image: "Ficus" by Georg Dionysius Ehret (ca. 1771)
Sunday,
March 3, 2013
3rd
Sunday of Lent – We will seek the Lord and be fruitful
Texts:
Psalm 63:1-8, Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9
Eric
Massanari
“cultivating
hope”
Did
the people who died in
the
World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001
suffer
their terrible fate because
they
had committed more serious sins
than
those who escaped that day with their lives?
Did
the 8,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred
at
Srebrenica in July 1995 perish in such horror
because
their guilt was of a more serious nature
than
the guilt of the Serbians who killed them?
Was
their sin worse than yours, or mine?
How
do you feel right now as you hear such questions?
What
does your mind tell you?
Your
gut?
Your
heart?
This
story from Luke's gospel
indicates
that Jesus was confronted by such questions.
I've
just made them more contemporary,
to
help bend our ears and perhaps hear them anew.
Is
personal human suffering—physical suffering—
directly
linked to personal human sin?
When
we see someone suffering
should
we assume they are being subjected
to
God's judgment for their sins?
Or the sins of their forefathers and foremothers?
Jesus
responds with a clear answer:
No,
that's not the way it is.
That's
not how God works. It's not how life works.
However,
with a strange twist in this passage,
Jesus
immediately says to his listeners
...but
unless you repent,
you
will perish just as they did.
What
does Jesus mean?
Is
he contradicting himself?
It
would seem so, at first glance.
However,
when placed in the wider context
of
this section of the gospel,
it
may be that Jesus is taking advantage
of
an opportune moment
to
offer a difficult teaching.
Here,
in this section of Luke's story,
as
Jesus is moving closer to
his
own suffering and death,
he
is found speaking not only about
matters
of individual faith and discipleship,
but
about larger, corporate realities.
We find him addressing and lamenting
the
condition of a whole people,
his
own people, the children of Israel.
Jesus has been asked about the sin and suffering of individuals,
but
he turns things around and speaks
more
widely, more collectively about the sin of a people.
He
uses this image of a fig tree which would
have
been a common image among
Hebrew
prophets like Jeremiah (8:13),
Hosea
(9:10), and Micah (7:1).
Hebrew prophets used the fig tree to represent
the
the whole people of Israel and Judah.
So
one way of translating Jesus' message
in
this passage might be:
No,
God does not purposefully make people
suffer
in accordance with their sin.
That's
not how God works.
However,
we know from experience that all
suffer
the consequences of collective, communal sin.
When
the needs of the poor are ignored,
when
refugees seek sanctuary but meet closed doors,
when
collective greed overrides generosity,
when
selfishness trumps stewardship,
when
violence and retribution take the place
of
peace and reconciliation,
when
racial/ethnic prejudice trumps love for neighbor,
then
all suffer the consequences.
Communal
sin and collective suffering are directly related,
for
the simple fact that my
life is woven into your life,
and
our lives together are woven into
other
human lives in this world,
and
our human lives are woven
into
the very fabric of all creation—God's wondrous tapestry!
Acting
together, we human beings
possess
great potential energy and influence.
We
are capable of great healing, creativity and compassion.
However,
when we act out of fear and self-interest,
we
are capable of great neglect,
great
violence, and great evil.
And
many suffer the consequences.
Human
history has proven this
true
over and over again.
In
these verses, and with this parable,
Jesus
is standing in the tradition of Hebrew prophecy
and
calling a whole people to repentance—
the
fig tree is the great human tree.
He
is speaking in a similar key as Isaiah,
whose
words we heard this morning:
Why
do you spend your money
for
that which is not bread,
and
work so hard
for
that which never satisfies?
And,
much like Isaiah
and
other Hebrew prophets before him,
Jesus
offers a word of hope within his parable.
Though
the landowner considers
the
fruitless tree a waste of space
and
worthy for the burn pile,
the
gardener makes a plea for a stay of execution,
arguing
that there remains hope for new growth and change.
The
gospel of Jesus Christ
is
a gospel of second chances,
even
when hope seems dim.
There
are moments in this life when
if
even one person chooses generosity over greed,
nonviolence
instead of violence,
gratitude
instead of resentment,
great
change for a whole people becomes possible.
Sometimes the repentance of many
begins with the turning of one
towards the way of hope.
It
may not be evident at first glance,
or
even second or third glance.
It
may take much time.
But
such a witness, especially when
shared
by others, releases
the
power of God's life and love.
To
use the imagery of the parable,
we
are not just the tree that needs
a
good dose of fertilizer.
We
are called to be the gardener,
to
till the ground of life with our hope.
I
think of Mother Theresa's words
Though
we are not called to do great things on this earth,
we
can do small things with great love.
This
week I've been reading a recent book
by
author and journalist, Eyal Press:
Beautiful
Souls: Saying No, Breaking Ranks,
and
Heeding the Voice of Conscience in Dark Times.
Press
tells the stories of four individuals
from different places and different historical moments,
who
were faced with exceptionally difficult decisions,
decisions
whether to follow the crowd
and
the rising tides of their times,
or
whether to follow their own conscience.
He
tells the story of a day in November 1991,
when
a convoy of buses made their way
to
the village of Stajichevo in northern Serbia.
The
buses had come from neighboring Croatia
and
they were filled with prisoners of war,
from
the town of Vukovar.
