A Patient and Confident God

Read again Luke 13:1-9.

My mom is blogging for her church too. Funnily enough, we didn't discuss these projects beforehand; we just discovered we had chosen the same Lenten discipline. She's a pastor in Gloucester, MA and left a gushy comment on here not long ago. One of her better entries is on the patience of God. And she turns to this image of God the gardener waiting gently on the fig tree to produce fruit. I love this idea of a patient God giving us what we need to thrive and then giving us the time and space to grow the bounty we were meant to give. As I think on ministry here at Hope Lutheran, we are producing fruit for the garderner. But we are also waiting...waiting for the nutrients God has mixed into our soil to do its work in us. We are waiting for two new pastors: an interim, then our called pastor, we are waiting on each other in the back of forth of organizing. I myself am waiting to be ordained. We are waiting on many things. It's not easy. But it is exciting.

Which brings me to the mysterious last line of the story: the man in charge tells the gardener that if the fig tree produces no fruit within a year, cut it on down. Some people interpret this as a kind of warning of our final judgement. Other people see it as Jesus' way of getting urgent as he implores us to repent. Still some see it as a dramatic moment...what will happen to the tree? The story never tells us. (See Matt Skinner again on workingpreacher.org). I'm going to take a different line -- I think the man tells the gardener to go ahead and cut if it bears no figs because the man KNOWS it will. There's just no question. When God tends to us, we won't be able to do anything BUT produce fruit. The man has total faith in his little tree.

Reflection

• How do you interpret this last line?
• What do figs and repentence have to do with each other?
• Who are you in the story: the man waiting, the tree nourished, the gardener tending, all of them?

Prayer

How patient you are with us, O God. How patiently you water, feed, and sustain us. How patiently you wait for the fruit of our very beings to push its way from our depths. Amen

Sometimes someone needs to to give us a good shake.

Read Luke 13:1-9.

He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?" (Luke 13:2)

What a strange and gruesome opening to our gospel passage coming on Sunday. Before I had the responsibility of actually explaining scripture to people, I tended just to skip these kinds of verses. People's blood mingled with sacrifices? Yeah, maybe I'll just go straight to the part about the garderner tending the fruit tree.

But here's some food for thought for anyone who might be trying to digest this in full. 1) There are two historical events alluded to in these passages, both of which were horrific. Pilate slaughtered a group of people in his fashion of random brutality. He polluted sacrfices in doing so. This was a wildly oppressive gesture on his part and effected the psyche of the his people much in the same way torture and murder affects people living under violent regimes today. The other event was a random tragedy: the collapse of a building crushing eighteen people. This prompted survivors to proclaim their uprightness. In this way, that ancient world isn't so unlike our own -- all the time, we have to make sense out of violence and tragedy. Sometimes we take the moral high road; other times we imagine ourselves immune for these kinds of horrors. (Matt Skinner this week on workingpreacher.org gives a good explanation of these events and texts and how they connect to repentence which is where I looked for help.)

2) My second thought is this: Jesus' words sound a little harsh. And yet, all he does is call us to task in our false securities. We are no different, no better or worse than any other victim in the world. Just because we live in a place with earthquake proof buildings and a functional government doesn't mean our lives cannot be cut short. It doesn't mean we are better believers because we have survived. Because life is random, the urgency is to right ourselves in relationship to God for the sake of our lives now. Jesus wants us to live our lives as if we are alive to God and not live as if we are slowly perishing from spiritual alienation. A change of heart, an alertness to God, is the root of spiritual growth. And Jesus wants us to have fruitful lives.

Reflection

• How do you handle the parts of the gospel that can come across as condemnation?
• How does one live being mindful that life may be randomly cut short and yet not perish in anxiety trying to stop that from happening?

Prayer

God of love, how you long for us to turn to you. You sent your Son to us, the truthteller, the one who cuts through all the falsities we build around our lives. He reminds us that we are like every one else. With our hearts tuned to you, we may live in peace even amidst the uncertainty. Thank you. Amen

Pop Theology

Read 1 Corinthians 10:1-13.


"God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13)


There have been a handful of occasions in my life when friends of mine have said to me in the midst of tragedy that God never gives us more than we can handle. (I don't think they knew they were quoting Paul.) I use to think that myself. There was something kind of reassuring about that sentiment. It implied I was strong enough to cope with whatever trial had beset me. But as I've grown into my Lutheran identity, all kinds of things seem wrong with that statement. First of all, does that mean that God is the root of all hardship in our lives? Second, what about the people who are overwhelmed and take their own lives? Does that mean that God tested them beyond their limits? Somehow I think not.


