or how i am worn to the bone...

by the river

 

The Holy Gospel according toSt. Luke the 13th Chapter!

I've got a confession...

I was the fellow who asked Jesus about those Galileans. You know, the Galileans that Pilate slayed while they were offering sacrifices in the temple.

I wasn't trying to trap Jesus or anything, honestly. I asked him because a lot of people had been talking about those 'poor Galileans.'

I had gotten tired of everyone feeling bad for those folks. Sure dying while offering sacrifices is a terrible way to go, but everyone was acting like those folks were saints, or something.

I just couldn't stand it.

 

I mean had everyone forgotten our book of laws, Deuteronomy. If something bad happens, you've got it coming. That is the way of the world, God punishes the unjust.

 

So I couldn't stand everyone going on about those poor Galileans. I mean, if they died in that way, they must have brought it on themselves...

 

I guess there is another thing you should know about that day I asked Jesus about those Galileans...

I admit it, I wanted Jesus to say that because those Galileans sinned they brought on God's wrath. But I also wanted Jesus to say those Galileans deserved their grizzly fate because I had been having a terrible day - a terrible day to complete a terrible month at the end of a terrible year.

 

It had been a miserable time for me.

My parents had to sell their land to keep themselves fed that year. In one instant I watched my entire inheritance disappear.

That was my first real wake-up call. When I watched my parents' world fall apart, I realized just how angry God was, and how terrible God's punishments could be.

So I decided I had to do something.

I dedicated myself to studying the law.

 

The problem, though, was no matter how good I was, I just couldn't seem to make up for my past. You see there was this rabbi I had tried to become a pupil of, and I he wouldn't accept me.

That was my next big wake-up.

All of that was why I asked Jesus about those Galileans.

I wasn't going around crying 'poor me!' No, I got busy trying to make up for my past.

 

You can imagine how I wanted Jesus to set all those folks straight, to say that those Galileans earned God's wrath...

But that isn't what happened. Jesus didn't say those Galileans deserved God's wrath...

Jesus just shot back with another question.

I felt foolish, my ears were burning.

 

Jesus asked if I thought those Galileans were worse sinners, and that was why they suffered.

It was such an unfair question; worse sinners!

It was like Jesus knew I had been trying to make up for my past.

 

I just wanted Jesus to say those Galileans got God's wrath like every other sinner - like myself.

But he didn't...

And then he asked about those people who were crushed when the tower fell.

 

And he ended each example by saying if I didn't repent, I would die just like those people.

It was too much.

I wanted to shoot back, "I'm trying, Jesus! Cut me a break, please!"

I needed a break.

I could hardly take it...

 

And then Jesus told a story.

He told a story about a landowner who planted a fig-tree.

 

I don't I need to tell you how it smarted to hear a story about a landowner, knowing I'd never be one anymore.

Anyway, this landowner goes out to harvest figs from this tree he's planted.

Well, its been three years and this tree still hasn't produced any figs. So the landowner is upset, of course he is. He goes to his gardener and tells the gardener to cut the tree down so the tree wouldn't waste anymore soil.

To me the landowner seemed like a good manager.

 

But then the gardener does this odd thing.

The gardener asks the landowner to wait one more year. The gardener asks the landowner to let him work more on that barren fig tree.

Weird gardener, I thought.

I figured for sure Jesus was going to talk about how the landowner dismissed the silly gardener.

That tree had three years to produce fruit, and it was barren. The tree deserved to be cut down!

But Jesus just ended the story...

I think the story ended with the gardner saying something like, let me dig around the tree and spread manure. If this tree bears fruit, great - but if not we can cut it down next year...

 

Jesus doesn't even bother to finish the story!

I wanted to know if the tree bore fruit that next year.

 

But instead Jesus just stops the story; and he looks at me for a while...

 

Now I already told you about the year I was having. I didn't want Jesus to tell me some story about fig trees and gardeners!

I wanted answers, darn it!

Why was Jesus telling that story after I asked about those Galileans anyway?!?!

