WHAT KIND OF FRUIT ARE YOU BEARING?
FATHER JIM FOSDICK
ST. MARY OF THE SNOWS
MARCH 11, 2007
In the name of God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
In the first session of our Lenten study of What it means to be Anglican we discussed the Christian calendar and the seasons of the calendar. I made the observation that Lent is a penitential season. During Lent we engage in self-examination seeking to identify how we have fallen short of what God expects of us. To the extent we undertake special disciplines, fasting for example, we undertake those disciplines to deny ourselves comforts that get in the way of our self examination. Yes fasting symbolizes Jesus fasting for 40 days in the desert, but for Him and for us the purpose is testing and examining our faith. We self examine for a reason, we want to know what we are not doing adequately or what we are doing wrong so we can change, amend our lives, improve. In short Lenten disciplines are intended to help us repent. A penitential season is a season of repentance.
Our gospel today is all about repentance. It began with some people coming and telling Jesus about some Galileans who had been killed by Pilate and the reading says Pilate mingled their blood with their sacrifices. It reads as though they were making a statement but it’s pretty clear they were actually asking Jesus a question. It was a question that throughout His ministry people seemed to continually ask. The question was what did these people do that was so bad that they would die? It was part of the Jewish belief system that disaster and sudden death signified God’s displeasure or anger over sins committed by those who died. Remember Job’s so-called friends and their analysis of the calamities that were befalling him? In Job 4:7 his friend Eliphaz says, “Remember now, who ever perished being innocent or where were the upright ever cut off?” In the Old Testament cut off is an expression for killed untimely. In our gospel they’re also asking what really terrible sin did these Galileans commit that caused Pilate to blaspheme the temple by having them killed in the temple while sacrifices were being offered? This was the grossest kind of death imaginable.
Jesus does not correct them for thinking the Galileans were killed for their sins. He doesn’t respond with what particularly evil sin caused their unusually abominable deaths. Instead he says do you think these people were worse sinners than their neighbors? He says they weren’t, and then brings the judgment back to those who came to him with the question essentially saying and you’re just as bad as they were. He tells them unless they repent they will perish.
He then reminds them of people who were killed when a tower fell on them in Siloam. Siloam was a reservoir in south Jerusalem and apparently one of the towers guarding the reservoir fell and killed eighteen people. He asks were the people who were killed any worse sinners than all other men in Jerusalem? His listeners hadn’t mentioned the deaths at Siloam but I think Jesus brought it up for a reason. In asking the question about the Galileans what was really going on was an all too human exercise in identifying people who are worse than we are. Jesus refuses to play that game.
Throughout my life I can think of people who had bad reputations. In my high school there was a boy named Moose Rickert. Moose was a hood. A greaser. For those of you too young to know, a greaser was someone who wore his hair slicked back literally with a hair product that had the consistency of grease. It was combed into something called a duck tail—both sides combed to the middle and it formed little flips like a duck’s tail. Any way Moose drove a hot rod Chevy 409 and got in fights and we assumed had a future in prison. The point is no matter what bad things I did, I was never as bad as Moose. I’m sure I served as Moose for someone else who was not as delinquent as I was. Families usually have a Moose. He or she is called the black sheep of the family. As long as we can find somebody to be the black sheep we’re not so bad.
On a theological level this is how most of us approach sin. We set up our own hierarchy of sin and then evaluate ourselves and others according to the ranking of sins which we establish. And guess what? We’re not so bad and we can always point to any number of people who are worse.
The people came to Jesus asking about the Galileans Pilate killed because they were the worst of the Galileans and Galileans were worse than most of the other places where the people of Israel lived. Remember when they questioned Jesus saying can anything good come out of Nazareth? Well Nazareth is the lowliest town in Galilee. So Jesus first says that those whom Pilate killed were no more sinful than anyone else in Galilee and then he brings up an incident in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was where the Temple was and so Jerusalem was where the best of the people of Israel presumably lived. So Jesus says whether you’re in Galilee or Jerusalem unless you repent you will perish.
The people Pilate killed may or may not have perished. The people at Siloam who were killed by the falling tower may or may not have perished. Perishing is not just death. Perishing Jesus says is something much worse. Then like now men were trying to come up with degrees of sin. They were coming up with their own hierarchy of sin and Jesus says no. Sin is sin and unless you repent you will perish. Perish as in die separated from God and condemned to eternal damnation.
