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“Being
a Servant”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: Luke 13:1-9
“Sir, let it alone for one more year…”
My dear sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ, as I started last
Sunday’s sermon, likewise, I will this morning.
In this time of Lent, the forty days prior to the Holy Week of
Christ’s death and resurrection, we are hoping to help prepare our
hearts to experience the reality of Christ’s resurrection in a life
engaging way.
During this time in Lent, one of our main subjects is repentance.
And we are learning more about repentance from this morning’s
gospel reading. Repentance
is not something that we are left to do in and of ourselves.
Repentance is a gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus
Christ, the Word of God the Father. Repentance is being empowered by the
Holy Spirit as a servant.
Let’s try to follow the logic of this passage and pray for the Holy
Spirit to lead us into true repentance.
Jesus has been teaching and having conversations within a large crowd of
people for quite a while. And
right now, some people told him about certain Galileans who had been put
to death by Pilate, and in their wording had their blood mingled with
them as sacrifices. Pilate,
of course, is the one under whose authority Jesus will be put to death.
After Jesus is told this, he then responds to them with these words: “Do
you think that because these Galileans suffered this way they were worse
sinners that all other Galileans?”
The implication of Jesus’ question is that he saw in them that
this is how they thought, that these people were killed because of their
sins. And this is also
saying something of what Jesus was showing them that they believed about
God.
Jesus then tells them a story about eighteen people in Jerusalem who
died in what we would call a catastrophic accident, a tower of Siloam
fell on them. And Luke
represents Jesus confronting them, with the same kind of question, “do
you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in
Jerusalem?” Again,
implied in this question, Jesus is confronting them with a belief that
people are put to death out of God’s wrath and judgment.
They are seeing these people as worse sinners than themselves.
Obviously, Jesus is teaching us that they were not to be looking at
people in this way, and God in this way.
These people were not to be seen as more sinful and their death
was not to be seen as a result of God’s judgment.
God did not get them killed because of their sin.
That is what is implied in Jesus’ teaching.
And in both of these stories Jesus says the same words to them, and to
us, as he makes these points. His
words are, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they
did.”
“No, I tell you” means very clearly that these people who had been
killed were not killed because they were worse sinners that anybody
else. We are not to see
other people from the perspective that they are worse sinners than
others. And we are included in all those others.
We are not to judge other people as worse sinners than ourselves.
And then Jesus says, “but unless
you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Okay, here’s where we have to be very careful with our logic. Jesus is telling us something about how we are not to view
other people and something we are not to believe about God. These people were not put to death based on God’s wrath
because of how sinful they were. So,
when Jesus now says, “but unless
you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” he is not
telling them, or us, that if they, or we, do not repent, then God will
put us to death out of wrath and punishment.
If that was not how to think about others, then that is not how
we are to think about ourselves either.
But, isn’t that how we hear it at first?
And our hearing it that way shows us that we are thinking about
God and his being judgmental in that way.
And that is what part of our repentance is to be, to change how
we think about God. That is
God’s gift to us!
T.F. Torrance was a minister and teacher in Scotland.
And during World War II he was a chaplain.
After a certain bombing and attack from Germany, he found a
soldier out in the field who was on the verge of passing away.
Torrance sat down beside him, took him up into his arms, and was
ministering love to him in his last minutes in this life.
The soldier looked Torrance in the eyes and asked him, “Is God
like Jesus?” And Torrance told him, “There is no God behind the back
of Jesus.”
That is what Jesus is showing us. After
he says the words “No, I tell
you; now unless you repent, you will all perish as they did,” he
then tells this parable about a land owner who had a fig tree planted in
the middle of his vineyard so that he could have some fruit at times, he
comes and does not find any fruit, tells his gardener that he’s come
for three years and found no fruit, so just cut it down.
But his gardener, who actually planted the tree, asks for another
year where he can work and fertilize the tree, and then says, “If
it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Word of God the
Father to us, and the gift of repentance that is given to us is a change
in the way we see things. Before
repentance we see a God of judgment behind the back of Jesus.
From the gift of repentance we see that there is no God behind
the back of Jesus, the Son of God and God the Father are one and of the
same Spirit. And so instead
of fearing God’s judgment, our repentance is, we now know in faith
that as the servant says, “If it
bears fruit next year, well and good,” that is going to happen.
The fig tree, you and me, we as a church, in Jesus Christ,
because God is ultimately the servant, are going to bear fruit next
year. And it will be well
and good.
As Jesus ends the parable, he does not say what happened at the end of
the next year, because faith repentance comes to truly believe that the
servant will succeed.
There is not a God behind the back of Jesus.
One way we look at this parable is to see God the Father as the
landowner and Jesus as the gardener and that the Father wants to cut it
down, but the Son wants to keep trying.
But, that is not accurately the way to look at this.
The Father and the Son are one in the Spirit.
Edward Sweitzer, a top theologian today, says this parable is a
debate within the mind of God; he calls it “God against God.”
God may very well suffer pain because of the effects of sin upon the
humanity He created to be included in His life of love.
But, God never gives up serving us.
And the repentance that we are being given by the Holy Spirit is
the faith that God is successful in bringing us to fruition.
The communication represented in the parable may very well point to the
communication that goes on between God the Father and God the Son in God
the Holy Spirit. But, that
is not to say that the Landowner is only the Father and the Gardener is
only the Son. There is no God behind the back of Jesus.
The Father and the Son communicate.
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and
Word was God.” God is
communication within God. The
Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit both sense and feel anger and pain
over the power of sin in this world they created to be in their love;
and both the Father and the Son the Spirit agree to cultivate fruit out
of their plants (us).
If we did not see this, then we would parish.
But, the whole point Jesus is making is: “But, you will see it
because repentance is a gift from God to you.”
Repentance is the fertilizing that the greatest servant in your
life is doing for you.
And now, do you know what we have just heard?
There is no way we are going to parish.
That is the repentance the servant is giving to us.
Lets us pray…
Amen
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