Series C Lent
3 Rev. Ron Brauer
Text: Luke
13:1-9 March 11, 2007
“How Does Your Garden Grow?”
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells,
And pretty maids all in a row.
While this may not sound like a text for a sermon, it does
introduce the question that Luke’s Gospel reading puts before us. Will that fig
tree produce fruit? How will that garden grow?
You know that parable. Jesus would continue to preach a
Gospel of repentance. He uses the ‘talk of the town’ in making His message
clear. Those two pieces of news that hit the recent headlines were the
slaughter of Galileans in the temple courts by Pontius Pilate’s soldiers and the
collapse of a wall under construction in Siloam.
Regarding that first headline, we go back to Jerusalem with
Pontius Pilate as the Roman governor. He is trying his best to keep things
under control, for if he doesn’t, he would be charged with dereliction of duty
and be killed by his superiors. So he does what he believes is necessary to
keep the peace. Apparently there was some insurrection or rioting that was
caused by some men from Galilee, who happened to be in Jerusalem one day. The
purpose of their visit is not known, but their deaths are reported. But it is
where their deaths occurred that is especially shocking, for their blood, shed
by the Romans at the command of Pilate, was done in the courts of the Temple, at
the same time when the lambs were being slaughtered for offerings. Hence the
mixing of the blood of humans with the blood of the sacrificial animals.
This mixing of the blood is seen figuratively. The killing
of people and the killing of sacrificial animals were done in the same place.
We wouldn’t see human blood actually flow and come in contact with the blood
poured out of the body of a lamb. But the idea is just as horrifying to the
Jews who would want to keep the blood of the sacrificial animal pure.
Jesus asked the crowd that heard this report, “Do you
think that those Galileans were greater sinners than the rest of the country?”
It begs a negative answer. No, those men who died were just as guilty of
sinning compared to those who obeyed the civil law.
Then Jesus continues with another event that was a hot
topic in the news. We are only given a few facts of this accident when a tower
being built had fallen, killing 18 people. It was a tragedy. Good, hardworking
people were killed by a misfortune. No known cause was determined. The OSHA
and the Department of Labor weren’t around to investigate this industrial
accident, yet all we know is that this event was in the Palestine news and
everyone was talking about it. Jesus points to those people killed and asks a
similar question, “Were these men killed because they, too, were greater
sinners?”
By no means! Jesus uses the same refrain to that example
as He did the first, “Unless you repent, you, too, will perish like they
did.”
Now to drive home this point, Jesus does what He has
typically done throughout the Gospels. He tells a parable. He was always
teaching by means of parables.
“A man has a fig tree in his vineyard.” That’s not
uncommon in Palestine. Yes, you would expect to find grapevines in a vineyard,
and that there were. But fig trees were also abundant, for they served many a
useful purpose. Even God planted a fig tree in His garden, the Garden of Eden.
It’s large leaves provided shade, and as we read in the Gospel of John at the
call of Nathaniel, he was sitting under his fig tree, perhaps getting some shade
as he took a brief break in his work, or, like many righteous Jews, they would
pause under the fig tree to meditate on the Torah, the teachings of God. In some
cases, it may have been that place where husbands would go to hide while their
wives were looking for them in order to do housework!
The fruit of the fig tree was not only used as a sweetener,
but there were also medicinal uses of the figs. The fig tree was about as
useful as a Walgreen’s at every corner. But if that fig tree was unproductive,
it would waste the soil as well as the time of the caretaker as the branches of
that tree would also need to be pruned just as the vines in the vineyard. The
fig tree in Jesus’ parable has been unproductive, not for one year, not for two,
but for three years. That’s a long time to have a tree planted in your garden
that does not produce a single fig. It still required water and care, time and
energy, but there was no fruit.
So when the owner of the vineyard sees this unproductive
tree, he tells his vinedresser, “Look, for three years now have come seeking
fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the
ground?”
I’m sure that those of you who have gardens or nicely
landscaped lawns would consider the same. If there were a dead tree on your
yard, you would cut it down and take it out. Its unsightliness only subtracts
from the beauty of your lawn, and you spend more time and energy cleaning up the
dead branches after every windstorm. The garden in which it is planted only
suffers from having this eyesore remain. Out it must go.
But the vinedresser in the parable offers this
intercession: “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and
put on manure.” The vinedresser has compassion on that fig tree, offering
to put some extra work to save it. He’s willing to work the soil around it, get
some fertilizer, and tend to it with the hope that with this extra TLC, tender
loving care, this fig tree would turn around and produce fruit. That would be
anyone’s wish. After all, it took a long time to culture a fig tree to
produce. Like the vines in the vineyard, you don’t put a plant into the ground
in May and expect fruit in September. It often takes about three years for a
vineyard and even longer for a grown fig tree to produce after being
established. Even then much work is done to carefully tend the vines, carefully
pruning them to produce, checking the roots for blight, and providing water in
drought.
Then the vinedresser, who is simply doing the will of the
owner, adds, “Then, after doing this extra work, if it should bear fruit next
year, well and good; but if not, you, the owner, can cut it down.” The
vinedresser knows that this effort of working the soil and fertilizing should
produce some change in this idle fig tree. He also knows that it is not his fig
tree; it is the owner of the vineyard. It’s his tree. The vinedresser will do
the work, but the owner is the one who ultimately must determine the fate of
that tree. All the vinedresser does is intercede for the life of the tree,
promising to do the work, as obviously the tree can’t fertilize itself or prune
itself or water itself.
