This is a very Lenten passage. It is headed in many versions as saying ‘Repent or perish’.It is one of those passages which might be used by those excruciatingly embarrassing but also very brave street preachers.
I do hope that I am not going to be like them, but as you know I like to remain as faithful to the passage in front of us as I can – and I would like to suggest three things for which we need to repent.
1.We are called to repent of our judgementalism.
Some people have come to tell Jesus some news. Some pilgrims in Jerusalem, who had gone to make an annual sacrifice, had been murdered by Herod’s troops – the authorities. We have no alternative source for what might have happened, but we know that religious festivals could be high tension times and there were regular clashes between the authorities and pilgrims.
It seems that the people talking to Jesus imply that the murdered pilgrims must have been doing something sinful to have suffered their fate.
Perhaps, people said, they were offering the sacrifices but had hidden sin in their heart and God was not to be deceived. Perhaps they were involved in trouble making. Perhaps they had associated with the wrong people and were in the wrong place.
Although we would probably never say it, when things are going well for us, we like to think we deserve it – and that when bad happens to people they deserve it. It makes us think that there is order in the universe and that we are in control of our destiny. We like to think that there is visible karma: you get what you deserve
The thing is we know in our heart of hearts that it does not work like that, especially when bad things happen to us.
The book of Job in the bible is precisely about this. Bad stuff happens to Job even though he is a righteous, a good man. The three companions say to Job, ‘Come off it Job, you must have done something to deserve this’. But Job insists on his righteousness, on having a meeting, an encounter with God, and in the end God does turn up, meet with Job, and tell the companions that they are speaking rubbish.
Well now, Jesus turns up and challenges those who imply that the massacred pilgrims and the victims of the tower of Siloam that collapsed had done something to deserve their suffering. He tells them that they were no worse sinners than the next person. Their fate was not because they were worse sinners. They suffered because they lived in a world in which there is evil and people suffer and die, and Jesus warns his listeners that if they do not repent, then they also will perish - eternally: not in a disaster but on the final day of judgment when we all stand in front of God.
Our society has made a virtue of non-judgementalism. We ask how can we judge another person’s behaviour, when truth and in particular moral truth is relative. We live in an ‘after virtue’ society. We do not really know what right or wrong is – so how can we impose our standards on another person. In our society, it is the height of arrogance to claim that your truth is the truth. And even if the person commits an offense that, in the eyes of society, is considered illegal – we hesitate to judge them because we do not know their background or context.
It is not completely relevant, but I do like a Giles cartoon (do you remember them?) that I saw many years ago. A thug is standing before the judge next to a very large policeman who has a black eye. And the judge is saying to the thug, ‘So let me get this clear. You claim that you hit PC Murray in the eye because your mother did not let you have a teddy bear when you were a child’.
Christian non-judgementalism is very different.
It is not because of confusion about what is right and what is wrong. We have been given a pretty clear vision of what is right and wrong; whether that is to do with our attitude to other people, money, gossip, sex, marriage, care of creation, life and death. We may struggle with some of that teaching, but the teaching is clear. The reason that Jesus challenges us when we judge and condemn another is because we, the person who judges, do the very thing that we accuse the other of doing. We are, to use an old phrase, charred pots calling the kettle burnt. Or to use Jesus’ own analogy, we are people with logs in our own eyes trying to remove a speck from our neighbour’s eye.
In Romans 1, Paul writes a long list of the sins of the Gentiles: degrading passions, envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossiping, slandering, rebelling against parents, faithlessness, heartlessness, ruthlessness. And you can imagine his audience strongly nodding their heads in approval. Some of them will be saying, ‘Go for it, Paul. You tell them’. And then Paul turns on his listeners, ‘Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things’. Ouch!
The people who are speaking with Jesus, and I suspect the challenge is the same to us, are called to repent: to repent of the pride which stands over another and condemns them - because we think that we are morally superior to them. I am ashamed to remember how I judged other Christian leaders when I was younger – for now I find that I am doing and saying some of those things for which I judged and condemned them.
In the end, before God, we are all sinners and we are all dependent on the love and mercy of God.
I love the fact that when we come to communion here, we come to the rail and kneel as we receive communion. It is very difficult for me, kneeling at the rail, recognizing my sin and my brokenness before God and my need for forgiveness and strength, coming to receive the mercy of God – to then look at my neighbor and say ‘But at least I’m better than you; or even, you shouldn’t be here because your sins are worse than mine’
2.We are called to repent of our lack of fruit
The owner planted the fig tree in his garden. He looked for fruit for three years and there was no fruit
We have been created for fruitfulness. The fruitfulness of worship and of holy and righteous lives. Zechariah in the Benedictus states, ‘You have set us free to worship you without fear, holy and righteous in your sight all the days of our life’. The lovely fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. The fruitfulness of obedience, especially when it is costly. The fruitfulness of lips that praise God’s name. The fruitfulness of generosity, hospitality and service.
We often think of fruitfulness in terms of what we have done. Have I lived a significant life? Have I been significant in the place where I worked or lived? There is a great deal said at the moment about legacy – what legacy are you leaving? It is another way of trying to justify ourselves and others, to prove that we matter. We look at what we or they have achieved, and judge significance by that.
But the problem is that we can gain the whole world and lose our soul. We can gain memorials that last for thousands of years – but lose eternity.
The thing is that we really do matter – and it has nothing to do with our achievements or visible legacy. We were created to be fruitful, but the fruitfulness that God is looking for in our lives is different. It is the fruitfulness of the heart, of our response to his love for us, of intimacy with him and of radiant servant lives.
God has come looking for this fruit and he has found the tree barren. And we are called to repent – to repent of the fact that although we may or may not be doing – or have done - great things in this world, we really are still living for ourselves and we have not put him in first place.
3. We are called to repent because we have been blind to the love of God.
This passage is quite heavy. Repent or perish.
But notice here how the gardener speaks to the owner of the vineyard.
The owner is all for uprooting the fig tree. It is not doing what it was created to do. It is a waste of space.
But the gardener says to the owner, ‘Give it one more year. I will tend it. I will give it space. I will feed it.’
The God who calls us to repent or perish is the God who loves us and does not want anyone to perish. And just in case we think that it is judgmental old God sitting up there who wants to uproot us and throw us into the fire, and forgiving Jesus who is the gardener who pleads for us – just remember that it is God the Father who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son so that whoever turns to him and puts their trust in him will not perish.
I know that many of us will want to say, 'but what of other people – of other religions or people who have never heard or who have been badly hurt by representatives of the institutional Church?
I wonder whether that really is a way of trying to sidestep the challenge. They are God’s problem, not yours.
We know that God is a God of love - so we can trust them into God’s hands.
But we, you and I have heard the news of the God of love, of the call to repent, to turn to him and receive the love and forgiveness of God and if we choose to reject that then we have no excuses.
Paul writes to those same people who were so quick to judge and condemn others, “Do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” Romans 2:4
Perhaps this is our metaphorical final year. Perhaps God, in his love, has planted us here (I’m talking about all of us) because he wants to show us his love, to dig around us (I like that – he wants to give us space, to separate us from the things that might choke us, that might make us dull to his message, to be allowed to think) and he wants to feed us.
And he longs for us to repent, to turn back to him and put our trust in him, and to produce that fruit – the fruit that brings freedom and gives life.
