Message 03-11-07

 

Series:            Lectionary [Lent]

Scripture:            Luke 13:1-9

 

Title:                                        Absolute Value

 

Open with Scene from “Joe Vs. the Volcano”

            Moon over the raft – Joe stands to his shaky feet looking at all the stars and the ocean and the moon. Then falls to his knees and says,

            Dear God, whose name I do not know, thank you for my life.

            I forgot how big... Thank you for my life.

 

When we realize just how big God is, when we realize how much bigger than us, than all our hopes and dreams God is, when we realize how much more there is to life and all that God has created and God himself… how do we respond?

 

We repent. We repent.

 

Repentance means “turning around”. That’s all it means. It means turning around.

 

When we usually think of repentance we usually think of it in regard to sins. Sinners are called to repent. But that’s not all repentance is about. Repentance the word is speaking of turning around, turning to this new direction, a different direction.

 

I’m betting that there are some people here who don’t feel like much of a sinner. I’m thinking that you feel like you’re living a pretty decent life and being decent to the people around you. What if you don’t feel like you’re that much of a sinner? It may be that you aren’t. You may not be the darkest of sinners with a dank and empty soul, but if you don’t repent you will perish too.

 

Can you hear what Jesus is saying to the people around him? Do you think these people were the worst sinners because they died in this way? They were killed in a political move or they were killed in an accident? It wasn’t sin that caused the calamity. But if you don’t repent you’ll perish too.

 

What if you feel like you’re just overwhelmed by life, that life has piled up on you, and you are just doing the best you can just to survive? What if the choices you’re making to get by are not your first choices, not what you’d prefer to do, but they are what they are. What if you’re willing to stand by the choices you’re making as the best you can do? Jesus is saying it isn’t about making a case one way or the other. If you don’t repent you’re going to perish too.

 

For people of Jesus’ time “Sin” was a cause for calamity. Bad things happening in your life were because of sin. God smacked you down. God struck you down. God’s wrath came upon you because you were a sinner. Poor people were hated by God, maimed people were hated by God and he showed that by making them poor and maimed. Rich people were loved by God and he showed that by making them rich. People believed that when life was hard it was hard for a reason. When life was great it was great for a reason and the reason was sin or righteousness. God was against you because of sin in your life or sin in your parents’ life. Hard times were the punishment for that sin.   Good things were the blessing of God for your righteousness.

 

We can still feel that way. We can still find that people believe that natural catastrophe and hard times and even destruction are signs of God’s anger. But Jesus says no to retribution here. Calamity is not retribution by God. Calamity is not revenge or correction by God Jesus says. When things go wrong that is not God’s way of smacking you because you’ve been bad. Life is life, but if you don’t turn toward God you’re going to perish as well.

 

Perishing is not the result of the anger of God. In the case of the people who were killed by Pilate in a political circumstance or in the case of the people who were crushed by the falling tower these were not signs that these people were sinners or evil. Perishing is just perishing. It’s the way life works. Something is going to kill you. It may be old age. It may be an accident, but something is going to take you out. So far the average is one out of one. But if you don’t repent you’re going to perish spiritually as well as physically.

 

And that’s what Jesus is getting at here.

 

Jesus is saying that if we’re supposed to get anything out of hard times it should be the stuff that makes us what we were created to be. Jesus is saying that if we’re supposed to get anything out of the hard times we experience, then it should be the stuff that makes us what we were created to be.

 

Jesus tells this odd little story to the people who are listening to him. The story of the fig tree has been discussed for 2000 years. And I believe it is one of ways Jesus tells us what repentance is supposed to look like.

 

Jesus tells different stories about repentance. In just a week we’ll look at those stories of lost things – a lost lamb, a lost coin, a lost son. Jesus said repentance is like being carried back, it’s like being discovered, it’s like turning around and going back home. Repentance is like being carried back or being discovered or going back home. It’s all about leaving the place where you were stuck and getting to the place where you become what you were created to be.

 

So there was this fig tree in the midst of a vineyard. The owner of the vineyard comes out to get some figs and discovers there still aren’t any figs growing on this tree. It’s been three years and still no fruit. So he calls his gardener and tells him to cut it down. Why waste the soil?

But the gardener says, “No, no… let’s give it another chance. Let me loosen up the soil and pour on the manure and give it another year and let’s see if it gives us some fruit then. If that doesn’t help, well then we can cut it down.”

 

Do you ever feel like that’s what’s going on in your life? Do you ever feel like the manure of life is piling up around you? The translators of our Bible have cleaned up the image for us a little bit here and that’s too bad in some ways. When we read “fertilizer” we can start thinking of those neat, clean bags at Home Depot. But the word that’s used in the Greek is manure.

 

When we are in the midst of hard times, Jesus tells us that should wake us up to being away from God. Our life, our world will produce hard times. One of the last things Jesus said to his disciples was "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

The second step of Adoration is realizing that no matter where we are in life, we were created to be in the direction of God, we were created to be in relationship with God. When we are not in relationship with God we are not fruitful. And when we’re not fruitful we’re not useful. We’re useless.

 

Being fruitful for God is a whole other sermon but what we should see in our lives is that other people are being fed by our lives, other people are being nurtured spiritually by our lives, other people are encouraged by our lives.

 

I’ve shared this before, but it is worth repeating. We are not called to live lives of significance. It doesn’t really matter how big a life you create. We are not called to live lives of significance. We are called to love others into significance.