I wanted to run after Jesus and make him answer my question about the Galileans.

I wanted to run after Jesus and tell him that if I had been that landowner, I'd tell the gardener to obey me and cut that worthless tree down - that tree had the chance to bear fruit and it didn't!

 

But it was too late, he was gone...

I was pretty angry. I mean, why couldn't Jesus just have answered my question?

On my way home I started to realize something.

It hit my like a ton of bricks.

 

Jesus told that parable because it was about me...

Jesus was telling everyone a story about me...

I was the landowner in that story - I was the guy too ready to tear down that poor tree; too ready to tear down myself; too ready to tear down those slaughtered Galileans...

I was the angry land owner, ready to chop down whatever upset me...

 

But then I started to wonder about something else, too...

Who was the gardner in the story?

To tell you the truth, when I first heard the story I just assumed God was the landowner...

But after I thought about what Jesus said, I realized his story was about me, and that the gardener in the story was - the gardener was God...

 

Could it be?

Could Jesus be telling a story, where the landowner was inheritance-less me?

Could Jesus be telling a story where the patient gardener was God?

 

Yes.

Yes, that was it!

Jesus' story was calling me to listen to God, listen to a God who is not angry, but patient - patient and loving...

Jesus was telling me to listen to a God who trusted that the poor old fig tree could bear fruit.

Jesus was telling me to listen to a God who could love enough to hope that, that barren tree would break into flower.

Jesus was asking me to imagine with God, a world that was not full of people tempting God's fate, but a world full of people that God loved deeply...

 

I had spent the past year trying to cut down everything I didn't like, trying to cut down what I thought might upset God - and here Jesus is telling a story about God patiently working with all the stuff I wanted to cut down.

 

At first I just felt like I had messed up all over again, but then I realized that Jesus told a story where I did have an inheritance.

I realized that deep down my willingness to cut down what upset me, was that I just assumed God was getting ready to cut me down.

 

Suddenly I didn't fell like I misinterpreted Jesus' story, so much as I felt hopeful.

What if Jesus was right?!?!

What if God isn't angry, what if God is patient, what if God trusts folks like me, what if God had faith in me - God had faith that I would bear fruit?

 

I started to see myself differently, then.

I wasn't just some failed student with no inheritance.

Maybe even a person like me had reason to hope.

I mean, if God believes in me, if God trusts me, then maybe I could bear fruit after all...

When I thought of it like that, my old broken heart started to come together a little...

After that I decided I needed to follow that Jesus.

As it turned out, though, when I heard Jesus that day I asked him about those Galileans, he had been on his way to Jerusalem...

 

While he was there he was crucified.

I was crushed.

Typical for someone like me.

Follow the guy who gets crucified, and don't even try to follow him until it's too late.

 

I started to think I had been crazy to think that maybe God was the patient gardener in that story...

 

But then I met someone who was talking about the one God-raised - about Jesus!

Honestly, it was hard to believe.

That old part of myself, the one who knew we had to cut out what God didn't like, thought the story of Jesus raised was crazy.

But that part of myself that changed my mind, well it hoped...

 

That part of me that started to trust that even barren trees could bear fruit, said believe.

So I tried...

 

Since then I've learned more about what Jesus taught.

I heard that he described himself as the rabbi for the heavy-ladden, the burdened. That he was the rabbi with a light yoke.

 

So, I became a disciple of that man who shot my question back. I became a disciple of Jesus who was crucified, but who God raised.

 

Me and other disciples are forming communities.

We call each other sister and brother.

We meet in each other's houses, and we worship our raised Lord.

I don't need to tell you the Romans don't like us calling Jesus Lord, but that is what Jesus is to us.

Now I don't know if anything will become of the movement we're trying to start, but if that old, barren fig tree could bear fruit, well maybe we can too.

 

I just wanted to tell you all this story so you could know that anyone, that everyone, is welcome into our community; to be our sister or brother; to worship Jesus.

Anyone is welcome, even someone like me who asked Jesus that question so long ago...