This was a shock to the people who Jesus was talking to because they thought that because they were descendants of Abraham and good synagogue attending folks they were the good guys. It would be as if I came in here and said I know you think that coming here and being the son or daughter of so and so who is a known Christian is going to get you into heaven but it’s not. You’re condemned along with the next guy unless you repent and follow Jesus. Just because you’re in a garage doesn’t make you a car. Hey come to think of it that’s exactly what I said last week.
The point I think Jesus is making is this. It doesn’t matter what sins you think are worse than others. It doesn’t matter whether you think what you’ve done is of little consequence or not. We may find it helpful to set up our own hierarchy of sin and then judge ourselves and others. We may find it a comfort to conclude that someone else is guilty of worse sins than we are. This first part of our gospel is saying it doesn’t matter what we think or what our friend thinks or even what our enemy thinks. What matters is what God thinks. How can we find out WHAT God thinks? How can we know if we measure up? In the simple little parable of the fig tree Jesus has given us his standard of measurement.
Luke Chapter 13 verse 6 reads, “He also spoke this parable. A certain man had a fig tree.” When you’re reading the Bible it’s important to pay attention to what you’re reading. That sounds obvious, but I read the Bible for years, or more accurately didn’t read it but heard readings from it, and in any event I didn’t pay very close attention so I didn’t necessarily notice whether what I was hearing was a song from the Psalms, a prophecy from Isaiah or Jeremiah, a statement about a factual event in Jesus ministry, or a parable which is a story told to make a point. Prophecies were things prophets actually said as God instructed them to. Often they were taking God’s people to task and telling them to straighten up or face the consequences. Sometimes but not always, prophecies told of something that would happen in the future. Factual reports actually happened. When we’re told Jesus went from here to there He did. When we’re told he fed the 5000 he did. When Luke says He also spoke this parable Jesus really said it but the story he tells is just that, a story. A parable is a story designed to make a point… to teach something.
I’ve gone to this length on the difference between prophecies, parables and events, because accounts of vineyards and fig trees come up in several different places in the Bible and the context is important. I want to run through a few accounts of vineyards and fig trees and then I want to look at this particular parable in Luke. Vineyards and fig trees are often metaphors for the people of Israel or in the New Testament God’s people more broadly defined.
From the very beginning of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah says he’s reporting a vision he saw and telling the people of Judah and Jerusalem what God told him to tell them. At the beginning of Chapter five, Isaiah says let me sing a song of my beloved regarding his vineyard. Reading carefully as I have suggested we see several important things. First of all this is a song contained within a prophecy which is words God told Isaiah to say. So while Isaiah giving the prophecy is a specific event this passage about the vineyard is not a specific event in history and it is not about a specific vineyard. It’s a song telling about a vineyard to get a point across that God wants to make. It’s a parable in the form of a song. The song begins My well-beloved has a vineyard on a very fruitful hill. It goes on to talk about how the beloved prepared the ground and planted the choicest vines and expected it to bring forth good grapes but it brought forth wild grapes. A little further along it says, “And now please let me tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it shall be burned.” The passage goes on to say it will be trampled, it won’t be pruned or dug, it’ll be over run with briers, and finally, “I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.” Now in case we didn’t make the connection, God says through Isaiah in Chapter 5 verse 7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant plant, He looked for Justice but behold oppression.”
Now let’s fast forward a few hundred years to accounts in Matthew and Mark. The accounts are similar, so I’ll just go through the one found in Matthew. In Chapter 21 Jesus has just cleansed the temple…remember when he drove out the money changers? Matthew reports Chapter 21 verse 17 he then went out of the city (of Jerusalem) to Bethany. Verse 18 reads, “Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry. And seeing a fig tree by the road, He came to it and found nothing on it but leaves and said to it, Let no fruit grow on you ever again. Immediately the fig tree withered away.” Jesus uses the occasion to teach, and in answer to a question says whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. Now let’s apply our critical reading skills to this passage. First question… Is this an event that actually happened or is it a story? It’s an event that actually happened. Both Matthew and Mark report it. They are careful to describe the context. Jesus leaves the temple after driving out the money changers he goes to Bethany he returns to the city and he’s hungry. These are all unnecessary facts if you’re just telling a story to make a point.
