene on the cross, to plead for mercy from the landowner, and to give the grace and compassion of a second chance. 

We need Christ to dig around in the soil of our lives, introducing the oxygen of the Holy Spirit to better receive the waters of baptismal regeneration and renewal.

Dare I say, we need Christ to spread the manure, the fertilizer of his Word and his Sacraments, to feed us with rich nutrients for our growth.

In short, we need Christ to feed us. And Christ does feed us with his very self at his very table. In fact, building on what Paul said in today’s second reading, we all eat the same spiritual food, and drink the same spiritual drink. We drink from the spiritual rock, and that rock is Christ (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:2-4). 

When we are so nourished, then the fruit will come – not with us trying harder to bear fruit, but like the fig tree, the harvest comes by us just being ourselves. In the power of the Spirit working through the rich nutrients of Word and Sacraments which feed us, the harvest of fruit will come naturally, organically, of its own accord. We don’t really do anything except be ourselves, God’s children, through whom God works.

Oh, what a different God, what a different vision of God’s kingdom than the tit for tat version of you get what you deserve! Our world that’s so merciless desperately needs (and deep down wants) to hear about this God, and to know and experience this reign of God.

And that’s why God sends us on a mission precisely to proclaim the good news of this compassionate God of the second chance! We are sent into the world to proclaim the merciful good news that makes all the difference, that makes the world verdant with the harvest of abundant fruit. 

We echo the words of Isaiah as we reach out to people beyond these walls saying to them in word and deed: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isaiah 55:1) Grace alone. Faith alone. Mercy prevails.

Lest we get daunted and overwhelmed by the tasks before us, I invite you to more deeply internalize the lessons and implications of the parable of the fig tree for our efforts to do God’s work: to reiterate, it’s Christ, the gardener, who does the real work, the heavy lifting, having been lifted high on the tree of the cross and having been lifted out of the tomb in resurrected new life.

Which is to say, remember the ELCA tag line:  it’s God’s work. But our hands. Good people, God’s people: let’s not try so hard, then! Rather, the Holy Spirit beckons us to trust in faith ever more deeply in Christ who does the hard work. 

But God does use our hands. So, like Christ, we’re called upon to do some digging in and around our mission field here in Phoenix. That is to say, we’re called to dig around in people’s lives to share in God’s work of introducing them to the baptismal waters, such that the oxygen of the Spirit work in them, that they may also bear good fruit.

And dare I say it? We’re called upon to spread a lot of manure around north central Phoenix! That’s right, our mission, our ministry is to spread manure! OK, you laugh! But think about the Latin origins of the word, manure: manus + opera = to work by hand. God’s work. Our hands.

We’re called upon to get our hands dirty spreading the nutrient rich fertilizer of Christ’s Word and Sacraments in our ministries, that all may come to know the God of grace, that all may bear fruit for the sake of God’s loving dominion.

So, if someone concludes that this sermon is “full of …..”, I’ll take that as high praise.

And if people in the wider world of our community come to say that Lutherans are full of it, that is, full of the fertilizer of God’s rich soil in Word and Sacraments, then we know we’ve done our job, that we’ve born fruit for God’s reign….

Are you ready to step deeply into it and get to work doing God’s work with our hands? I pray so – that God may use us to feed and nourish with compassion, love, mercy and grace our world that is being actively starved of such gifts by the current powers that be. 

May mercy prevail in our nation, and in our world, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.