Here’s a true story from this week for you. True story, I couldn’t think of a good story to help this scripture make sense. That’s my story. Sorry, but true. And this is indeed too bad, because there’s a lot going on in this scripture.

If you were at this Wednesday’s Lenten service and were part of that discussion about whether we earn the bad things that happen to us, you have a head start on this gospel. The first paragraph of this text, before the parable, is about this very idea.

In the ancient world, it was a very common belief that if bad things happen to you, it was due to something you did. As in, if you got hit by an asteroid, it was because you did something bad that you and got what you deserved. Whether you were a Hebrew or Roman, this was a common belief.

In a lot of ways, we don’t believe this sort of cause and effect anymore. We all know life isn’t that straightforward. Even though we know better to fall for “magical thinking,” we still sort of do this. We blow out our birthday candles with our wish. And we all know, if you don’t have the candles the wish is useless, right? I mean, that’s obvious. There’s all sorts of ways we do this, including placing blame on ourselves for the horrible things that happen, even if it doesn’t really make sense.

We humans crave control and meaning. We want to know why something happened, and we’d rather believe an awful thing was somehow our fault than just random, because then at least there’s a reason. Then, at least, we can feel like there is order and control in the world. That horrible pain was somehow earned and deserved and that allows us some rest.

At the beginning of this text, Jesus is asked about some Galileans who were killed by Pilate during their worship and the people killed were defiled due to their blood being mingled with the blood of the sacrificial animals. This was Pilate killing people during their worship service. This is an example of how the people of Jesus’ community were oppressed. What an outrageous action of a government against its own people.

And so I’m sure the people telling Jesus the story were outraged by this killing. And I have no doubt that they were like all the rest of us that when we are in the throes of outrage, we want to tell the story and get others outraged too. There’s nothing so irritating than when someone responds to our outrage with calm and refuses to participate in the outrage.

And yet this is what Jesus’ response is here. He does not jump on board with the outrage and instead, turns in a completely different direction.

In response, he asks them about whether they believe these victims of political violence were any more sinful than any other Galileans. And then he goes on to ask them about another group of people who died, but this time of an accidental death in Jerusalem. He asks the same question about these people.

In both stories, he warns the people present to repent or they will die like these people. It’s a bit confusing, because it sounds like he’s threatening to God’s wrath if they don’t repent, as in they will get what’s coming to them, earning their deaths due to their sin of not repenting. But I believe there’s something a bit more subtle going on here. What would be the message of love here?

In our lives, we have choices about how to live and how to focus our minds. Jesus is telling us to repent, to turn towards God and live in the ways of God. This is the path of life in this life and beyond. Without repentance, we will live without a focus on God and follow paths of death even as we are still alive.

Life is going to happen in all its unpredictability. So, as we are alive and navigating difficult days, are we focused on God? Focused on our path of life and love? Or are we focused on the outrage, like the people telling Jesus the story at the beginning of our text? Are we swamped by the angst of our age?

Jesus goes on to teach the parable of the gardener, the orchard owner, and the fruitless tree. In the parable, who do you think is the owner of the tree? Who or what is the tree? And who is the gardener?

We can easily think of ourselves as being the fruitless tree, God being the owner of the tree, and Jesus being the gardener, trying to forestall our judgement. Or maybe we’re not sure who is who between the owner and the gardener, but we’re pretty darn sure that we are the tree.

But, what if we are the owners of the tree? And our lives and our world are the tree? And the triune God, Father/Son/Holy Spirit, is the gardener? What might this parable tell us?

By the way, I looked it up about fig trees, how long it takes for a new one to produce fruit. Any guesses about how many years that is? About 3 years.

What this tells me is that we are impatient people. Is the world a mess? Sure. Has it been filled with political, economic, and social injustice since humans have been alive? Yes. Is God pleased with this? No. He’s still busy adding the manure, nurturing us into the fullness of God’s creation for us. In our impatience, we may want to just give up and throw up our hands at how poorly our lives and our world seems to be working. We want immediate results. We want our figs! But, apparently, it takes time.

It takes time, and not without our effort. In the parable, we have a tree doing its best to grow up, to mature, to get ready to produce an abundance of good fruit. This work in the world does not happen without our participation. We can help add manure, too! We need to do the work, as well. We need to care enough to lead, heal, listen, protest, and create. And it takes time. We don’t get to snap our fingers and see that the right outcome falls into place. Something else is happening. And apparently it requires manure and time.

We live in a time and place of outrage, particularly with social media which has been nicknamed the “outrage machine.” The reality is our tech overlords, as I lovingly call them, know how our brains work way better than we do. They know how to keep us engaged on their platforms to make more money from our usage and the key is outrage. Our outrage equals money for tech and media companies. Not that the world isn’t full of outrageous things that deserve our outrage, but what do we do with it, is the question.

One answer here is that Jesus does not respond to outrage with outrage, like most of us want to do. I have to say, I’d be so annoyed with Jesus here if I was one of the people bringing him their story of outrageous treatment of innocent people by Pilate. It was outrageous. Abuse of power and violence remains outrageous.

But what does Jesus do instead? Tell us to repent, to turn towards God, and the way of Life.

What that looks like for each of us is a good and hopefully fruitful question that can be asked again and again. How do you live God’s path of Life in your life? In your family? How do you imagine Jesus’ path of Life opening up here at Celebration? What’s our role? Our community’s role and path?

What we hear is repentance is the key. Turning towards God and being changed ourselves, being changed in our minds and souls and hearts and bodies is the key. Jesus did not change the world through outrage, but love. Like the rest of life, we’re only in so much control of that process. God is the one to change you and inspire you. But we can turn towards God with a heart and mind humble and eager to change. And change in such a way that we will know how to add the manure to our tree, instead of keeping it fruitless.

This repentance is what our Lenten practice is all about, turning towards Life to help us be oriented and grounded in God. The man in the orchard was looking at his 3-year old tree and seeing only the problem. He wasn’t thinking about how to nurture and care for that tree. What it might need? Why it might be hurting? Wondering if maybe it is just now getting ready to be able to produce? He wasn’t looking at the broader picture.

Friar Richard Rohr wrote, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better.” Jesus did not spend his time in outrage over the bad, but practiced the good. He stood up to power, yes. Afterall, during this time, he’s on his path towards Jerusalem for that final and powerful confrontation. But for years leading up to these fateful days and weeks, he took care of those around him. He loved people. He prayed. He challenged power when power challenged him, but mostly he was practicing the good, revealing the Kingdom of God.

We are all called to respond to our lives in different ways, of course. There’s not one way to be a disciple. But we are all called first to be grounded in God, love, scripture, community, and prayer. The fruit of our lives and world comes from this nurturance. God will inspire our work.

The senseless deaths noted at the beginning of this gospel were a call to the people to consider how they were living. Instead of pointing the finger in outrage, Jesus calls us to attend to our own paths of Life with God. I truly believe all great actions of Justice and Goodness that has come through human action has come from such grounding.

So, may we practice our grounding. May we listen to the subtle, yet powerful teachers of our world – the stones and sky, the phytoplankton, the redwoods, and all the creatures that are yet to come in our Great Chain of Being. May we listen to God in prayer, listen to our hearts, listen to scripture, and to our brothers and sisters in pain. With the grace of God, we ourselves will be changed and made an instrument of God’s peace and life in the world.

AMEN