Associate Professor of Preaching at Luther Seminary, Karoline Lewis, said this about last Sunday’s Gospel (Luke 13:1-9),
“The world cannot afford our barrenness any longer.”
I think she appropriately captures the urgency of Jesus’ parable about a fig tree for which the gardener convinces the landowner to give one more year to bear fruit.
Time is of the essence.
“Repent and believe in the good news!” Jesus proclaims at the beginning of his ministry (Mark 1:15).
Repent – stop, realize and take stock of where we are and how we have wandered from God’s path, turn and return to God’s ways and take on a new way of seeing and understanding. See as Christ sees.
The world is suffering from deficient, distorted, and harmful ways of seeing. Many think of themselves as better than others because of nationality, skin color, religion, possessions, or because we assume our way is the better and only way. Many fail to see that they are loved beyond measure and think so little of ourselves that we criticize ourselves to the point of inaction.
The good news is that God is at work giving us everything we need to bear fruit. Like the gardener in the parable speaks about fertilizing the fig tree and making sure it gets the ideal amount of water, God is showering us with love and grace and setting us up to bear fruit that will increase life and love.
God is loving us to new life, nurturing us to bear fruit.
Fruit like repenting from silence and speaking out and up against systems of thought, language, and acts of hatred and violence. Fruit like repenting from a mindset of scarcity and instead realizing that we have enough to help those who do not have enough right now, and then helping them.
God is opening our eyes to see as Christ sees, destroying the distorted views of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, xenophobia that are tearing our world apart and leading toward more violence. Instead, God is giving us new vision and new understanding as God invites and empowers us to join Christ in the work of bringing abundant love and everlasting life.
Find an image of a cross near you – it could be a picture on your computer/phone, maybe jewelry, perhaps just two lines meeting on the sidewalk.
Let this be a reminder to you of the open arms of Christ that continually offer forgiveness. Let it be a symbol of how God works life and love even through death. Let it proclaim to you, and you proclaim to others, that Christ keeps on bringing life and love abundant and everlasting for the whole world, and doing what it takes to help you and all of us bear fruit that the world so dearly needs.
Come to dinner (5:30pm) and worship (6:15pm) tonight as we discern and discuss what it looks like in our lives to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, which is one of our promises in baptism.
God is bringing fruit to bear in you that the world is in desperate need of. Share it boldly and abundantly.
God’s grace and love for you name you beloved, remind you that you are enough, and bring you into new life.
Pastor Drew