Recalculating

The Third Sunday in Lent

March 23, 2025

Luke 13:1-9

 “Recalculating”

More than forty years ago, way back in 1981, Harold Kushner (1935-2023), a Jewish rabbi, published a landmark book entitled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Some of you may remember this book, or have read it yourself. As the title indicates, the book seeks to explain suffering in this life as well as the nature of God. How can a just and loving God allow terrible things to happen in life? There is an entire field of study devoted to this, something called “theodicy.” Rabbi Kushner’s book rose out of a tragic event in his own life when his own son died from the rare premature aging disease, progeria. The book comes at all of this from a Jewish perspective, so we as Christians may not agree with everything in the book. As Christians, we believe that a just and loving God allowed his own Son to suffer and die in our behalf. We wrestle with the question that Harold Kushner wrestled with, and in today’s Gospel lesson, we see that this is nothing new in human history. We will look at that Gospel lesson concerning both the call to repentance as well as the unproductive fig tree under the theme “Recalculating.” May the Lord’s rich and abundant blessing rest upon the preaching, the hearing, and the living of his Word for Jesus’ sake

Several years ago, my wife and I traveled with friends to Savannah, Georgia, and one of the places we visited there was Bonaventure Cemetery, which is just outside the city. There is all manner of extravagant statuary there, including many that represent grief or tragedy. Two tragedies are spoken of in the Gospel lesson: people who were executed by order of Pontius Pilate while they were in worship and offering sacrifice in the temple, and those whose lives were lost when a building in Siloam, an area of Jerusalem, collapsed on them. Both are terrible things, one unnecessary and the other unpredictable. But we live in a world where unnecessary and unpredictable things happen. The air disaster over the Potomac River not even two months ago reminds us how true this really is. In the face of tragedy, the reaction of people can sometimes be strange. Some will say that God was punishing those who suffered because of their sin; that they somehow deserved this. Some will become smug, thinking that they are somehow better or more upstanding because they did not suffer loss. Jesus confronts this not once but twice in the Gospel lesson: “Do you think that these… were worse sinners… because they suffered in this way… do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?” (Luke 13:2b, 4b). It’s almost like the GPS on our phones and in our cars. When we’ve gone in a different direction than what GPS recommends, we get the message: “Recalculating.” That’s what Jesus was doing with the people here. Some recalculating was needed to redirect their hearts and minds to look at themselves, their own sinfulness, and their own need to repent, rather than looking at others. That’s important for us to keep in mind as we move through life. Jesus doesn’t want to talk to us about the sin of other people; he wants to talk to us about our own sin. That recalculating is needed in each of our lives. Jesus tells the people and he tells us as well: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). The word that Jesus uses here for “repent” (μετανοῆτε) means more than just feeling sorry for what we have done. It means a change of heart and mind that is Spirit-led. This leads to walking in a new direction. It is recalculating, repentance, that leads to life (Acts 11:18). Repentance figures heavily into this Lenten season, but it’s important in every season in our faith walk. This call to repentance is what we hear in today’s Old Testament lesson (Ezekiel 33:7-20) as the Lord speaks through the prophet Ezekiel: “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11).

We again see some recalculating in the second half of that Gospel lesson with Jesus’ parable about the barren, or unproductive, fig tree. The owner wants the gardener, the vinedresser, to cut it down. He’s done with it. But the gardener intercedes with the owner in behalf of that fig tree that so far hasn’t borne any fruit. He asks that he might give it special care, digging around it, fertilizing it, and then see what happens. Isn’t this the very thing that Jesus has done, and continues to do, for us? He has willingly laid down his life for us on the tree of the cross. He has offered his sinless life as the atoning sacrifice for all of our sins. He has paid the price of our redemption, buying us back for God, with his own precious blood. And now He does indeed intercede for us before the Father’s throne in heaven (Hebrews 7:25). He seeks to fertilize us with his holy Word and Sacraments so that his gifts sink deeply into our lives, down to our very roots, reviving and energizing us to make us productive and fruitful for his kingdom. Remember that holiday animated classic, “A Charlie Brown Christmas?” Our hero, Charlie Brown, has picked the ugliest, scrawniest Christmas tree, and he even thinks he’s killed it. But his friend, Linus, says something profound about that little tree: “It just needs some love.” And with some love and TLC that little tree is transformed into something beautiful. This is what Jesus has done for us: taking our unproductive lives, which can be pretty ugly and scrawny, and by his own amazing grace, transforms them into something beautiful. 

Note how Jesus’ parable ends: the gardener is still speaking with the owner in behalf of the fig tree, “Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down’” (Luke 13:9). The parable is open-ended. We don’t know what happens to the fig tree. Does it become productive and bear fruit? Does it continue to be unproductive and is cut down? How does it all end? This parable, like so many of Jesus’ parables, is open-ended because it remains to be lived out in each of our lives. By the power of the Holy Spirit, who leads us to repentance and recalculating our lives, may we continue to be rooted in the love of Christ, and so bear much fruit for the kingdom of God. Amen.