Vukovar, was a beautiful town on the banks
of
the Danube River, but it became a literal
hell
on earth during those years of bitter
warfare
between Croats and Serbs,
as
the Croatian people fought for independence
from
Yugoslavia, and the Serbs fought to stop them.
Vukovar
underwent nearly three months
of
indiscriminate bombing, and eventually
the
Serbian troops took over the town.
Soon
after Vukovar fell the Serbs began
to
take all of the surviving men of the town
to
detention centers in Serbia,
including
the one in Stajichevo.
One
of the problems the Serbs faced
was
the fact that like many towns in the area,
it
wasn't just Croats living in Vukovar,
there
were Serbs who remained there
when
the city came under seige.
So,
when they brought these busloads of prisoners
to the old cowshed in Stajichevo that had become
a
detention center, they wanted to spare
their
Serb brothers from the brutal treatment
they inflicted on the Croation prisoners.
Croats
and Serbs speak nearly the same language,
they
look very much alike.
So,
the Serbian soldiers needed to choose carefully.
On this day in November 1991,
as
yet another convoy of busses rolled in,
and
as the prisoners unloaded and
walked
through a gauntlet of blows
and
beatings to enter the old cowshed,
a
guard recognized one of the prisoners as a fellow Serb,
a
former comrade in the Yugoslav army.
He
called him by name, “Aleksander Jevtich.”
After
exchanging greetings
the
guard gave Jevtich a delicate and urgent task,
he
gave him the job of identifying all of
the
Serbs in the group of prisoners
so
they could be taken to a separate room.
The
Croats would be left for interrogation,
torture,
and imprisonment.
Jevtich
nodded to his friend and began
wading
through the crowded cowshed.
He
started calling out to Serbian friends
he
knew and as he named them
they
left for the welcome safety of the other room.
He
came to another man sitting on the floor
with
his head down, and Jevtich kicked his foot
and
said “Come with me, Kovacevich.”
The
man looked up warily but didn't move.
His
name wasn't Kovacevish, it was Stanko,
and
he wasn't Serbian, he was Croatian.
“Come
with me,” Jevtich repeated.
The
man got up and left.
And
Croatians looked at one another, surprised.
Then
Jevtich proceeded to call others
by
Serbian names and tell them to
get
up and leave, even though all were Croatian.
He
kept doing this until the holding room
for
the Serbian men was completely full
and
could hold no more.
It
was a risky act.
If
he had been discovered
he
would have shared the fate of the Croatians
who
remained in the detention center.
He
saved many from torture and death that day.
Why
did he do this?
When
his people were at war with their people,
when
his grandparents had been killed
and
his mother barely survived the concentration camps
run by the Croatian Ustasha in WWII,
why
would he spare the lives of these men?
The
memory of those concentration camps
was
one of the things that fueled the ethnic
hatred
of the Serbs toward the Croats in this recent war.
Elyan
Press, wanted to know more about
Aleksander's
story, so he traveled to
Serbia to meet this man.
The
man he met is not a
gentle, quiet, saintly gentleman.
He's
a boisterous, somewhat rough-around-the-edges fellow.
Jevtich
is not especially religious or rebellious.
He
is not an outspoken political activist.
He
is not a committed pacifist.
He
is not highly educated.
So,
what then? What made him
follow
his conscience when so many
other
good people in those years simply followed
along
with the brutal tide of ethnic violence?
As
Jevtic told his story, he shared that when he was young
he
remembered his mother telling of how she
survived
the Croatian concentration camps in WWII.
He
said she always made a point of telling him
that
most of the Croatian people who had done this
were
good people and that it was wrong to hate.
He
remembered not being very open to this
message
at first as a child. He wondered
why
his mother could possibly call the Croats “good.”
But
his mother continued to cultivate in him
an
awareness and conviction that all people
have
goodness within, and all are worthy of love.
Aleksander's
mother, like the gardener in the parable,
had
tended the soil of the tree of her people,
and
her community, even though she herself
had
been given little assurance that such hope was founded.
She
cultivated the soil of her son's life-tree.
She did small acts with great love.
So
that when the story of war and horror repeated itself,
as
such stories so often do, the even
greater
and more enduring story of love could be told.
And it was told through the actions of her son,
Aleksander, who chose to cultivate hope
rather
than participate in fear and hatred.
We
can pray we will never have to face
such
a terrible decision as he did in that prison camp.
Yet,
I wonder if it is also true
that the choices you and I make,
and
the actions we perform each day,
small
and inconsequential as they may seem,
can make as great a difference
in this world as those choices and
actions of Aleksander Jevtich in that prison camp.
Our small acts done with great love
transmit the great and transforming
power of God's own love.
To
be a disciple of Christ is to
cultivate
hope that may look strange in this world.
When
the temptation is
to
complain about all that seems wrong,
the
hope of Christ calls us to nurture what is good.
When
the temptation is
to
join in harsh judgment
the
hope of Christ calls us to show mercy.
When
the temptation is
to
give up because options seem nonexistent,
the
hope of Christ calls us to get creative.
When
the temptation is
to
get drawn up in currents of fear and anxiety,
to
sequester ourselves and our resources,
the
hope of Christ calls us
to
grow more open and vulnerable,
and
to seek a way of peace and just relationships.
With
this great hope we
are
given though the love of Christ,
we
cultivate the soil under the tree of life
so
that all may receive its fruit.
Amen
