AfterWords: "Towards Jerusalem: A Patient God"

 

Luke 13:1-9

The reading for this Sunday is grouped among those “difficult” readings from the Gospels. This event is really the conclusion—of sorts—of all that happens and is said in the previous chapter (Luke 12). In that chapter, Jesus talks about the false or misleading teachings of the Pharisees; the impotence of wealth before the realities of death; the misguided focus of people on appearance and possessions; the lackadaisical view towards life; the inability to make sense of the times; and that other hard passage about Jesus bringing not peace but division.

After all of these (above), someone tells Jesus about “the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices”—a fine euphemism for, Pilate killed the Galileans as they offered sacrifices at the Temple. Jesus’s response does two things:

1) Jesus forever debunks the idea that disaster is God’s punishment of sin. “I tell you, no!”

       …and…

2) Jesus calls for a life of repentance.

The first is important. Too often we see some disaster—in the lives of others or ourselves—and think, what did they do wrong or what did I do wrong that God is punishing them or me. Jesus here forever silences—we hope!—that kind of thinking. Bad things do happen in our broken world, but this is not how God responds to our sin.

Then, Jesus calls repentance—an idea in Greek that is understood as to change thinking and behavior; a linear, continuing action. Since Luke 13 is a continuation of the action or narrative from Luke 12, the change Jesus calls for refers specifically to those issues and themes we find in Luke 12: stop looking for life in the words of the Pharisees, in the limited power of wealth, in appearance and possessions, in disinterested approaches to life.

Finally, Jesus tells the parable of the barren fig tree to drive things home. Life is not guaranteed, so repent—change your thinking and behavior. Our lives have purpose just like a fig tree, so start bearing fruit, start making life count.

This passage is a call to embrace change, to do things differently—not because we may die in our sleep tonight but because we are created with purpose and we need to live into that purpose.

 

Sunday, March 16, 2025
“Towards Jerusalem: A Patient God”
Watch/Listen: HERE