Reflection: Figs

March 23, 2025

10:30 AM

Sunbury

“Figs”

Isaiah 55:1-9

1Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3Incline your ear, and come to me;listen, so that you may live.  I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

my steadfast, sure love for David. 4See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. 6Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. 9For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We are a thirsty people.  If you’ve ever been parched, you know how wonderful can be a cool drink of water. 

Why are we thirsty?  What do we thirst for? 

Luke 13:1-9

1At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them — do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."

We pause because this is one of the gutsiest passages in the Bible.  Here we learn how Jesus has more guts than any of us. 

The situation?  One of the many bloody moments in Jerusalem.

Riots.  Insurrections.  Troops sent in.  Swords drawn.  In this case, a bunch of warrior Galileans occupied the temple and championed the overthrow of the Romans and the corrupt Jewish leadership.  Pilate marches in his legionnaires to deal with these rebels and slaughters them.  In the holy temple.

Not the first time, won’t be the last time. 

Other incidents?

Pilate had a water aqueduct built for the city, supplying mostly the Temple and its industry.  It was expensive.  He thought the temple treasury should pay for it.  The priests balked.  He went in and took the coins.  A demonstration erupted.  Troops were sent in.  It was a dry land. 

In another incident Samaritans rallied on a mountain promising liberation.  Pilate sent the troops in and the mountain turned bloody [Josephus 18; 4: 1, Antiquities].

So here impassioned Jewish patriots approach Jesus demanding of him equal passion and anger about the butchery of his Galilean kinsmen.

Let’s pause and consider what Jesus could have replied to these zealous patriots:

·        He could have said, weakly and with bland sympathy:  “Oh I’m so sorry.”

·        Or, fed up with it all he could have said:  “Let’s separate ourselves from here and be holy.”  Which some did.

·        Or still, he could have been fundamentalistic and said:  “Must be the will of God. Trust and obey.”

·        Or he could have said what they wanted him to say, ramping up the hatred:  “You’re right – let’s revenge them.”

But none of those is what he says. 

What does he say?

No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

Would that all would, could, will break this cycle of our warring madness.  It is one thing to fight for love, for others, to protect others, it is another thing to fight because you hate, because of greed, because of pride.  Time to repent.

How do you wash blood out with blood?  Better, first, stop the bleeding. 

True for the Galileans as for Pilate.

Will we let their actions dehumanize us and let inhumanity claim us?  Define us?  What we do really thirst for?    

1Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;

How hate only begets hate.  Break the cycle.  Look to yourselves, says Jesus. 

How do you wash blood out with blood?

Imagine an Imam in Iran approached by members of the ISIS sect.  “Did you hear about that strike that killed not only one of our leaders but dozens of children?    What are we going to do about these evil Israelis?”

What would happen were the Imam to say:  “Yes and unless you repent you will die also.”

How long do you think he would last?

Neither did Jesus last long. 

~~~

Jeru-Salem.  The City of Peace. Right. 

Jesus calls it the way it is, even to his own people.   He has to.  It’s the task of that cliché aoutn ministry:  to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. 

Imagine a Roman Catholic nun telling the cardinals that your Vatican stinks with perversion.

Touchy, touchy.  You get in trouble insulting Jerusalem, this most unholy of cities.   Truth tellers always get in trouble.  Good for them.

When you smell a dead skunk in your house you better find out where the smell’s coming from.

Jesus’ purpose is to radically recover the true Jewish faith – to get rid of all the opinions that encrusted the original promise given Abraham.  What promise?  A universal faith for all people. 

For the religious big boys, Jerusalem was the center of their faith.  Jerusalem represented everything they thought special and great about their religion.  They thought they actually deserved the blessing of being special and privileged.  

For Jesus, Jerusalem isn’t a place or even sacred.  Jerusalem is an idea, a spiritual metaphor of grace, Jesus refusing to buy into the sin of race and place.  For Jesus, the kingdom of God isn’t at all the equivalent of the kingdom of Israel [p. 168, McKim].  Nor will it ever be.  There or here.

Jesus grieves because it could have been special – Jeru-salem, the city of peace.  The problem is that grace is a call to responsibility. Thus punishment for failure of those given responsibility is even greater – “those who have been given much, of them much is required” – just as corrupt persons of power, fame, and privilege deserve greater shame and penalty than the average person who messes up. 

Jesus warns us to make a priority of the dream, the idea, the hope, the promise, the call.  His reality is the only reality that makes sense. 

Comedian Trevor Noah wrote how “when you love somebody you create a new world for them.  We tell people to fulfill their dreams but you can only dream what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.” [p. 262, Born a Crime].

Trevor added one more insight, how we love that story how better than giving a man a fish is helping teach the man to fish.  Trevor adds:  it sure helps to make sure he has fishing pole.

It is not the business of the church to create a new social order

but to create the creators of the new social order

-Mackay

Jesus’ big concern is for God’s children and the world we give them.

Yet what do we give Jesus?  Mommies in Ukraine teaching their children to play turtle.  Lie down, open your mouth, cover your ears when the explosions are near.