Let’s move on now to our Gospel today from Luke and I’ll come back in a bit with some analysis about the passages from Isaiah, Matthew and Mark. Is our gospel today from Luke a prophecy like the passage from Isaiah, an actual event like the passage from Matthew or a parable—a story told to make a point? Applying our critical reading skills, Luke 13 verse 6 reads, He also spoke this parable. For those of you who flunked the quiz, who’s buried in Grant’s tomb? There are some similarities and some differences as we compare these different accounts. The similarities are in Isaiah, Matthew and Luke there is an owner of a vineyard and there are plants either grapes or figs and in all three cases they have not borne fruit, and there the similarities end. What do we have in Luke that we don’t have in the others? In Luke we have a vine keeper and the vine keeper as we shall see makes all the difference. I want to spend the rest of our time today looking at this teaching from the perspective of the owner, the vinekeeper and the fruit.
First let’s go back to Isaiah. At the very beginning God through Isaiah makes things clear. First he is God. Second it’s his vineyard. Third he created the vines and not only that but he provided everything the vines needed to sustain themselves. Isaiah also makes the point that God created the vines with the expectation that they would bear good fruit. When they bear wild fruit which is useless, bad fruit God exercises his sovereign right and destroys the vines. He also says he’s not going to waste any more rain on non productive vines.
What does the account of the fig tree in Matthew tell us? Jesus comes upon a fig tree that is not bearing fruit and in his sovereign judgment destroys the fig tree. In this case he does so for two apparent reasons. First as in Isaiah he destroys the tree because it was meant to bear fruit and it’s not so he destroys it. If something does not fulfill the purpose for which God created it, God in his sovereign judgment can, and often will, remove it. Secondly, Jesus did it to demonstrate his sovereignty to his disciples and to tell them that they were made to do such things. They were made in God’s image and if they operate according to God’s purposes their faith can move mountains.
Let’s look at the parable that Jesus tells in Luke’s gospel now. Again I want to look at the man who had the vineyard, the vine keeper, and the fig tree. By the way in case you’re confused as I was, my commentaries tell me it was common to plant fig trees in vineyards along with the grape vines. Second, Jesus made his parables relevant to the people he was talking to. In the Middle East they grow grapes and figs. If he was telling us a parable here in Eagle River he might well have used a cranberry bush. As in Isaiah’s prophecy, the man who had the vineyard is God. Our gospel reading says he had a fig tree planted in HIS vineyard. So it’s his vineyard and its his tree. He has the right to do what he wants with it. A second right can be derived from the first, since it’s his tree he has a right to expect that it will bear fruit. I think his right to do what he wants with the tree is increased by the fact that we’re told he exercised some restraint, some patience. We’re told that for three years he has come looking for fruit. He has a right to destroy the tree. A final argument is that this fruitless tree is taking up space that could be filled by a tree that bears fruit. If we draw on Isaiah’s account we could add it’s using up rain, nutrients, etc. So I think God’s rights are pretty clearly established.
This brings us face to face with an issue I think we should look at. I’ve laid out what I think are God’s rights. As I typed those words I thought we don’t hear about God’s rights much these days. We talk a lot about man’s rights. Some are even bold enough to say what a loving god would do. It reminds me of Job questioning God. Do you remember how God answered? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? I really think the fear of God is something we’ve lost and need to regain.
So let’s get back to what the parable teaches about God’s rights and apply it very specifically to us …to men and women in the 21st century. The first thing that’s clear is that God has an absolute right of possession of all human lives because every one of us was created by God. We are the offspring of God. God thought us into existence. We are his property. It’s important to note that we are God’s property not the devil’s because God created us. The devil has never created anything. We can be slaves to sin as Paul says and in some respects that means we are slaves to the devil, but we still belong to God. Not only are we God’s property, but we live in his world. This is what theologians call divine providence. We walk on his grass, drink his water, and breathe his air, any one or all of which he could withdraw at his whim.
Just like the owner of the vineyard had a right to certain expectations, namely good fruit, God has a right to certain expectations of us. What does God have a right to expect from a man? Let me work us up to this. If you ask a child what do we have a right to expect from a fig tree he will say figs. OK you’d have to phrase the question more simply…what do you get from an apple tree? The child would respond apples. What do you get from an orange tree? Oranges. So what does God have a right to expect from a man? Manhood. What does he have a right to expect from a woman? Womanhood. God doesn’t expect us to be angels, he expects us to be men and women. In fact from God’s point of view we are designed to be better than angels. A famous preacher from London was dying and his daughter said you will soon be one of the angels. He is reported to have said, Folks are better than angels.
