In public speaking courses trainees are often instructed to begin their speech with an interest-grabbing story. Once they have the attention of their listeners they can proceed to make their speaking points. Similarly, preachers are advised that one way to begin their preaching is to refer to a human situation their listeners can recognize as their own, or that they know other people have had. The aim of this opening is to draw the listeners in and prepare them to hear God’s Word speaking to their lives. In today’s gospel Jesus, the preacher, draws on his listeners’ knowledge of current events and then addresses an important message to them.
Jesus is told about some people who were killed by Pilate while they were offering sacrifices in the Temple. Can you imagine: people killed while at prayer! Certainly those who heard about the slaughter were shocked by it. Even without modern forms of communication, news of the event seems to have spread because Jesus drew on it to address his word to those gathered around him.
News of another tragedy also seems to have been common knowledge, so Jesus includes it to illustrate what he intends to say. It seems that at Siloam a tower collapsed killing 18 people. These tragic events were on everyone’s lips — the news of the day. Times are different, but the events seem like they could have happened yesterday: a tyrant kills the citizens of his own country; faulty building construction causes a wall to collapse killing passersby on the street below.
The events sound similar and so do the questions they raise. Why do these things happen to people? Jesus’ contemporaries and some people today, would conclude that God had punished sinners. When tragedy befalls a person, there is a tendency to ask, “What did I do that God is punishing me so?”
Pilate’s cruelty and the tower’s collapse were known by his listeners. Jesus, the good preacher, uses them as examples to speak a word to them. These dramatic events should remind people how unsure life can be; we have no guarantees that we will not have something bad happen to us unexpectedly. “Hey, you never know.” Since life can be so fragile, Jesus would have people examine their lives and make the changes they must to set things right. All of us, Jesus says, have some sin or inappropriate behavior that we need to change “now” — there may be no “later.”
Death has a way of getting our attention. We have known people with a serious illness, or who were dying and used their last precious hours to put things straight in their lives: a woman contacts the brother she hasn’t spoken to in years to be reconciled with him; a businessman changes his will to reimburse people he has cheated; someone who hasn’t been to church for a long time calls for a priest for the Sacrament of Reconciliation and then is anointed; a father who had been distant and demanding towards his two sons calls them in to apologize and express the pride he has for them. Sometimes, as in the case of the accident at Siloam, death comes unexpectedly. But, Jesus says, if we have been given time we should act on that gift to heal rifts and ask for forgiveness. Lent is a reminder to us to reform and today Jesus tells us now is the time to do that.
Jesus gives the example of the barren fig tree. Fig trees took three years to produce fruit after they were planted. Then, if a tree didn’t produce, a wise and practical farmer would cut it down and start over with another tree. Farmers are traditionally patient people as they wait for their crops to come to harvest. But a farmer’s patience can wear thin, as we can detect in the land owner’s voice, “For three years I have come in search of fruit… cut it down.”
The fig tree was a symbol for Israel (Mich. 4:4) and Jesus’ listeners would have gotten the connection. God continued to lavish a lot of love and care on Israel, despite the people’s long history of rejection or indifference. It is clear from the prophets that God intended Israel to be a sign of God’s love and mercy to the nations. In other words, God expected to find fruit on the fig tree.
Let’s not limit that expectation just to the people of Israel. God expects each of us and the church itself, to be fruitful in our service to the Lord: to produce works of loving service, giving ourselves to ease the pain of others and lighten their burdens. The tree Christ has planted is supposed to yield the same kind of fruit Jesus revealed in his lifetime by his words and actions.
Lent is an appropriate time to reflect whether we have procrastinated in making important changes in our lives. The parable of the fruitless fig tree has a note of hope about it. A year of grace is given it; one more chance, with extra care, devoted to it to bear fruit. Still, there is the serious warning that if the tree doesn’t bear fruit it will be cut down. Lent reminds us that divine mercy is always available to us and we are given time to accept it and then to make the necessary changes we must to put our lives in order. Still, the consequences can be dire if we don’t act in the time we are given. The end can come for any of us unexpectedly.
But we are not on our own as we attempt these changes. The fig tree is the recipient of mercy, time and loving care. God cultivates us to produce much fruit. Jesus invites us to receive the enabling grace from God. It is a free gift; nothing we can do earns it. Remember the fig tree’s condition; it was fruitless. What is asked of us is to accept the grace being offered and then produce the expected yield.
It wasn’t the sin of the victims that caused suffering for the Jerusalem pilgrims or the victims at Siloam. Christians need to speak out and act against the injustices tyrants, or political powers, wield against their citizens. Likewise, “accidents” like collapsing buildings and highway bridges are sometimes a result of shortcuts in construction practices. Christians in construction, transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, food etc industries need to be conscientious in their work so as to protect consumers and travelers from suffering an “accident.” Christianity is an everyday religion, practiced in ordinary settings by people doing their jobs properly and justly.
We focused on the gospel reading, but we can’t skip over our first reading: a hallmark passage from the Hebrew Scriptures. It is a central statement about who God is and what God does for us.
It begins, as other “call passages” do, with God taking the initiative. Moses is called by the eternal and holy God. The symbolic language conveys it well: a bush burns, but is not consumed and a voice calls out to Moses and orders him to remove his sandals, “for the place where you stand is holy ground.” God calls Moses to reverence and humility; a reminder of the transcendence of God. Then God does, what God always does in the Bible, shows concern for people under oppression. “I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt….”
This reading lead us to the gospel. Just as God shows compassion towards the afflicted and Jesus concretized that compassion in his life, so we, like the fig tree, are expected to produce the fruits of compassion and justice in our own lives.