Sunday, March 31, 2019 - 9 AM

The Fig Tree – Luke 13:1-9 Bascomb UMC / March 31, 2019 / 9AM Focus: A God who sent us a gardener in Christ to help us grow and bless the space around us in the midst of our failed plans and the random troubles of this world. Function: Whether by blessings or by troubles – our witness to faith in God is powerful. 5 Purpose Outcomes of the Church: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Evangelism, Service Luke 13:1–9 (CEB) Demand for genuine change 1 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. 2 He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. 4 What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.” 6 Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ 8 The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. 9 Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’ ” A Time for Children: “Blessings and Curses” – life contains many things that are both fun or useful, but also dangerous. And sometimes, stuff just happens! The phrase I want you to repeat for me is “they must not be living right!” #1 - The car in front starts to swerve back and forth because the driver is taking selfies from behind the wheel — sure enough, the car plows into a mailbox - not a cheap mailbox, but a brick one. Behind the wheel is a teenage guy, the good Samaritans ask “are you OK? Can we call someone?” – “No, my parents are close behind.” They had just bought him his first car and they were on their way home from the dealer. “they must not be living right!” Well, not really – it WAS the boy’s fault. But here’s #2 - There are jobs that clear houses for a living. Someone without family would pass and this company is hired to go in and take everything out of the home. So, the call comes from a lawyer to clear an elderly lady’s place who had recently passed. They remove everything - from clothes to family heirlooms to furniture to the bed. Everything! And guess what? This poor lady had not passed but was returning home from hospital… and found nothing in her home." “they must not be living right!” #3 is the worst of all – This is Tsutomu Yamaguchi – this man experienced BOTH atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan. He was preparing to leave Hiroshima after a three-month-long business trip for Mitsubishi when the 1st atomic bomb fell. The 29-year-old naval engineer saw an American B-29 bomber soar over the city and drop a small object connected to a parachute. The sky erupted in a blaze of light like a huge magnesium flare. He had just enough time to dive into a ditch before the shock wave sucked him from the ground, spun him in the air like a tornado and sent him hurtling into a nearby potato patch. He’d been less than two miles from ground zero. In the aftermath, he heard there was a train station still operating and on August 7 he boarded a train full of bewildered survivors and settled in for the overnight ride to his hometown of ……..Nagasaki. After having his burns attended to at home, he actually went to work on August 9. His boss did not believe that a single bomb could destroy an entire city and at that moment another flash occurred outside that office. As it turns out, the city’s hilly landscape and a reinforced stairwell had combined to muffle the blast inside the office. His bandages were blown off, but he survived. Unlike so many victims of radiation exposure, Yamaguchi slowly recovered and went on to live a relatively normal life. He served as a translator for the U.S. armed forces during their occupation of Japan, and later taught school before resuming his engineering career at Mitsubishi and lived to age 93. They say that around 165 people experienced both attacks – now would you say… “they must not be living right!” It's what you say about people who seem star-crossed to suffer. We know some bring disaster on themselves, but others are just victims of circumstance and Jesus is commenting on similar circumstances when he says (and not for the only time) these events have nothing to do with “divine pay-back,” as if God’s “getting them” for not living right. NO – it just is!! The text recalls two tragic events (we have no other historical record but this text): a vengeful act by Pontius Pilate against Galileans at worship in Jerusalem and the collapse of a tower near the pool of Siloam. The tragedies affected both Galileans and residents of Jerusalem. This is not God’s action, but one of human evil and the other is an accident or natural evil. The problems are universal. But this notion of “karma” or “you reap what you sow” has limits. Remember “My Name Is Earl?” (video clip). Not a bad idea to a point. But even Earl discovered that being good (or trying to, even if you do it poorly) has its limits. Bad things still happen to good people. But that notion is SO universal that many have seen any lack of success or personal loss as divine punishment or fate. In fact, some have argued against acts of charity toward such persons because such acts might interfere with God’s punishment on them! But instead, Jesus announced God’s favor on the poor, the maimed, the blind, the crippled. Jesus rejects attempts at balancing good and bad as useless and futile. Jesus directs the disciples to the primary issue: do they live in a close relationship with God their creator. Respect, yes – God made us and not we ourselves. Therefore, we are to live humbly and simply with trust before God. Trust is not linked to life’s sorrows or joys, successes or failures – we are all, right now, in the process of dying. Without repentance, our future is lost anyway. Living in God’s kingdom is not a game of gaining favors and avoiding losses. Now, can we hear the parable clearly and maybe understand the lesson Jesus is trying to teach us? Here it is……. “If not (meaning if there is no fruit), then you can cut it down….” is a sad comment on the fig tree. (video – The Fig Tree) Jesus tells a story of a fruitless fig tree once planted with promise, only to grow barren and brittle. The landowner in the parable has returned to its empty branches for three years. With patience worn thin and hope withered, he commands the gardener to cut it down, seeing it as a liability to the soil (have you ever heard the phrase “a waste of space?”). But where the landowner sees waste, the gardener perceives possibility that lies fallow. The gardener has learned from the land that life flows in cycles—budding, flourishing, pruning, death. And so, he requests one more year. Cutting the earth with a shovel, he loosens the clots that have settled like stone so that when water comes, the earth with receive it. He blankets the roots with manure so that growth can be steadied by hope. And