So when God comes into his garden and looks at the plant of our lives will he find the fruit he is looking for? Will he find manhood and womanhood as he intended them. What’s our model? How do we know if we are good fruit or bad fruit? Our model is Jesus. Jesus came to show us what manhood is. Do we compare ourselves to him? You know those bracelets were right. WWJD. What would Jesus do? That’s our model. Or is it? Don’t we often say, I’m glad I’m not like that tax collector over there? Don’t we determine each for ourselves which sins matter and which sins don’t and then compare ourselves to others on that basis and say we’re OK. But we’re not. If we compare ourselves to Jesus we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Let me try to make something a little clearer about this being good fruit. It’s not enough to say I haven’t committed murder, I haven’t committed adultery, even if it were possible I haven’t lied. The absence of having done bad things is not good fruit. It’s a tree created by God with nothing on it like the fig tree. What did Jesus say were the great commandments? Love God and love your neighbor. How did Jesus as the model of the manhood that God has a right to expect… how did Jesus live? He sought God’s will in everything. He obeyed God even to death on the cross. He loved his neighbor and he served him. Jesus says if you’re not building God’s kingdom you’re using up the ground, encumbering it as the King James Version puts it. If God put someone else in your place might that someone else do more, bear more fruit? We can’t know the real meaning of our lives until we have looked at Jesus. The Bible says God made man in his image. So if you want to know what you’re supposed to look like, supposed to be like you have to look at God…look at Jesus. Jesus kept the two commandments He loved God and loved his neighbor. Do we ? NO! So God has every right to destroy us like the grape vine… like the fig tree.
Thank God there’s another character In Jesus’ parable. It’s the vinekeeper. So let’s look at him. First of all, is His purpose different from the owner’s? Is the vinekeeper there to get the owner to grant mercy to a fruitless tree? NO! Is Jesus the vinekeeper’s purpose different from God’s? No. In the end the vinekeeper says But if not, after that you can cut it down. The vinekeeper and the owner are in agreement. The tree should bear good fruit. The vinekeeper says, let me work with it a while and see if I can help it to bear fruit. Jesus came to bring the tree, to bring each of us, new life. Paul says in second Corinthians 5:17 If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. I could paraphrase and still do justice to Paul if I said If anyone is in Christ he is a new, good-fruit bearing tree. We don’t get admitted to heaven on the basis of God’s pity but on the basis of having been made perfect in Christ. God has the sovereign right to destroy every one of us before we are under the loving care of Jesus the vinekeeper. He has the right because we are sinners. Each of us is guilty of our own particular collection of sins and we continue to sin which God sees as bad fruit. We also fail to bear good fruit for God’s kingdom. Jesus said whoever is not for me is against me. There are only two kinds of people in the world theologically speaking—scatterers and gatherers. Scatterers drive people away from God. Gatherers gather people into the kingdom. Scattering is bad fruit. Gathering is good fruit. You can’t bear good fruit without the help of Jesus the vinekeeper who is gathering his own into the kingdom.
So I’ve talked about God the owner and Jesus the vinekeeper what remains from the parable is the tree. What does the parable say about the tree? There are only two possibilities. The tree responds to the vine keeper and as a result bears good fruit or it doesn’t and is destroyed justifiably by God the owner. God in his sovereign will decides when we have had enough time. We none of us know when our lives will be demanded of us. In Isaiah and Matthew God sees a tree not bearing fruit and destroys it. In Luke God allows Jesus to work with the tree and to see if it responds to him and bears fruit. It comes down to whether each one of us will follow Jesus the vinekeeper and be transformed into people who bear fruit for the kingdom. We cannot do it on our own. God has given us the free will to choose life or destruction. We can choose to refuse the ministry of Christ in us. God will let us do that and now or later we will go to destruction. But we can also yield our lives to Jesus and follow him and he will turn our bruised fruitless lives into marvelous trees that bear good fruit. We will become higher than angels, brothers and sisters of Christ. We will become what God intended from the beginning and our transformed lives will glorify God. Last week I said we don’t do good works in order to be saved we do good works because we are saved. Jesus is here offering to save each one of us if we will merely repent, turn around and follow Him. If you haven’t done so, I pray that you will. If you know someone who hasn’t I pray that you will share your faith with them and be a gatherer. Bear good fruit for the Kingdom.
Amen. |
