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Today’s Scripture reading from Luke is to me one of the most interesting of all the parables of Jesus. It is actually a backwards parable, because Jesus starts with the explanation first, and then tells the parable at the end. For our purposes today, though, we’re going to start with the parable of the barren fig tree. It goes like this:

A certain guy has a fig tree planted in the middle of his vineyard. Being a lover of figs, this man goes out to the tree every day to see if there’s any fruit. But there never is. A year goes by. No fruit. Two years. Still no fruit. Three years pass. Not a fig to be found. Then, in disgust, he says to his gardener, “Cut that tree down, so I can plant something else. It’s just taking up valuable space.”

But the gardener replies, “Sir, give it a little time, and let me throw some manure on it. Maybe it will give fruit next year.”

And that’s it! That’s the parable! The whole shebang! And I love it not only because it’s interesting in terms of its being a backwards parable, but also because it has a kind of funny but very redemptive and powerful message.

You see, the barren fig tree represents people – you and me – the world – in all of our fruitless humanity. In our sin. And our selfishness. And our weakness. And our propensity for hurting each other, and letting each other down. And our seeming inability to be what God needs and wants us to be. The fig tree is us – humanity with even its most unproductive citizens. You and I are the barren fig tree.

And some would like to just go ahead and chop us down. The vineyard owner – who wants to clear us out of the way because we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do, is – well, I like to think he’s like that televangelist you see on TV who rants and raves about all us barren fig trees who fall short of the glory of God. And there’s almost a sense of delight in his eyes as he tells us that God is going to pull us up like so much chaff, and throw us into the lake that burns with fire. He sneers as he quotes scripture and cites real-life illustrations about how God has already chopped others down, and that God is going to chop us down, too, because we are such spiritual zeroes. Do you know who I’m talking about? The vineyard owner is the personification of those who are enthralled with the idea of God’s judgment being inflicted upon fallen people. They’re willing to simply discard those who don’t measure up. “Cut that tree down!”

Then comes the third character in this little story – the gardener.

The gardener is God in all God’s graciousness! As the world looks at you and me, and all who are sinners, calling for judgment to come down on us so that the world will be a better place, God the gardener comes along and says, “Wait! I think I know what we can do to make these people the kind of people I created them to be.” And then God shares his bright new idea:

Are you ready for it?

“Let’s give them some time, and a little more manure!”

Now, you’ve got to love a God who thinks this way, don’t you? I know that there are many here in the sanctuary today who are well-aware they are not all they should be. As spouses. As parents. As children. As neighbors. As Christians. And perhaps you’ve been told that God’s attitude toward you is one of burning anger, ready to uproot you and throw you away. This message of God’s impending judgment is one of the most pervasive and popular messages coming from pulpits today. And it’s wrong. It’s wrong because Jesus shows us this is not God’s attitude toward humanity, no matter how ugly we may be. What is God’s attitude toward us, fallen people that we are?

“Let’s give them some time, and a little more manure. Maybe they’ll come around!”

And I know that even among us sinners there are some here today who are quick to judge others. Some of the people in our lives don’t live up to our standards, let alone to God’s. Some of them are our own family members. Our own neighbors. Some of them are people who are clearly going down the wrong road. And there is something in our hearts that makes us want to write these people off and have nothing to do with them. But wait! God says there’s a better way to deal with this kind of person in our life.

“Let’s give them some time, and a little more manure. Maybe they’ll come around!”

Now, let me ask you to hold this thought so that we can explore the first part of the passage in Luke 13.

You know, when I get up in the morning, I like to start the day with reading the newspaper over breakfast. I don’t know your order for reading the News-Sentinel, but mine is to catch up on the most important news first – so I open to the Sports page and check out what’s new with the Lady Vols basketball team. Then I read “Dear Abby”. Then the editorial cartoon. Then I take a look at the stock market to see if you all are going to have enough money to pay me this week. I know. Things look bad. I’ve already applied for food stamps.

And then I reluctantly hit the front page of the paper. And it’s always so depressing! Maybe that’s why I save it for last.

An earthquake destroys a village. A famous actor dies. A family loses a mother to cancer. A kid takes a gun to school, and children are senselessly mowed down.

Oh, it’s not easy reading the front page of the newspaper. It has a little bit of all the many ways human beings fall and fail and experience tragedy. If you’re at all like me, you find yourself recoiling from all the pain and all the shame. Sometimes we wonder why God allows such things to happen. And we begin to develop ideas about the judgment of God.

That’s what’s going on at the beginning of today’s Scripture lesson from Luke 13. I like to imagine Jesus and the disciples reading the newspaper as they sit around the free continental breakfast at the Day’s Inn just outside Jerusalem. I picture one of the disciples sort of choking on his raspberry Danish as he reads aloud the lead story on the front page of his complimentary copy of USA Today. The day before, a group of pilgrims from Galilee came up to offer sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate, the governor, evidently perceived them as some kind of threat to his regime. Pilate ordered some of his elite troops to ambush these Galilean pilgrims right there in the Temple, in the middle of the worship service. Just as they were offering their sacrifices, they were slain in cold-blooded murder, and the blood from their bodies trickled into the sacrifice pit where it mixed with the blood of the animals they themselves had sacrificed. “My God!” exclaims the disciple, “what did these people ever do to deserve a fate like that?”