End of parable. So now what?
When interpreting any of Jesus’ parables, we must remember
that the people of God are on the receiving end. We are never in the driver’s
seat. We are, according to this parable, not the owner of the vineyard, nor are
we the vinedresser. We are the fig tree. We were planted by the owner of the
vineyard. He provides the garden and employs the vinedresser to tend and care
for us. He expects to find fruit in us. This is the point of the parable as
Jesus tells those who gathered to hear Him. But the Jews then were not
producing fruit in keeping with repentance; and they weren’t doing a good job at
repentance either, as Jesus would later tell the story of the Pharisee and the
tax collector who went to the temple to pray.
And this call to repentance is necessary because of what
happened in one other garden, the Garden of God, the Garden of Eden. In this
vineyard God the owner planted Adam and Eve, and in this Paradise they were
given the fruit of all the trees in that garden save for one. God entrusted the
Garden of Eden into Adam’s care. But when Satan placed doubt into Adam and
Eve’s minds, they disobeyed God, and thus ruined that garden. God would place a
curse on the ground, and soon banish Adam and Eve from that Garden.
With apologies to Mother Goose, we have this rhyme:
Adam, Adam, who lived contrary
How does your garden grow?
With thorns and briars, labor and pain,
And with sin did overflow.
Because of their naked sinfulness, Adam and Eve would be so
bold to use the leaves of the fig tree in order to hide. Adam, Eve, and all
mankind since, are now like that unfruitful fig tree—taking up space on the
ground and having no useful fruit. All that is produced is bitter fruit,
distasteful, worthless. It is evidenced by sexual immorality, impurity,
sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,
rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like (Gal.
5:19-21). Trees producing such fruit are destined to destruction in hell. There
is no place in the Garden of Paradise for such tree bearing that kind of fruit.
But a Vinedresser would intercede. He would plead with the
Owner, just one more year. Just this time of grace. “Let me dig around this
tree, let me work in fertilizer, give it one more year. Then if it produces,
well and good. If not, then Your will be done—You can tear it out of the
ground.”
God, the owner of this vineyard of the world, so loved the
world that He gave His only-begotten Son, the One who would be the Gardener, the
Vinedresser. And this Vinedresser would come in the flesh of a baby born in
Bethlehem, born of Mary, to intercede on behalf of all mankind, for you and for
me. He came to work salvation for us. Jesus Christ began His earthly ministry
preaching a Gospel of repentance. He applied the Law in breaking up our
stone-hard hearts, crushing our pride. He applied the Gospel, the sweet rain of
forgiveness. The fertilizer of His sanctification is worked into our lives by
His loving action, compelling us to serve God and love our neighbor with works
He has given us to do.
But it came at a cost. Again, apologies to Mother Goose:
Jesus, Jesus, Son of Mary,
How does Your garden grow?
With prayers and sweat and bloody death;
Disciples sleeping at a stone’s throw.
Yes, the Son of God who is our Vinedresser was rejected and
killed. We even put Christ to the test; we grumble. We complain that the way of
the Lord is not just. Yet the message of repentance calls to us. We read and
ponder our Savior’s holy passion for us and what it cost God to weed out sin and
plant the precious Vine into our lives. It was in the Garden of Gethsemane
where our Vinedresser had the most difficult task, that of wrestling with the
consequence of our sin, namely death. It was on the tree of the cross where
Jesus died for you and me and all those born of Adam and Eve in order to forgive
our sins. By His resurrection on Easter, the one whom Mary sees as the Gardener
continues His work of interceding grace, working in us repentance to produce in
our lives the sweet fruit of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
One last apology to Mother Goose:
Sinner, sinner, do not tarry,
How does your garden grow?
Attached to Christ, the Vine, I am;
His fruit in me you’ll know.
God has given us this time of grace to repent. We do not
know the hour when either Jesus returns in glory or when we will face our
personal judgment day in death. Jesus’ warning to us and the world is simply,
“Repent.” “Turn back, turn back from you evil ways, and live.” As
watchmen, we are given this message of repentance, and must also proclaim it to
the wicked, calling them to repentance and pointing them to the Savior who died
for all.
By virtue of our baptism, God plants us into the Garden of
His Church. He waters us with the Rock of Christ, and thereby planted by the
stream of the Living Water of Christ, our leaves will not wither and we will
produce fruit. He feeds us with holy food that nourishes the soul. He teaches
us His holy Word, written down for our instruction. He daily and richly
forgives sin, for God is faithful—He will never remember our sins because they
are covered by the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. He will even provide a way of
escape in our times of temptation by giving us grace in our time of need.
Today, and for each day we draw breath, we are given
another day of grace. It is God’s grace that calls us to repentance, to turn
from the evil in our lives and in Christ produce the fruit of faith.
Let us pray:
O my Savior, help afford
By Your Spirit and Your Word!
When my wayward heart would stray,
Keep me in the narrow way;
Grace in time of need supply
While I live and when I die. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your
hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
