Dr. Hugh Hamilton 
Trinity Presbyterian Church – Pensacola, FL 
March 24, 2019  3rd Sunday of Lent, Year C

JESUS ON THE MOVE:  2. Jesus Moves…Past the Fence 
Luke 13:1-9 Cursing of the Fig Tree   I Corinthians 10:1-13

“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” When we use that expression, we mean that we think others’ situation looks better than our own. It is our human nature to compare our lives with others’ lives.  Sometimes we compare and come out on top, feeling superior; sometimes we feel our lives are inferior, our situation worse than theirs.  

Jesus pulled people back across the fence to look at their own property, to look at their own reality. When a group of men in the temple tried to force Jesus to judge a woman caught in adultery, he told them to look inward first and see what sins they found in themselves before they threw a stone in judgment; then Jesus released her with caution – “go and sin no more.” 
	When asked “who is my neighbor?” Jesus told his parable of the Good Samaritan and pushed people to look beyond what is required or expected and to ask themselves how they could love and help those they didn’t consider neighbors at all. 
	When the priest and the Levite on the road to Jericho passed by on the other side of the road and left the poor man who had been beaten and robbed lying there by the road, we feel smug and superior.  They had an opportunity to help someone in need, and they did nothing.  They refused to help someone against whom they were prejudiced (Luke 10:25-37). Then who helped the poor man?  A Samaritan – an unclean, defiled, Gentile showed them up...shows us up. How smug do we feel now? 
	When a group of people asked Jesus about the tragedy of the tower in Siloam that had collapsed and killed some workers, they asked him if those who died deserved it because they were more wicked sinners.  Jesus saw through their comparison and confronted them: Don’t think yourself more moral than they are because you live, and they don’t; disasters happen to both good and bad people.  Don’t think they deserved it because they were worse sinners than you are; don’t compare yourself to them just to feel better about yourself. 

Jesus doesn’t let fence gazers keep their vision focused on the other side of the fence or let fence sitters remain detached.  He snaps us back to reality: “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” Boy, that snaps you back to your side of the fence, doesn’t it? 
   Don’t make sense out of the senseless by condemning the victims and assuming it’s their fault.    
      Instead, consider your own sinfulness, and 
         then work to produce fruit consistent with your salvation before you are called to judgment.
Quit worrying about the evil in others, look at yourself. 
   Quit debating the evil of those killed at Siloam. Instead, take responsibility for making GOOD  
      things happen here and now.  
         On judgment day you will not be asked what life did to you, but what you did with life!

The owner of the tree judges the tree for its lack of fruit: “Cut it down.”  The worst thing we can do is to do nothing; not bearing fruit will get us disqualified. 

PARABLE OF THE FIG TREE

The cursing of the fig tree is a warning: if we do not fulfill our purpose, we too shall perish. Produce or perish!  It is a law of nature and a spiritual law in the scriptures. 
	Paul reminds the Corinthians about the law: how during their wilderness wanderings those who ignored God and indulged in immorality were destroyed by serpents and fire.  It's the basic Lenten message: the wages of sin is death. Repent!

The purpose of the fig tree is to bear fruit, and the owner of the tree resents the lack of productivity.  For three years he has come in search of fruit and found none.  Cut this tree down, he says. Technically, he is right: if gardens are to be productive, nonbearing trees are pruned or removed.

But the vinedresser defends the tree and begs that the tree be given another chance.  Give it another year, and with the proper help, it should bear fruit.  Apparently, it's the vinedresser, not the owner, who's been attending to the tree all along. The owner came looking for results and is upset to find none, but the vinedresser is the one who has dealt everyday with the fig tree.  You would expect the vinedresser to be the one annoyed, even angry, at the failure of his own efforts, and yet he is the one who asks for more time and promises more effort to get the tree to become productive and thereby save it from destruction!

What are you learning about God and Jesus by this parable?  If the owner of the fig tree is God, and the vinedresser is Jesus, this parable proclaims God’s judgment and Jesus’ persistence!  Given that the tree cannot repent and amend its own soil conditions, it must depend on the help of the vinedresser!  It seems to me that 
	Jesus promising to help us!   
	 Jesus is giving us yet another chance to repent!     
	   Jesus moves us off the fence and makes us face reality, makes us decide to do better! 	
	      Jesus offers us a Second Chance!
Stop looking over the fence at others and comparing yourself!  
  Instead, notice the dead spots in your own lives.
    He can care for us and help those dead spots come back to life again.