~~~

Thermometers measure temperature, whether Fahrenheit or Celsius.  Yardsticks measure inches, feet, yards, and miles.  Barometers measure air pressure.  A clock measures time.  A level measures balance.  A plumb line measures true vertical.  A speedometer measures, obviously, speed.  So how do you measure a people or a society?  You measure us by how we treat children. 

Will we ever get it right?  Brings out the worst in us, brings out the best in us.

Someone explained our modern popularity of Marvel movies and superheroes -- Avengers.  We want immediate and quick rescue from threats.  The reality is that the only heroes are the ones who would be looking back at us in the mirror

Freedom equals prosperity, democracy equals prosperity, peace equals prosperity. 

~~~

We will be judged.  Which takes us to the rest of the passage.

What makes you feel prosperous?  Once upon a time, Elaine and I use to consider ourselves sitting in the lap of luxury if we had a ready supply of postage stamps. 

For the Hebrews, prosperity meant having a healthy fig tree and plenty of figs. 

I prefer my figs as newtons.  But the Hebrews loved figs.  More than a delicacy, figs were staples.  A blessed, prosperous man was one who could boast of a fig tree in the middle of his garden, there to provide, like a protective umbrella, shade for the vines and other crops.  Nutritious they are, plus wonderfully shady with their big, broad leaves (providing also an outdoor study, so to speak, a cool place for private mediation) The added bonus:  figs were the source for a medicinal salve.  A fig tree just seemed to tell a man that God favored him.  Peace and prosperity and blessings.

So we finish the reading with Jesus’ parable of a fig tree.  In this story the landlord is none too happy about his fig tree.  Landlord?  Think God.  His tree fails to produce.  A user.  A waste of good soil.  Unproductive.  Barren, sterile, and disappointing.  Worse, fig trees demanded a lot from the soil.  Fig trees suck up a lot of moisture from the soil, depriving the vines and vegetables planted around it.

An early Hebrew folktale, predating Christ by about 500 years, spoke about a barren fig tree.  In the story of Ahiqar (a wisdom book from the fifth century BC) these words are told:

The gardener has a tree standing near water but it bears no fruit.  He resolves to cut it down.  But the tree objects and pleads for the gardener to transplant it, then if it doesn’t bear fruit, he can cut it down for firewood.  The gardener replies, “When you stood by the water you bore no fruit, how then will you bear fruit if you stand in another place?”  He then cuts the tree down.  No second chances

Jesus knew this folktale.  He retells it with a spin.  For now there is a gardener who intercedes with the landlord to let him have a chance.  He takes responsibility for the tree.  The gardener doesn’t want to give up on it yet.  I’ve had a few friends who didn’t give up on me.  A little manure (dung, koprion). Let me work the soil, loosen it, and let’s see what happens.  Let me get dirty.  Let me see what my skill can yield.  I’m confident my labor, my sweat, and skills can turn it around.  I can try a little more.  I don’t like giving up.

The gospel of second chances.  I’m not sure it’s a gospel of third or fourth chances. 

6Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' 8He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Gutsy gardener Jesus gives all that Jesus will.  It is up to us to bear fruit.  We will be judged.  We are being judged.

We can continue the pattern, the cycle of destruction, or we can get to work on what we are meant for:  cultivating figs, producing positives, bearing fruit.  Row by row, inch by inch.