The Sweetness of Figs
Victor Frankl, from A Man’s Searchfor Meaning
In Liturgy for Life p173, Donald HiltonEd.
Luke 13:1-9
Who would have thought that in March 2025 an incident reported (whether fact or fiction) by a writer in the late 1st C or early 2nd C could still have relevance.
Yet here we are, with a story told by Luke in a time of turmoil and leadership disruption, in a time when Rome was rebuilding its power base and subjugating the Jewish people once again in the process. In the story he tells, Jesus engages directly with a worrisome current affairs issue that was deeply troubling to the people he, Jesus, was engaged with.
I don’t know about you, but I am very troubled by much of the current affair’s items presented on the news each night, I find myself feeling afraid for the world’s future and helpless to do anything to make the necessary change in attitude and thereby direction happen.
Back then, so Luke’s story goes, the crowd around Jesus were feeling frightened and helpless. Friends and neighbours - Galileans who could have been from Jesus own home village - were being killed by Pilate and the brutal Roman regime that was in control along with the religious leaders.
We don’t know if the story refers to an incident that actually happened or not, but we do know that Pilate was an appointee of the Roman Empire and had a track record for being bloodthirsty and violent. There is a lot of violence in our world today. It is scary and depressing to see played out before us. Many people have a sense of hopelessness in the face of the senseless destruction and death we see daily on our various media connections
In today’s Bible story (we have a story within a story) we are told that Pilate mixes the blood of the Galileans with the blood of their sacrifices showing a total disregard for the ritual practices of the Jews - a violation of Galilean rituals - a dehumanising disrespect of a people. No wonder they were horrified and afraid and trying to separate themselves from it. Luke’s contemporary audience would have easily identified with the picture as this was their experience too. .
Luke’s gospel can be regarded as a powerful countercultural challenge – he offers an alternative, turning back to the vision of humanity seen and heard in Jesus.
It seems strange, but as Luke tells it, Jesus doesn’t engage with the fear of the crowd. Rather he goes straight in on the offensive and challenges the troubled hearers with the question “Do you think your sins are any less grave than those who were killed?” Straight up he is confronting a ‘blame the victim’ attitude that perhaps he was experiencing amongst the crowd. Most of us could own to having confronted this ‘blame the victim’ attitude at some time, either in ourselves or in others. He reminds them “this could just have easily been you” The finger-pointers themselves could have been killed by Pilate while they were at the temple or standing under the tower that fell killing 18.
In our world today we can look, from our places of relative ease, to the places in our world where war is being waged on innocent people, and feel glad it is not here in Aotearoa New Zealand; we look across our globe at places of drought and famine, flood and desolation and feel glad it is not us who are suffering. Closer to home we hear stories of homelessness and hunger and can feel a bit smug that we’ve managed to do better.
But it so easily could be us in all these situations, why should we feel immune to disaster; feel self-satisfied that we live so far away from the trouble spots; or smug that we are doing ok here at home?
In a world that is fraught with geopolitical angst, power hungry leaders, and short-term political thinkers all trying to outdo other political leaders, we are not immune. It would not take much for our beautiful island home to be ravaged by a string of climate crises, or for our economic environment to be upended by decisions in the big financial centres of other countries, or by global industrial giants, or by wealthy offshore investors. We need leaders with a vision that includes the wellbeing of the earth, and the wellbeing of all earth’s creatures – human and others!
“All too hard to do anything about” we might think, we’re too small, and anyway
I’m too old,
I’m tired, I’m powerless.
And all this is true. But we are not let off the hook!
There is the fig tree!
It would seem even God is a frustrated with the nonproductive fig tree that has been taking up space in the vineyard for three years! Even God has been pushed to the limit of tolerance!
Here we need to recall that Luke’s metaphors and parables speak collectively. He does not address individuals as singular persons but rather as representatives of groups.
So, we might ask who is it who has been unproductive in the last period of time, who (or which group) needs to be rooted out and replaced? Later in this Gospel (Lk20:19) it is clear the religious leaders understood they were being referred to when vines are spoken of. Those who listened would have known he was speaking of the power-hungry leadership. Luke’s audience would have known non-fruiting fig trees and vines need to be uprooted, they would have made the link about the appalling leadership that was fragmenting the community and destroying very idea of mutual care. A leadership that was not producing life giving hope and security, to the people, that was not protecting the vision of a lifegiving future, needed rooting out. They would have heard the implication that even the generous love of God was stretched to the limit.
Luke is using the stories and parables in circulation over the past 50 or so years to drive home criticism of the leadership that was active in the late 1st C and early 2nd C.
And, rather than simply leaving the problem ‘over there’ as it were, he challenges the emerging Christian community to remember who they are and do something about it.
The message being driven home in Luke’s narrative, by Jesus, to his self-righteous hearers is that they need to ‘repent’: to turn to the ‘home’ that is found in the stories of faith we read in our gospels and see in the example of Jesus, to remember what they have been shown. They need to take up their responsibilities to ensure the wellbeing of everyone in their community; they need to secure and safeguard the common good.
Luke’s crowd themselves are not exempt from the expectations of ‘righteous’ living. We can wonder if perhaps they were laying blame onto ‘others’ for the predicament of the marginalised and poor among them, both Jews and Gentiles. Perhaps they were doing what we so readily do and turning their gaze toward others who they judged wanting, or they could blame for the situation. Or perhaps they were not making sure to include in their duty of care all those who were struggling and suffering the harshness of imperial Rome. They are told “If they don’t ‘repent’- reconfigure their perspective and turn toward God again - then they too will die; everyone would: a massive change of heart was required.
As in Jesus’s story, this crowd around Luke were being challenged to think about the good of all, the common good, not just about themselves and their own wellbeing.
The message is for each of us too:
you are not entitled to special privileges
You are not exempt from the instruction “love one another as I have loved you, and
your neighbour as yourself”
You are not excused from working for the well-being of the whole community…
You are not passive recipients of Jesus ministry, or the work an intervening God who
will sort out your mess
You do havethe responsibility to proclaim the counter-cultural alternative vision of
human community to the prevailing message
You are participants in your own liberation and the liberation of others
Remember, the indiscriminate love of that is poured out generously is poured out on you too so take heart and think carefully about the values you live by.
There is always the opportunity to ‘turn back toward home’, to repent and take up the gospel challenge to love: if we love one another justice and peace will follow.
So, take up the challenge to love in our time, is the right response to the Spirit of Life and Hope, to God, that surrounds us. With a little effort, will shape our lives so that our earth home and our global neighbours have the chance to live and love in their turn and enjoy ‘the sweetness of figs’.
