LENT 3 - C

FIVE PRACTICES: Intentional Faith Development

Could This Be The Year for Figs?


It's hard to let God be God isn’t it? We long to explain things only God can know. We human beings have spent centuries looking to find cause and affect patterns for every good and every evil in the world. Yet we can each tell stories of terrible tragedies that have happened to good and faithful people. Even here within our own church family. But what we want is to make sense of things that make no sense so we put words into God's mouth that are our own rather than God's.

Some years ago, William Sloan Coffin preached a sermon about our temptation to speak God's mind. During the years when Rev. Coffin was senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City, his son Alex was killed in a tragic car accident. Alex was driving in a terrible storm; he lost control of his car and careened into the waters of Boston Harbour. The following Sunday, Dr. Coffin preached about his son's death. He thanked all the people for their messages of condolence, for food brought to their home, for an arm around his shoulder when no words would do. But he also raged; he raged about well-meaning folks who had hinted that Alex's death was God's will. "I knew the anger would do me good," he said.

Then he went on:

"Do you think it was God's will that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper...that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had a couple of 'frosties' too many? Do you think it was God's will that there are no street lights along that stretch of the road and no guard rail separating the road and Boston Harbour? The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, 'It is the will of God.' Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break."

It's hard to let God be God. We long to make sense of senseless tragedies and search for reasons even when there are none. Jesus anticipated our questions in today's gospel reading. Two terrible tragedies had happened in Jerusalem, one in the temple, the other near the pool of Siloam. In the first instance, Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed some Galileans who were making sacrifices at the temple and then he mixed their blood with the sacrifices. No doubt this was a warning to other Jews to remember that Rome was in charge. In the other incident, a tower fell on people near the pool of Siloam killing 18 people who simply happened to be there. How can such things be explained?

Jesus asks the questions that must have been on people's minds. Were the Galileans worse sinners than other Galileans? Were the people killed by the tower worse offenders than all others living in Jerusalem?

These are serious questions; questions on the mind of each and every one of us as we go through a life filled with challenges and tragedy.

Last week I started talking about the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations – you may remember we talked about Risk-Taking Mission and Service. The idea was that we should focus on the adjective – “risk taking” and congregations who are able to take risks tend to be healthier.

This week I think the concept that best fits the situation, and the passages, is “Intentional Faith Development.”

Let me explain; Life throws us curves, it causes pain, it offers up a lot that is difficult to explain – and there are no simple answers. Because there are no simple answers, we are called to search out truth – we are called to dig deeper.

God does not will death.

Are you going to accept the easy answer, or are you going to be intentional about learning about your faith?

In the Five Practices Robert Schnase writes this: “Intentional Faith Development refers to the purposeful learning in community that helps the followers of Jesus mature in faith, such a Bible studies, Sunday school classes, short-term topical studies, and support groups that apply the faith to particular life challenges.

Learning in community replicates the way Jesus deliberately taught his disciples. People cannot learn grace, forgiveness, patience, kindness, gentleness, or joy, simply by reading about it in a book. These are aspects of spiritual formation that one learns in community, through intentional engagement. The sanctifying presence of God's spirit works through these practices to help us grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God.”

William Sloane Coffin is recognized as one of the greatest preachers ever in North America. It was not just his sermon when his son died; he spent his whole life intentionally confronting the hard questions below the surface of the scriptures. He always knew that life was unfair, that things don’t work out, and that our simple ideas of God never explain the mystery of it all.

The poet Rilke said it this way: “Try to love the questions themselves; do not seek the answers now, but live the questions themselves.”

When people were blaming God for these random deaths Jesus decide it was time for some intentional teaching, and so he told a 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?"

Which if we accepted the simple answers, if we really thought is was as black and white as God does good things for good people and bad things for bad people would be the end of the parable... but it isn’t...

In fact, the parable goes even deeper than we might at first expect... What does the person argue? That it has been three years and the tree has not produced any fruit – do you know when Jesus says this? Just about three years after he was baptized by John, just about three years after he started his preaching?

For three years God has been waiting for people to turn their hearts toward Jesus, but there has not been much repentance. Instead of repentance, the resistance to Jesus' vision of the kingdom has intensified over the three years. There isn't any fruit on the tree, so the owner of the vineyard says, "Cut it down!"

Again, remember, this is not the end of the story...

The gardener doesn't cut down the tree. Instead the gardener says, "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."

Dig around in the roots; put some manure on there... or in other words – be intentional about doing the things that will help you to grow... be intentional about learning, intentional about developing your faith... and then we will see what happens.

This is a story of hope... one more year... some intentionality... and we can become who we were meant to be...

Now -- the real point is that this year is not going to be any easier – but as a congregation, we are given chance after chance to look deeply at ourselves, to take risks, to be intentional... to work at changing the world even while we seek to understand it.

You never know, this could be the year for figs.

Let us pray. Gracious and merciful God, whose patience goes far beyond our erring, be with us this day that we might repent and turn around. Give us the power and the grace to return to you. Give us the courage to admit what we have done wrong and what we have failed to do right. In this year, come to us; dig around our hearts, open us to your wisdom, your forgiveness, and your grace, Amen.