First, read the two texts on which this sermon is based: Isaiah 55:1-9 and Luke 13:1-9.
Here’s the sermon:
If you’ve ever watched Shark Tank, or even if you haven’t, I want you to picture this investor pitch. “Sharks, Seeking your investment – of, well everything or at least endless cash and emotional input – for 0% equity – in this tree – that grows nothing. And – if it did grow anything, as the prophet Isaiah said, I’d give it away – in fact, that’s the business model – come, eat drink – without money, and without price.”
Nobody is getting in on this deal! Like the owner in the parable, we’d say, “cut it down! Where’s my return on investment!” The sharks would be out as soon as you started talking, or definitely by the point you mention that there will be no money exchanged, no profit…
God’s vision of abundance includes this detail of buying not only without money but “without price” – indicating that the merchant is not just making an exception or a free pass – but there is no cost. Because you can’t put a price on it – to do so would miss the whole point. It’s free. It’s grace. (And it’s not just in the New Testament.)
God’s basically got the worst business mind ever. Or maybe that’s just not what God’s working for. Consider the gospel reading, and that parable Jesus shares.
You see, God’s not in the business of figs. God’s not in business at all, it seems. Or if so, it’s grapes – that little note in the parable. Did you notice – that the owner has a fig tree – in the vineyard. So maybe that’s the business end, but the fig tree – that’s us – is just for fun, because God loves it.
At a previous house we owned, the first year I hadn’t tilled a garden, so I planted a few tomatoes tucked behind the boxwoods along the front. The next year I had dug a garden, but these volunteer tomatoes would come up – every year, and I didn’t have the heart to take them out. These increasingly different varieties were wild, but I loved them, so I let them grow. If they gave fruit, which they did, these funny thumb shaped tomatoes, great! If not – no loss – I delighted just to see them grow.
You see, God doesn’t rely on our harvest.
God doesn’t need it. Like it? Sure, but never need it.
And yet, so many religions and theologies are based on this logical fallacy – that God needs your fruit – your good works – and that God’s set this all up as some trap only unlocked by us being good.
How would it make sense that the omnipotent God who created the universe is weakly waiting for your response?
Nah – God’s not even in the fig business! God’s not in any business – this is all gift – come – buy, drink, eat!
God got out of the sin-accounting business on the cross, when Jesus says the same thing that he says here, the Greek verb aphes, here translated “let it alone,” on the cross we translate it “forgive (them, for they know not what they do).” Let it be. Spare it. Because God’s not in the sin accounting business and neither should we be.
This gets back to the original question that Jesus knew they were asking – do bad things happen to people because they’re bad people?
Jesus severs the link between any causal relationship between sin and suffering. Yes, some sin causes suffering, but these scriptures insist that you cannot work backwards and pronounce judgment – saying – they’re suffering, so they must have sinned.
This creeps into our subconscious, though, in pernicious ways, and it takes an active faith to remember again and again as Jesus, “aphes/forgive/let it be.” How many times do I subconsciously think someone is poor or sick because of their own fault. This gospel reading invites us to reflect upon whether we ever blame the victim. Or, and perhaps even worse, if we make the opposite assumption, that because I’m successful I must be righteous.
It sounds silly to say out loud, like – we know this – but if you think about it, it’s a building block of most of secular society.
So what’s the Christian response? If there’s no fruit? If bad things happen – if for years there’s nothing?
Well – we get to work! Not because you have to but because you get to. God hands us a pitchfork and gloves and the hope that things might be different. The Christian response is to join God in loving the tree for the sake of it, getting to work loving each other not based on merit or production.
What’s God working for? What are we working for?
Too many of us know the feeling of working so hard and yet – for what? For a job that doesn’t respect you? To just have to compete harder the next day? For a number on a scale or a title, something that ultimately does not satisfy?
God invites you to work for – delight… love… that which satisfies – that which is bread – daily bread, bread for the soul…
In the small catechism’s explanation of the Lord’s Prayer, Martin Luther answers the question “what is daily bread?”
He writes “everything included in the necessities and nourishment for our bodies, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house, farm, fields, livestock, [and, yes] money, property. . . [but also] upright and faithful rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, decency, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.” (Small Catechism) That which satisfies. Much of it out of our control. But what would the world look like if we worked for it for each other, on the basis of love, not reward? It’d fail as a business, but it would look a heck of a lot like God’s kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen.
A Wideness in God's Mercy 