Luke 13:1-9 (NRSV)
At that very time there were some present who told him 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.’”
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"There is something apparently callous about this. We react to bad news as to a form of emotional blackmail, obliging us to “feel” for the victims, and be outraged by someone who doesn't appear to feel. But not Jesus. His attentin is entirely concentrated on his interlocutors. It is not the events themselves which concern him, but their reaction to the events, and what that reaction says about whose power they are in. We can imagine the excitement of those telling him, wanting a pronouncement of appropriately apocalyptic tenor: the Galileans were not sacrificing at Jerusalem, probably at Gerizim. Maybe this was their punishment from God. But they are disappointed. Jesus completely de-sacralizes the event, removing any link between God and what has happened. Any link between morality and what has happened.
"If we are caught up in thinking like that, then we too are likely to act in ways moved by the apocalyptic other, the god of blood and sacrifice and murder, of morality linked to worldly outcome, and we will perish like them. To ram home his point, he chooses an example where there was no obvious moral agency, no wicked Pilate, no sacrifices of dubious validity: the collapse of a tower — maybe an architectural flaw, maybe a small earth tremor, the shifting of an underground stream, who knows. Once again, Jesus completely de-sacralizes the incident. It has nothing to do with God. But if we are caught up in the world of giving sacred meanings, then we will be caught up in the world of reciprocal violence, of good and bad measured over against other people, and we will likewise perish. Once again I stress: Jesus will not be drawn into adding to meaning. He merely asks those who come to him themselves to move out of the world of sacred-seeming meaning. What does it mean for us to learn to look at the world through those eyes?"
- James Alison, On Being Liked, pp. 8-9, (from chapter titled “Contemplation in a World of Violence”, an essay written in response to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001)
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"It is very difficult for us to imagine the huge change of perception underway here, but it could be described as the change from a perception of a god in which the deity has a double face, saying “yes, but...” or “yes, and no”, or “yes, if...”, to the perception according to which God only and unconditionally says “yes”. Another way of putting it is as a change from a god who is both good and bad, who loves and who punishes, to a perception of God who is only love, in whom there is no darkness at all. Jesus had begun to teach this to his disciples, but it had been incomprehensible to them until after the resurrection.
"Consider Jesus' teaching that God makes the sun to shine on good and bad alike, and causes the rain to fall on both the just and the unjust. This has the effect of removing God completely from the sphere of reference of our human morality, excluding him from any participation in judging and condemning humans. The same thing happens in the parables: we are not to separate the wheat from the tares (Mt 13:24-30) in this life, because we cannot judge adequately, and God's judgement has nothing to do with our own. The same with the parable of the fish caught in the net (Mt 13:47-50). Exactly the same point occurs in Luke 13:1-5: there is no link between any type of physical happening, or accidental death, and God's action, but those who think that there is are trapped in an understanding of God which is meshed in by death, and they had better repent or they too will perish."
- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 42-43
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"Jesus is the gardener: “Give it one more year.” He says this on the way to Jerusalem to die. The Lukan Jesus knows exactly why he's going. “Give me one more year and let me work the soil a bit and put some manure down.” [...] Jesus understands that the revelation can't happen this side of the cross, and so he begins to prepare his followers for the metanoia [repentance, a change of heart and mind] that will happen afterwards. “I’m just going to be working the soil right now so that next year...” — which is just another way of saying that a little while later it will bear fruit. The “it” that will bear fruit is the cross.
"We often think of Jesus as a teacher. But he's not primarily a teacher. He taught, but he's more than that. He's a revealer, the icon of the living God. He's working the soil so that metanoia can happen. Metanoia doesn't happen [only] because of teaching."
- from notes by Paul Nuechterlein on tape #8 of the “The Gospel of Luke” tape lecture series by Gil Bailie (posted on the Girardian Lectionary page for this Sunday, link below)
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"So Jesus is talking here both about the gardener actually correcting the rather angry and wanting-to-speed-things-up landowner [as Levitic law proscribed waiting 4 years for the first bearing of fruit]. If you like, the voice of God here wanting mercy is not the owner but the worker. But [Jesus is] also saying, ‘listen, in the next year I'm going to be digging around it [the tree, representing Israel] and putting some manure in it’ - what a way to refer to his own forthcoming death and resurrection - ‘if it bears fruit next year’ - in other words, after all that's done - ‘well and good, but if not, cut it down’. In other words, he's saying the day of vengeance is not going to be a day of vengeance, it's postponed, it's going to be a day of potential mercy. Only after the potential mercy has started to come, to burst forth, let's see whether it is still standing or not, if it isn't, cut it down.
"So Jesus is clearly both talking about what's going to happen immediately to him, and he's prophesying the response of his own people, the people of Israel, to the arrival of the day of vengeance, the day of mercy. Will it be that of learning what has happened and bearing fruit, or would it be a closing ranks in the old system and thus getting to be destroyed?
"I hope you can see that this is quite strong stuff in the midst of a genuinely violent world, and that [Jesus is] answering on the spot for people who have, if you like, quite a strong religious judgmental mentality. These things are not unknown to us. It's interesting for us to see how mercy breaks forth in the midst of our violence and our refusal to bear the fruit of the kingdom."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for the Third Sunday in Lent 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5qhkbzSvEQ)
[Source of James Alison book quotations, and for further discussion and reflection on the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/lent3c/]