A sermon by John Brierly McCall, D. Min.
Luke 13:1-9
Even if you try to tune it out you know the world’s pain: Penn State abuse scandal, shootings in Aurora, Colorado, Euro zone debt crisis, jobless rate, droughts and wildfires… On and on it goes.
Do you sometimes wonder how God could allow such terrible things to happen? Hebrew scripture tells us God created Eden – beautiful, lush, safe. God placed humankind in the garden, male and female, and they could have lived there in paradise forever but they chose freedom rather than perfection. They rebeled and were thrown out. The story itself comes from ancient myth – but it is certainly true.
We don’t live in the Garden anymore (have you noticed?) The normal condition of the world isn’t paradise but chaos. Pain and loss aren’t interruptions to our bliss; bliss is an occasional interruption to pain and loss.
That isn’t a negative spin. It’s the truth, the way life is. But God calls us to live, and to live abundantly, lovingly, joyfully in the face of life’s pain and loss. Nothing less than joyful living really gives praise and honor to the author of all of creation.
My grandmother, Cora Belle Campbell, was one of the first women to graduate from the University of California, now called UCLA, in 1901. She took her brand new degree in English with her to New York City, to attend the Bible Teachers’ Training School and there she met my grandfather, Clarence Field McCall, born and raised on a farm in Missouri. Both intended to be missionaries to “the Orient.”
They married for the practical reason that a minister needed wife to bear children and provide for hearth and home. And a single women wasn’t permitted to enter missionary service; only married women. So my grandparents married in late July, 1908 in Los Angeles and left immediately on a steam ship for Japan.
Grandpa was a preacher and grandma an English teacher. They remained in mission service for just over 30 years until the drum beats of war in the Pacific required them to return to the States in 1938.
They were pious people – Calvinists who believed that God has a plan, everything happens for a reason, and our lot in life is to live out whatever God places before us. They believed that pleasure and possessions are illusory and that they might easily lead us into temptation. They believed in a literal heaven and hell, and that only through faith in Jesus Christ can anyone be saved from punishment. This drove their missionary zeal. This was their motivation for facing great personal sacrifice and loss.
In Japan they had four children, my father and aunt being the second and fourth. There grandpa and grandma also buried two sons who died in childhood, the first from small pox in 1910 and the second in 1920.
I have a letter from grandpa, dated May 11, 1920, addressed to relatives back in Missouri, that tells the heart‑wrenching story of the sudden death of their oldest son, my uncle Merritt when he was just 11 years old. He contracted diphtheria and died within three days. After two pages of telling about the illness, the death and the funeral among a small band of Japanese Christians, grandpa then wrote:
Well, my dears, this is the story. It is quickly told but some of you know the end is not yet. There will be lonely days. But we are trusting it will work for the glory of God. When I went to lie by Cora in the middle of the night, as I heard her sobbing, she said: “Well, this is a deep pruning and I pray we may bear more fruit thereby…”
My grandparents understood the gardeners’ wisdom that you can plant, tend, fertilize and nurture and always pray for the best. And they knew that some of what you plant withers and dies. They also understood that pruning promotes growth. Anyone can cut off dead wood. Only a wise gardener can see how some branches draw life away from the trunk and roots. This is the tougher cut by far.
That’s the wisdom of today’s lessons: tragedy strikes all around us. Sometimes it strikes us and not just them. So, we ask the gnawing question of why. We often can find an answer (or at least an explanation) for our suffering: it was an accident; it was the work of terrorists; it was pilot error; the other driver was drunk (or texting).
Answers like these can give us the facts and may help us pinpoint the cause of our sorrows – or even to place the blame. But our questions go deeper, don’t they? Gathering more information doesn’t heal our souls. When we ask why bad things happen, we’re digging deeper – why now, why him? Where was God? Why don’t bad people suffer and good people thrive the way it’s supposed to be?
So Luke tells us that the questioners approached Jesus and told him about a band of Galilean Jews who were making offerings at the temple when Herod’s soldiers slaughtered them. “Why?” they asked.
Jesus replied with a second story of meaningless tragedy, about eighteen workers who were killed when the tower they were building collapsed on them.
“Why?” Jesus asked in return. “Do you think they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
That’s a tough punchline. The questioners were asking Jesus whether suffering and violence “just happen” randomly, or whether they’re punishment for sin. Jesus told them such questions were a waste of time. Instead, he told them to keep on track.
…Seek first the realm of God.
…Repent and keep your life centered.
…Focus on fruits of the spirit.
Then Jesus answered the original question with a parable: A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He told the gardener to cut it down – not just prune it, kill it. For three years it had stood in the vineyard – the most fertile soil in the valley – and even there it had failed to bear fruit. It wasn’t fulfilling its purpose.
When a fruit tree doesn’t bear what can a gardener do? Three things come to mind: 1) Ignore it, and let it waste the space, 2) Cut it down to make room for another, or 3) nurture it: prune it back and tend the roots. So the gardener said to the owner: “please give it another year. I’ll loosen the soil around its roots and throw manure on it. Then if it doesn’t bear, I’ll cut it as you suggested.”
In the parable Jesus reminds us that God also made people to bear fruits of the spirit. When we fail to bear, what might happen? Will God cut us down, prune us back, or cover us with manure? (I bet you know how that feels!) Who can say which we deserve?
If God sees evidence that we might soon bear fruit, then patience and mercy may help us realize the promise. That’s the focus of this parable. One commentator [Fred Craddock in Interpretation ‑ Luke] suggests this parable is like overhearing God’s own internal dialogue: “shall I cut it down now, or tend it another year and hope? Justified judgment or miraculous mercy?”
Often the small challenges and passing pain of life bring us back to the center. But some of the pruning is much deeper – cutting to the core. And Jesus assured us such deep pruning can bring great growth.
I recently visited with a woman who was widowed some time back. At the end of our visit I knew her story would lift up what I’m saying this morning, so she gave me permission to share it. She’s carried the pain of her dear husband’s death and has felt the first signs of healing; there’s much further to travel.
She told me, her heart had been changed by her loss. She and he loved each other so much, she said, and realized they had a special gift and blessing in that love. Over the years they talked about many things, including the question about marriage equality, about gays and lesbians wanting to be legally married.
She said she and her late husband had agreed that you love who you love and that’s OK, but that same gender couples shouldn’t ask for their relationship to be called marriage. While they both knew their own marriage was a tangible, visible witness to the community, they also agreed that marriage must remain between a man and a woman.
Since her husband’s death, she said, in the depth of her grief, she’s had a change of heart. She has come to believe that love between two people is life-changing and healing in profound ways. If that love is between a man and a woman, or two men or two women, who is she to deny it or judge it? “My heart has been completely changed,” she said, as we both reached for the tissues.
Certainly you’ve experienced deep pruning in some way. How has it been in your life?
- Have you known more pain than joy, and then realized still that you’ve been amazingly blessed?
- Do you feel you’re still carrying too much dead wood but live in anxious fear that God might prune too deeply?
- Do you feel, on balance, that the world has thrown manure on you, but God has mercifully nourished you and given you space to strengthen and deepen?
- And most important: which experiences have first hurt and then brought joy or peace, and which have brought forth more fruits of the spirit?
These are such important questions for us as Jesus’ disciples. And together we trust that when we stand before the Master Gardener, deep pruning will bring growth.
Amen