Looking over to the other side of the fence helps us avoid confronting our own issues, needs, and sins; but Jesus brings our gaze back to the truth and with laser-focus points out what we need to address in our own lives – he helps us to begin again, begins to set us free from sin. 

I’ve asked you many times before:  By a show of hands, when you think of God’s dealing with us, which you think is the most important word between judgment and grace?
	How many vote “judgment?”
	How many vote “grace?” 
	How many don’t want to vote?  
Let me repeat the question, when you think of God’s dealing with us, which you think is the most important word between judgment…AND…grace?    Yes,…“AND!” 

God is a holy God, a just God, who judges our sin unacceptable.  
   But God is also a God of GRACE who loves you so much that 
     he suffers his penalty for your sin, he satisfies his own need for justice, 
       and now is justified in setting you free to begin again. 
God gives you second chances, even third and fourth and fifth chances to do what is right, to get it straight, to do that which is pleasing to God!  But, when all is said and done, you still must try to get it straight, do what is right and pleasing to God. 

We are each of us living in a season of second chances; saved from destruction by Jesus’ desire to save us and to restore us to our best, that we may bear fruit!
   Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. 
      He gives us time to get things straight, gives us care and attention; 
        gives to us the raking and fertilizer and nourishment that a good gardener gives to his plants 
          and trees to enable us to be fruitful.  
             But we don't have forever to get our act together; 
               eventually God will inspect his garden and pronounce judgment on us.

We climb the fence and gaze at others around us, 
   wonder about their lives; judge their sinfulness or envy their success, their goodness…
      but Jesus brings us back across the fence to the place where we find healing and change and   
         goodness, …right in our own backyard. 

Get off the fence – decide now to address your situation!   

So, tell me, what became of the fig tree?  …
   Did the year of grace and fertilization bring repentance and new growth?  Or did they cut down   
      the tree? …   
         We don’t know.  Parables do not answer themselves – they demand an answer, a response, from you, the listener.

Jesus repeatedly gives us chances to repent and begin to live correctly.  But he also warns us: Don't press your luck -- repent while you may, before the axe of judgment is laid to our roots. 

You must take responsibility for your own actions, or inaction. 
You are responsible for bearing fruit and making life better everywhere you go. 
You are not called to be something you are not.  The fig tree was not called to bear bananas or oranges or mangos.  What Christ asks is that you allow him to help you be the best you can be and do that which you can do.  
You are NOT responsible for people beyond your control, but you can't plead innocence when you have not tried to control yourself or to correct situations that you know are wrong.
You can’t see social evils or moral short-comings, and wring your hands and say, "For goodness sakes, why doesn't somebody do something about that?"
We each have been put here on earth to do something.  To contribute something. 
We can’t solve the world's problems by ourselves; but linked together we can do GREAT things! 

And what we CAN do, we must do! …for the good of others who need us, 
   for the good of God and his kingdom on earth, …and for our own good! 
We each have much to offer life, with great potential, with tremendous blessings and talents and ideas and images and abilities.

Woe to us if we never apply ourselves, never share our ideas and ideals, and talents, and abilities, and love and dreams!  Woe to us if we never fulfill our potential and God-given mission on earth, but rather waste our time and energy and ability and squander our time like an unproductive, fig tree that takes up space and demands all the nutrients but never shares or produces fruit!

We are in this world together, y'all.  We are in this together.  If this world goes up in flames, it is OUR world. If the Christian church falters, it is OUR church.  If our moral standards falter, WE falter too!  We are accountable for what we contribute to life, or do not contribute!

The tree that bears no fruit will be cut down.  You have the freedom to choose; but don't press your luck, repent while you may.  Begin today!  Take up your cross and follow Jesus! Amen!

Sources

Barclay, William. The Daily Bible Study Series: The Gospel of Luke.  Philadelphia: Westminster 	Press, 1977. 
Duncan, King. “The Greatest Sin: To Do Nothing.” Dynamic Preaching, March 24, 2019.
Fairchild, Richard J.  “The Sense of the Senseless.” Spirit Networks. www.rockies.net/~spirit/sermons/c-le03se.php.
Hamilton, Hugh. “Fig Newtons and Second Chances.”  First Presbyterian Church – Covington, TN, March 22, 1992. 
LaGrone, Jessica. “Lenten Series: God on the Move.”  In A Preacher’s Guide to lectionary Sermon Series: Thematic 	Plans for Years A, B, and C.  Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 2016, 196. 
Mosser, David. Preaching/Word & Witness. Vol.10:2 (Year C). March 7, 2010.

\03-24-19 JESUs ON THE MOVE 2 Jesus Moves Past the Fence.doc