Lent 3 (Luke 13:1-8) “Unless you repent.”

People are very good at assigning shame and blame. Jesus directs us to accept personal responsibility for our own lives and to leave the judgment of other people to him.

There was a widespread belief in Jesus’ day that bad things only happened to bad people. This is an ungrounded belief. There is no basis in scripture or human experience to substantiate such a belief.

Scripture is very clear that we live in a world of duality. In the world of duality sometimes bad things happen and sometimes good things happen. Sometimes there is pleasure and sometimes there is pain. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. In most (if not all) circumstances our choices determine the outcome.

Certainly, the choice the Galilean rebels made to plot against the Romans entered into the world of cause and effect to produce a very dramatic and tragic result. Pontus Pilate hunted them down and executed them as they were offering sacrificial worship. Jesus would later comment on this kind of choice by saying: those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

According to popular belief the rebels were patriots who were performing the most meritorious act possible: worship. How could they have suffered such a fate if bad things only happen to bad people? Had they offended God? How God abandoned them? The train of thought in a religious system of rewards and punishments always leads to pride or despair.

 Pride states: I have what I have because I am righteous. God protects me. God rewards me. Despair says: I am suffering because I have somehow inadvertently offended God and incurred God’s wrath. In both pride and despair the soul is obsessed with shame and blame. It is self-obsessed.

When the tower of Siloam fell many died. Why? Was God punishing them for their sins? Did God not uphold the Divine obligation to protect the righteous?

Jesus asks these questions rhetorically. His answer makes no sense in the religious culture of rewards and punishments. His answer only makes sense in the context of Divine Love and personal responsibility.

Jesus uses the parable of the unfruitful fig tree to help us consider a different way of understanding God, humanity and ourselves.

The fig tree is not doing what a fig tree exists to do. It is not bearing fruit. In the immediate context, Israel is the fig tree. God chose Israel out of all of the nations to bear the fruit of faith, hope and love. Yet, the leadership of the nation had led people into rigid, inflexible uncompromising demands. They brought those demands to God, to each other, and to the wider world.

Jesus is the gardener who comes to Israel to do everything possible to help Israel repent of their barren sterile spiritual state. Jesus pours his own life into Israel so Israel can be the nation God called them to be. As the gardener gives the fig tree everything needed for the tree to bear fruit so Jesus does the same for Israel.

The broader application is the spiritual condition of the entire human race. In Jesus, God pours himself out to all people everywhere to be who God has created us to be. The lesson is not who we can blame for failure. The lesson is not for us to feel guilt or shame for our pride or despair.

The lesson is that Jesus is God reaching out to all of us and to each of us. The lesson is the Divine call to reunification and transformation. It starts when we hear the word of God, believe the word of God, and receive the word of God. That word is Jesus Christ.

It is only in union with divine love incarnate and personified in Jesus that we can overcome the false religion of rewards and punishments. It is only in union with Jesus that we can move past the dualism of pride and despair.

Jesus makes it clear that God just doesn’t have love- God is love. Jesus also makes is very clear that all people need to repent of our choice to separate from God. We all need to take personal responsibility for the sins we commit as a result of that separation.

The call to repentance is the call to enter into a new relationship with God in Christ. The relationship with God in Christ is the reward. Jesus’ call to repentance is not about rewards and punishments. It is about reunification and transformation. It is about a second chance for humanity to live into our meaning and purpose to bear the eternal fruit of faith, hope and love.

It is our choice. We don’t need to do it alone. Jesus does warn us that unless we repent we will stay lost in the dualism of pride and despair. If we allow ourselves to be found in Christ we will experience a new life and an abundant life.