Sunday, 28 February 2016 Luther Memorial Lutheran Church
+The Third Sunday in Lent, Series C Seattle, WA
Paul E. Hoffman, Pastor
And what do you think the owner of that fig tree is going to find when he returns next year? No amount of soil aerating or manure spreading is going to change the inevitable. No figs so far in the first three years. No figs in the year to come, is my guess. And – hey! – I’m a pretty “the glass is always full” kind of guy.
But seriously. It is little more than magical thinking to assume or imagine that a tree like this is going to suddenly bear fruit. Even with a little digging around it. Even with loads of manure. It is little more than magical thinking, especially if it’s not really a fig tree that we’re talking about here. Especially if what we’re talking about is US.
Today’s readings from the Bible help us look together within this community of faith at how very hard it is for us to do anything – anything at all – apart from the goodness of God. We’re all Corinthians today – even if we live in Seattle. Paul is speaking to all of us when he says, “If you think you are standing, be careful that you do not fall.” Another way of saying that is, “If you think that by some miracle of understanding, power or strength that a year from now you’re going to be bearing fruit on your own that so far you’ve failed to produce, well – think again.” It’s not going to happen. We told God about that just a few moments ago, remember?
Merciful Father,
we have sinned against heaven and before you.
We do not fully live as your sons and daughters.
We use your gifts to our own ends.
Not much of a harvest. Not a whole lotta fruit there.
But we live in hope. We live in hope because where the paltry, fruitless little trees of our lives fail us, God intervenes. When returning again and again to the fruitless trees of our lives, God does in fact cut them down. We were created for endless bliss in a garden called Eden, and yet our fascination with a particular tree led us away from all that God intended and introduced us to death. Paul could not be more clear about this: the wages of sin is death.
So there it is. In the end, no pruning. No fertilizing. No cuddling or coddling. Death. The tree is cut down. But we live in hope. We live in hope because in the place of our tree, God plants Christ’s tree. And that tree is the tree of the cross. The source of any hope, the source of all hope. In the cross of Christ I glory, towering o’er the wrecks of time. Right?
The early 17th Century Czech poet and Christian writer puts it like this when speaking of the cross in his poem, There in God’s Garden.
Thorns not its own are tangled in its foliage;
Our greed has starved it, our despite has choked it.
Yet, look! It lives! its grief has not destroyed it
Nor fire consumed it.
We are blessed beyond measure to be loved by a God who cannot be consumed by our griefs. We are blessed beyond measure to be the beloved community of a God who in Christ plants in the place of our paltry trees the tree of the cross and renews us, refreshes us – GIVES US HOPE – for a life that would otherwise be hopeless.
Going on in his garden tree poem, says of the cross, and of Christ:
See how its branches reach to us in welcome;
Hear what the Voice says, “Come to me, ye weary!
Give me your sickness, give me all your sorrow,
I will give blessing.”[1]
In spite of us, the great, endless love of God for us prevails. I will give blessing.
It would be easy for us, I suppose, knowing that God is there for us, no matter what to just do what we want. The bad. The ugly. The despicable. Why not? The cross has us covered. Fruitless though our fig trees be, Christ has died for you and me. Done deal. End of story. Live it up. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.
Except for this one tiny little detail. the detail that makes all the difference in the world’s orchard. This aching, sinful, fruitless world needs Christ. And the only way that it will know Christ is by knowing the goodness of Christ through us. God’s work. Our hands. Don’t ask me why, but God has arranged things in such a way that we are the ones to bring the news to a world in need. We are, you and me. We bring this news, this love and generosity to others not to win God’s favor, but because God’s favor has already been made known to us in the limitless love of Jesus. May ways are not your ways… And my thoughts are not your thoughts, we hear on from the voice of Elijah today.
In the end, there will be fruit, all right. But only the kind that grows from the cross. The cross into which we are grafted in our baptism. The cross that supplies us with the lifeblood we need to do anything at all noteworthy or noble. It is the cross, planted in the rich and messy soil of each of our own lives that is our hope. Our only hope. And on that hope, on that cross, we are anchored in faith and sent to serve the world.
In the name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] from There in God’s Garden, Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymn #342. Text by Király Imre von Pécselyi. © 1976 Hinshaw Music, Inc. Used by permission under OneLicense #A-719131.