I know I'm arguing with Paul here, but I just can't swallow this idea. I had a professor in seminary who took umbrage with this bit of cultural theology. She told a few of us one day, "You know...we were born with more than we handle. Isn't that the point of baptism? The world is already too much to handle." Yes! I wanted to shout. That's it! (Maybe Paul would agree with me). The world is too much. I can't believe how people survive sometimes. And I don't even mean that in the have-you-watched-the-evening-news-today kind of way. As I get to know some of you here at church I am amazed at how much you carry.


For all those people quoting Paul in the midst of their trials, I want to say: read the second part of the verse. God always provides a way out. And the first way out, the ultimate and eternal way out, was the water poured on us in our spiritual births.

Reflection

• Paul sometimes is not the easiest to read. He can make a person nervous in his ethics. What makes you nervous or uncomfortable as you read this week's passage?
• What bits of cultural theology to you find yourself repeating? Does it comfort you? How does it fit with what you affirm in church each Sunday?

Prayer

God of our baptism, from our births you have seen to our safety and endurance. We give you thanks for receiving us and bearing us up in this life and the life to come. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen

Memories of Song

Read Psalm 63:1-8.

"Oh God, you are my God alone." (Psalm 63:1)

I found my home church back in the bay area by virtue of proximity. It just happened to be the closest Lutheran church to our house. One mile. To get almost anywhere, I would have to pass it. And yet, it took me a year and half to visit on a Sunday morning. After seminary, I needed a break from church. I had left the ordination process and needed to find my voice again. More than that, I needed to find God again, because somewhere along the lines in my work, God got lost. And church no longer felt holy. How's that for irony? So when my baby was about eight months old and could stand a few hours without me, I snuck into the back pew of my little neighborhood church. I haven't been the same since.

There are a few things I feel passionately about when it comes to church growth. They come from my story of renewing my church identity as an ex-patriot seminarian. One of them is that when I walk into a church to worship, I want to be standing next to people who know they are alive. I use to think I had to worship in a certain style or hear a certain kind of sermon in order to feel fed. I realized after being at that church for awhile that it wasn't any one thing. It was simply worshiping with people who truly felt that Christ was present in that moment. So I kept going back every Sunday until one day I once again found myself teaching classes, assisting with choir, and preaching when the pastor was out of town.

What does this have to do with Psalm 63? One of my favorite contemporary hymns is based on these words. It's a hymn we would sing quite a bit back home. Funnily enough, I didn't even realize it was based on this psalm until I opened up my Bible for this blog. As I read Psalm 63 again, I was reminded of the people that helped me declare again that God is my God alone. And I was thankful that Hope Lutheran, even in the midst of its transitions and concerns for the future, Hope Lutheran knows its alive.

Reflection

• What pieces of scripture hold memories for you?
• What are the most powerful rituals of the church for you: the reading of scripture, sacraments, singing? Or is it the friendships?

Prayer

Oh, God, my God, we come to you in deep thanksgiving for the gifts you have given us to express your love and ours: worship, companionship, the good news. Encourage us in our faithful practices. We ask these things in humility, and in the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen

The Word on our Ear

Read Isaiah 55:1-9.

"Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food." (Isaiah 55:2)

It appears that there is a relationship between listening to God and eating. This brief passage in Isaiah is overflowing with commands by the Lord to come and eat, feast on that which cannot be bought with money. Quench your thirst. It brings to mind the wilderness when Jesus beat back the devil by reminding him that we live by every word from the mouth of God. And it is true, human beings are filled with so much longing for the life beneath the common routines of our work, markets, and homes. Why do we labor for things that cannot satisfy us? It's a good question. Is it just the condition of being human that requires it? Is it a form of bondage to be locked into habits that only make us hungrier? The funny thing is, I'm not even sure most of us know just how hungry for God we are. Why? I don't know, but maybe it's because it's just plain hard to feel that kind of ache.

"Listen carefully to me," says God. Listening and hearing however, are not the same thing. Hearing is when our eardrum sets our inner ear to vibrate in delivering audible information to our brains. Listening however...ahhh...now that is another matter. Everyone one of us carries around memories of when we spoke and no one listened, or when we heard, but failed to listen. It takes practice. It means our ears must be unstopped. It means we have to withold ourselves and receive the fullness of that which comes to our ear. Sometimes it means we have to listen hard for what is not said, what is happening beneath the words. No easy task. Maybe the Lenten desert can help us with this. Maybe it will give us the silence we need. And in the silence if you should discover you are hungry, be at ease: for if you know you are hungry for the Word, this is a sign that your ear is well inclined.

Reflection

• Do you ever struggle with a sense that something is missing and you are not sure what?
• Do you ever tell God about this missing something?
• Just how are your listening skills?

Prayer

God who fills us with all good things, may our ears become mouths to feast on your Word. Open these ears of ours so that we may live. This we ask in your Holy Name, Amen