then he lets go. What happens to the fig tree? Does it live? Does it die? Does it bear any fruit? We don’t know. And so, if we can’t read the end of this story, then we must write it with our own lives. Don’t we know what it feels like to be the fig tree, to be deemed worthless, to be weary enough to believe that we don’t deserve to be well? And perhaps we also know what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of the landowner—calculating worth based on what we produce, what we accomplish, what we provide. Jesus does not finish the story because each of us has, to a limited degree, the opportunity to write our stories. Can we cultivate the vision of the Great Gardener, the One who sees you for what you are becoming? The one who tends and prunes, nourishes and let’s go? Perhaps for us, the fruit is not the ending. The fruit is in the waiting, in the dead of winter, in the manure; the nurture, the rest, the darkness. The fruit is in all of it, sowing seeds we can’t yet see. God’s mercies are new every morning – each day is a fresh canvas on which we paint! As your pastor, I worry about being good enough – You know they say I need more baptisms, bigger budgets, and (God help me) bigger buildings to consider myself successful. Today’s text helps me see the LIE in that statement. This church needs people with a witness – to how God has seen them through trouble and suffering as well how God has given you blessings and wholeness of life. So, perhaps it is a good thing that I am appointed one year at a time. That way, I can say to the owner of this FIG TREE – one more year, Lord. I haven’t heard a peep out of the conference so far, and they announce in a few weeks, so I have hope that I will be allowed one more year. What do I do? Keeping on spreading that manure! So today, as Christ offers us these hard words about repentance and death, remember that he also became those very things on the cross. God takes on our limits and all the things that dog us—all the sin, death, rivalries, violence, prejudice, not to mention our bloated or elevated sense of self. God invites us to the other side of “repent or perish,” which is “forgiveness and life.” Because of Christ, we find that in letting go we are taken, by Christ’s victory, into this larger story of freedom in God’s kingdom. With Christ, there is a new game in town and the old rules do not apply. With Christ we are lifted and made new. Invitation to The Prayer of Confession - 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, 13 (CEB) Warning from the wilderness generation- 9AM version Response: Hungry (Falling on My Knees) Verse 1 – (solo) Hungry I come to You for I know You satisfy I am empty but I know Your love does not run dry So I wait for You So I wait for You Chorus I'm falling on my knees Offering all of me Jesus You're all this heart is living for Everybody: I'm falling on my knees Offering all of me Jesus You're all this heart is living for ONE: Brothers and sisters, I want you to be sure of the fact that our ancestors were all under the cloud and they all went through the sea. Another ONE: All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. Response: Hungry (Falling on My Knees) Verse 2 – (solo) Broken I run to You for Your arms are open wide I am weary but I know Your touch restores my life So I wait for You So I wait for You Everybody: I'm falling on my knees Offering all of me Jesus You're all this heart is living for ONE: No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Another ONE: Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it. Response: Hungry (Falling on My Knees) Everybody: I'm falling on my knees Offering all of me Jesus You're all this heart is living for I'm falling on my knees Offering all of me Jesus You're all this heart is living for Prayer of Confession This is the season of turning. We are called on this journey to turn our lives to the Lord, to turn away from all those things which have harmed us and others; to separate ourselves from actions and attitudes that demean and destroy. It is far too easy for us to sink into the mire of self-pity and self-serving attitudes, wondering why everything isn’t coming our way. We want comfort, contentment, no stress, no struggle. Yet our lives are filled with stress and discontent. We hurt, Lord. We hurt in our bodies and our souls. We hurt in our relationships with others. How we must try your patience! We don’t want to be like this - we want to feel the warmth of your love, the freedom of your spirit, the joy of serving you. Forgive us for our selfishness and stupidity. Heal us. For we ask these things in Jesus’ Name. AMEN. SILENT PRAYER Words of Assurance You are given another chance! God has heard your cries. Turn again to the Lord. Find comfort and strength in God’s eternal love for you. Be healed. We Come to God’s Table We are so grateful that God has welcomed us to this table, we celebrate this, and all the ways that God cares for us and shows us love. It is good to be reminded of God’s compassion and generosity, and it is good to respond with thanksgiving, with praise, and with generous living. Lord God, we are here because you have made it possible, You made us to be your children, in your image, you have always surrounded us with your presence, and in Christ you have shared all that makes us human. In bringing Jesus back from death, you have made full and everlasting life available to us, and you have given us hope in the promise of your coming kingdom. Today we are reminded that our lives are not about success or failure, sadness or celebrations. We have vowed to this community: ALL: our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, …and most of all, Lord, ALL: our witness to our faith in you …whether we know success or we experience suffering. We have done nothing to earn your great gifts, we cannot claim to be deserving, but in your mercy, you welcome us freely. Thank you. And so, we remember how God’s compassion was expressed through Jesus: As he shared his last meal with his friends before his death, he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and shared it among them with these words: ALL: This is my body, broken for you. Eat and remember me. After the meal, he took the cup of wine, blessed it, and shared it among them with these words: ALL: This is my blood, poured out for you. Drink and remember me. And so we eat and drink and remember; and we will keep doing this until Jesus returns in glory. Now, O God, may we who share this bread and wine, be nourished by the body and blood of Christ, be filled with your spirit, be transformed into one body, and be joined with you forever. LENTEN Communion The bread and wine are shared.