3 Lent

March 24, 2019

 Luke 13.1-9

+ I know this is hard to believe, but we are rapidly—very rapidly—approaching the middle point of the season of Lent. For some of us, that might be a reason to rejoice. For those for whom this season gets a bit heavy, that is why we have our Lataere Sunday next Sunday, with our rose vestments. We get a little half-way break for Lent.

For me, I actually don’t mind this season. It gives me the opportunity to slow down a bit, to ponder, to make a concentrated effort to do some very specific spiritual things.

And one of those things is repenting. Now, I know. That’s such a “church word.”

Repent.

I mean, it’s not a word we use in our day-to-day lives. It doesn’t come up in our lunch conversations. Well, maybe in mine. But probably not in yours.

But Jesus seems pretty clear on this one,  In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say some very stern words to us:

“…unless you repent, you will all perish [just as those poor unfortunates whose blood was mingled with sacrifices and on whom the tower of Siloam fell].”

Not pleasant talk. It’s uncomfortable. Especially when we hear words like “repent” we definitely find ourselves heading into an uncomfortable area. We find ourselves exploring the territory of self-abasement. We find some people lamenting and beating their breasts or throwing ashes in the air over all of this repentance talk.  We have been taught for a large extent that what we are dealing with in all of this talk of repentance is that somehow God is angry and is going to punish us for all the wrongs we did and that is why we must repent—repent, of course, meaning turn around.

And at first glance in our Gospel reading that’s exactly what we might be thinking. God is angry and we must repent—we must turn away from what is making God so angry.  But if we look a bit closer and if we really let this reading settle in, we find that we might be able to use this idea of repentance in a more constructive and positive way.

In our Gospel reading, we find Jesus essentially saying to us that we are not going to bear fruit if we have cemented ourselves into our stubborn way of seeing and believing.  And that’s important! A stubborn way of seeing and believing. The kingdom that Jesus is constantly preaching about is not only this magical place in the next world. If that’s all we believe about the Kingdom, then we are not really hearing the scriptures. And belief like that lets us off the hook. Essentially then, all we have to do is work on getting in our magical kingdom in the sky.

But Jesus, again and again, talks about the kingdom not just there, but here too. It’s fluid. And our job as followers of Jesus is to make this Kingdom a reality NOW.

Right now.

It is our job to allow the Kingdom into come into our midst, to give us a glimpse of what awaits us.  And the only way that happens, as we have heard again and again, is when we can love God, love others and love ourselves.  

And I would add as well another aspect to that. Scripture mentions loving the stranger even more times that loving the neighbor, as Barbara Brown Taylor (who is visiting Concordia College this week) has pointed out.  When we do—when we love God, love  ourselves, love our neighbor, love the stranger—it is then we bear fruit. It is then what we see the Kingdom of God right here, right now.  When we don’t love—and it is hard to love when we are stuck in all that negative stuff like being angry or stubborn or resentful—then we are essentially the fig tree that bears no fruit.  And it’s important to see that this love needs to be spread equally. It is love for God, love for our neighbor, love for the stranger and love for ourselves.

We are not bearing full fruit when we are only doing two of the three.  The love becomes lopsided.

If we love only God and ourselves, but not our neighbors or strangers, then we are in danger of becoming fanatical.  If we love God and love others only and not ourselves, we become self-abasing.

But if we strive to do all of it—if we strive to love fully and completely—then we find ourselves being freed by that love. And it is freeing.

When we talk of our stubbornness, when talking of closing ourselves off in anger and frustration, we imagine that cementing feeling—that confinement. But when we speak of love, we imagine that cementing feeling being broken. We find ourselves freed from our confinement. We allow ourselves to grow and flourish.

That’s the point Jesus is making to us in our Gospel reading today.  And that is why repentance is so essential for our spiritual growth, for the health of our Christian community and for the furthering of the Kingdom in our midst.  Repentance in this sense means turning away from our self-destructive, stubborn behavior.

The Kingdom will not come into our midst when we refuse to love. The Kingdom cannot be furthered by us or by anyone when we feel no love for God, when we feel no love for others and when we feel no love for ourselves.

Repentance in this sense means to turn around—to turn away from our self-destructive behavior. Repentance in this sense means that we must turn around and start to love, freely and openly.   Repentance in this sense means that by repenting—by turning around—we truly are furthering the Kingdom in our midst.

There’s also another aspect to the analogy Jesus uses in today’s Gospel reading. If you notice, for three years the tree didn’t bear fruit and so the man who planted the tree thought it was a lost cause. But the gardener protests.  He gives the tree a bit of tender loving care and the tree, we assume, (we hope!) begins flourishing.

What I love about that is the fact that it says to us that none of us are lost causes. We all go through times in our lives when we feel as though we are bearing no fruit at all. We feel as though we are truly “wasting the soil” in which we live.  We feel as though we are helpless and useless and that sometimes it feels as though the pains and frustrations of our lives have won. We have been cemented into our negative feelings and emotions.  The pains and frustrations of this life have stifled in us any sense of new life and growth.

But that little dose of TLC was able to bring that seemingly barren tree to new life. A little bit of love and care can do wonders. It can change things. It can change us. It can change others.  It can give life where it was thought there was no possibility of life before. It can renew and it can revitalize.

At this time of year, we are probably made most aware of this. Certainly when we look around at our seemingly dead and barren landscape, flooded with water, we might think that nothing beautiful or wonderful can come from all this mud. And in this season of Lent, when we are faced with all this language of seeking mercy, on recalling our failings and shortcomings and sins, in this stripped-bare church season, it is hard to imagine that Easter is just a few weeks away.

But, in a sense, that is what repentance feelings like. Repentance is that time of renewal and revitalization that comes from the barren moments in our lives. Repenting truly does help us to not only bear fruit, but to flourish.  Repenting and realizing how essential and important love of God, love of our neighbors, love of the stranger, love of self are in our lives  truly does allow us to blossom in the way that God wants us to flourish.

So, as we journey together through this season of Lent, toward the Cross, and beyond it to the Resurrection, let us do so with our hearts truly freed. Let us do so with a true, freeing and healthy love in our hearts, having turned away from those things that are ultimately self-destructive And let the love we feel be the guide for our actions.

Through all of this, let us bring about the Kingdom of God into our midst slowly, but surely. Let the Kingdom come forth in our lives as blossoming fruit. And when it does, it is then that will truly flourish.