SERMON

SERMON= —Lk. 13: 1-9--3^rd Sunday in Lent—March 10&11, 2007—<= st1:City w:st=3D"on">St. Paul, Carlisle

Grace to you and peace from God our Father a= nd the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

= When disasters overtake people, it usually raises some questions for us. We may wonder at the amount of destruction and the loss of lives; sometimes we wonder why people choose to live where they do—on flood plains, fault lines, slopes of volcanoes= , on the beach, and below sea level. Sometimes we wonder why tyrants are allowed to live and to gain in = power and keep on hurting people.

= Sometimes even a more serious question is—where is God in all of this? How can we explain a loving, cari= ng God when we see all the pain and suffering around us?

= That’s basically the issue that’s been raised when people tell Jesus about = the Galileans who were killed by Pilate while they were making sacrifices to G= od.

= People get concerned when things happen like this and feel the need to justify Go= d, and one of the ways they do that is by saying that these people deserved to die; it’s punishment for their sinfulness.

= Jesus reply is not directly commenting on the death of the Galileans, here go again—“Can’t we ever get a direct answer to a question Jesus?”

= Instead, Jesus brings up another example of disaster and in both cases, very concis= ely and quickly puts aside any notion that disasters that overtake people prove these people are worse than others.

= The other side of the coin is also true. Those who don’t experience a lot of pain aren’t less si= nful than the ones who do.

Then Jesus says—“Unless you repent, you will all perish as they did,”

= With these words, Jesus pushes the important issue of the meaning of pain, even though He knows what He says might cause more questions than it gives answ= ers.

= Jesus is so concerned with the urgency of the Gospel that He pushes right to the heart of the matter in a rather abrupt way.

= To understand a little better why Jesus replies as he does, we need to back u= p and look at the verses that come right before our reading for today. And what comes right before are s= ome very powerful words of Jesus concerning settling differences, reconciliati= on and warning of judgment if that isn’t done.

= And Jesus brings this warning home, because His reply makes it clear He isn= 217;t talking about “them,” those other people who are the worst sinners. “Unless YOU repent”—Jesus is speaking to the “You” who will he= ar Him. Jesus is speaking to us= .

= It seems to me, that one of the reasons Jesus speaks so harshly is because He knows how hard it is for us to hear that we need to repent.

= The average person who gathers for worship Sunday after Sunday usually doesn’t take the call to repent very seriously, at least not for themselves. We tend to= be like the people talking to Jesus in our Gospel reading for today, where we focus on someone else and say “Don’t they need to repent?̶= 1;

= This is so true for us as we continue this emphasis on stewardship in our lives= -we listen to all this talk about our need to be a certain way, to give of our talents and gifts that have been freely given to us by God—and we say “Yes, THEY should be that way—THEY need to do exactly that.

= We tend to look at our own lives and think that for the most part we’re doing OK. We may see small behavioral changes we’d like to make—maybe eat less, get more exercise, yell at our families a little less, that kind of thing—but often we miss completely the heart change that we need to make.=

= Repentance mean a complete turning about, not just a small behavioral change, and eve= ry one of us needs a complete change of heart concerning something in our lives. A new way of seeing b= ecause God has granted us renewed spirits.

= This isn’t just a one time deal. It’s a daily dying to something in us that keeps us from livi= ng faithfully, and a daily rising to a new life.

= That’s why in the Lutheran Church we talk abo= ut a circle-a daily return to our baptism for forgiveness, cleansing and renewal. Many will talk of t= heir faith journey as a climb up a mountain, where you pull up your boot straps, grit your teeth, and make it through somehow, and you just keep getting be= tter and better.

= The Lutheran= Church says not to that—the Christian life as disciples-- isn’t a climb up the mountain –i= t’s a daily return to your Baptism. We will grow in our understanding of what it means to live as a Child of God—we will grow in our understanding of God’s Word and what it means to be called and gathered as community.

But we will never be less sinful. We will never need Christ less than we do now and did in the beginning of our lives.

= And so we return to our baptisms. Sinful people in need of God’s forgiveness and cleansing ever= y day of our lives. Returning to o= ur baptisms is a constant reminder of our need to repent. It’s a reminder that what we cannot do for ourselves, God willingly and lovingly does for us.

= It’s a call for renewal by a very merciful God who seeks to bring us out of our self-righteousness and self-absorption to total dependence on Him.

= The parable of the fig tree naturally follows the call to repent. This parable is a parable of cris= is because it calls us to repentance while there’s still time to act, b= efore our lack of repentance brings God’s judgment on us.

= At the same time it is a parable of mercy, because now is the time of GodR= 17;s grace, the time when He nurtures us and cares for us so that we can bring forth—good fruit

= Whenever Scripture talks about bearing fruit, it usually refers to the fruit of repentance, because before we can do any works of faith, we must repent.

As God’s people we’ve been given a tremendous privilege-the gift = of being God’s people. Al= ong with that comes responsibility-we are to be good stewards of all that God = has given us—we can not separate the two.

= The purpose of the fig tree is to bear good fruit. The tree in the parable may have = nice green leaves and be giving good shade—it may be pretty and it may be restful, but that’s no substitute for bearing fruit.

= The purpose of God’s people is to make God known. That is our responsibility. The question this text asks each = one of us and our congregation is—“How much have we run to leaf—where our time and energies are focused on something other than= the commission God has given us to make Him known?”

= The warning about the fig tree is different than the other disasters that kill= ed the people in our reading. T= he death of those people didn’t happen because they were sinful, as a punishment from God.

= But, direct action will be taken against the fig tree if it fails to produce. At the time of Jesus this was a c= lear warning to the nation of Israel, one that became reality when Israel was obliterated by the Romans in 70CE.

God warns us as a community of Christians.&nb= sp; Whenever we lose sight of our purpose to make God known, and instead become contended, self-serving people-(in other words unfaithful stewards)—we are warned that God may indeed remove His protective presence and allow us to experience great suffering in order to call us ba= ck to faithfulness.

= The parable of the fig tree doesn’t have an ending-it’s left open = because so often in real life we don’t know the ending to a particular part = of our story.

= We do know that God wills good for His people. We know that God is constantly intervening in our lives to care for us and to call us to repentant living= .

= God has planted us firmly in good soil. For His sake, we are to bring forth go= od fruit so His Kingdom will grow. And in all of this, He promises to be with us through the empowerment of His H= oly Spirit. Let us give praise t= o the Lord.

AMEN.