A Tower Might Fall on You

Scripture — Luke 13:1-9 (NRSV)

At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that 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.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Devotion

Today’s passage, the Gospel rereading for the upcoming Third Sunday of Lent, is indubitably in the lectionary—that’s where I got it from—but I can’t say that I’ve ever heard a sermon on it, and I’ve certainly never preached one. I suspect that the combination of the Old Testament Lesson for this Sunday being the magnificent call story of Moses from Exodus (which we discussed yesterday) with the uncomfortable questions this passage raises make preachers walk up to it, look at it, and then turn around and walk right back the other way.

Luke 13:1-9 occurs as the conclusion of a long passage of Jesus’s teachings that begins in 12:1; we don’t know where Jesus was as he was doing this teaching except that 11:53-54 has let us know that he was outside. He began his talk by speaking only to his disciples, but by this point in the story he is also speaking to the whole crowd who wants to hear him (plus, as 11:53-54 also helpfully has let us know, the scribes and Pharisees are listening in.)

From Luke 12:35 on Jesus has been apocalyptic and challenging in his speech—talking, among other things, about beating unprepared servants and bringing conflict to families and fire to the earth—and though his sermon proper seems to have ended at the end of chapter 12 with the injunction to make a settlement when you get in trouble lest you be thrown in prison, the question raised by the crowd here keeps us going in the same ominous vein. They bring up a presumably recent report of some Galilean pilgrims martyred by Pilate, and Jesus then adds a story of eighteen people from Jerusalem who were killed when a tower fell on them, and tops it all off with a parable where the threat of destruction is hanging over a nonproducing fig tree.

Whether or not the crowd wanted comfort when they brought up the story of the Galileans, comfort is not what they get. Instead of a logical explanation of why bad things sometimes happen to good people, or calming and peaceful reassurances about God giving the kingdom to his little flock such as the ones Jesus was giving the disciples in 12:22-34, they receive only a stern summons to repent before something very bad happens to them—and oh, by the way, the parable seems to say, the time in which to do so is very short.

I do not know why the lectionary compilers chose this passage for this Sunday, but I suspect they may have done so because it makes us squirm in a particularly Lenten fashion. Here we are, trying to do our best at our Lenten practices, trying to be good people, trying to place our trust in Jesus and not in ourselves, and here is Jesus pointing at us and saying “You know, that’s not good enough. A tower might be about to fall on you. Repent.”

Repentance, of course, is not about trying to be good people even harder. It’s about realizing that we can’t be good people through trying. The gardener is going to come and dig around us and put manure on us and give us the best chance possible to grow. As He does every Lent.

Will we take him up on the offer? Will we actually trust him? Do we know how short the time might be before the end?

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Did Jesus Come to Bring Peace or Division?.