And while several disciples nod their heads in painful agreement – that people should get what they deserve, and these poor folks surely did not deserve that – another of their number speaks up. “Well, they must have done SOMETHING wrong! Why else would the judgment of God fall upon them like it did? Does not the Torah teach that, if you trust in the Lord and obey his commands, no evil shall befall you? They must have done something wrong!”

Then another disciple pipes up, “I don’t know. Sometimes I just think God is so unfair – punishing the righteous while evildoers go free. Sometimes it seems like bad people actually get rewarded for their evil. God is such a fearful God! Don’t you remember the story in yesterday’s paper about those workers building that great tower over in Siloam? Something let go, and the tower collapsed on them. Eighteen people were killed. Eighteen! Surely not all of them were unrighteous. I’m telling you, you’ve got to watch out for God. Who can understand his ways?”

And here, on the front page of life – with all its unthinkable tragedies and syndicated stories about life gone berserk – we disciples of Jesus form our ideas about people, about God, and about judgment.

We get caught up with incredibly important questions: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” “Why do good things happen to bad people?” “How can a loving God allow evil to do what it does?”

And some of us try to answer these questions by blaming people for the evil things that befall them. For instance, some said that AIDS is God’s punishment against homosexuals. Some of us wonder what moral failure of the past caused us to get cancer now in the present. I’ve known parents who’ve blamed themselves for the misdoings of their kids. And kids who’ve blamed themselves for their parents’ divorce. There’s something deep within us that relates tragic experiences to humanity’s inability to be fruitful fig trees.

Others try to shift the blame from people to God. Are there any of us whose faith has not been shaken when we’ve lost a loved one, or had to endure a terrible tragedy? Sometimes we shake our fist at God as though he personally directed the death of our child, or was the mastermind behind a schoolyard massacre. You know, among all the people I’ve met over the years who survived the horror of the holocaust, only a handful of those I got to know retained a relationship with God. Some refused to believe in God anymore. Others believed in God’s existence, but were so angry they could never approach God again. How can you place your trust in someone you believe has hurt you and let you down in such a terrible way?

Now, Luke tells us that Jesus hears all this conversation going on around him. Jesus knows we have questions like these. And Jesus is quick to respond to the front page news of that day long ago. He asks, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered as they did they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? I tell you, no. And do you think that those killed by the tower were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? Again, I tell you, no.”

And with these words, Jesus invites us to take a new look at the nature of life’s uncertainties.

If the sins and flaws of people were to blame for all the awful things that happen to them, then wouldn’t it make sense that these things happen to all people who share the same sins and flaws? But they don’t. And if God is a God inflicting payback on people for their sins, then wouldn’t it make sense that God would mete out similar punishment to all who sin? But God doesn’t.

So do you see what Jesus is trying to get across? Hardship, and difficulty, and tragedy do not come to us because God is plucking our tree! They come because life is tenuous and frail, not because God is executing God’s judgment.

And then Jesus tells us this parable about the barren fig tree.

We humans are the fruitless tree. Judgment is the owner that wants to chop us down. But our God, the gracious gardener, intervenes.

“Let’s give them some time, and a little more manure. Maybe they’ll come around!”

Now, the last thing we have to do with this parable is to figure out what this means – to have been given time, and a little manure. I think Jesus gives us a clue in his discussion about the two tragedies of that day’s newspaper. Those Galileans were not worse sinners than other Galileans. Those tower builders were not worse offenders than others in Jerusalem. And then Jesus says, “But unless YOU repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

You see, God has decided to give us time to change. And God has given us the growth-producing raw materials that we need to become fruitful people. Jesus calls this fertilizer, repentance.

In its simplest form, to repent means to turn around, to reverse direction. In life, it looks like this:

My dear friend Robert was a rough and tumble sort of guy, not a very good husband or father, all caught up in himself. The rumor was that Robert was part of the organized crime scene in a neighboring city. When his wife insisted he come to church with her, I began getting anonymous phone calls from people warning me about the fact that a member of the mob was attending our services. That was pretty unnerving. But what better place for a member of the mob to be?

Robert sort of hung out on the edges of church, never really a part of the spiritual life. He had values that were a lot different than Christ’s values. He lived a life that was a long way from anything you could call Christian.

Then one holiday weekend, Robert suffered a terrible seizure. He was rushed to a hospital where a brain tumor was diagnosed. The doctors said he had maybe thirty days to live. When I saw him there in the hospital, he was such a sad, broken man. I commiserated with Robert for a while about the tragedy that had befallen him. But toward the end of our conversation, he took my hand, squeezed it, and said, “At least I have some TIME.”

And Robert used the time wisely. He took a moral inventory of his life. Finding it lacking, Robert started turning things around. He made amends to people he had wronged. He repaired relationships. He became a true husband. And a good father. He joined the church. He helped his wife teach children in Sunday School. Robert sometimes called me on the phone when I was feeling down, and he would encourage me. He became to me and to others a most valued friend – always ready to listen, always with a good word to say. His faith in God grew every day, even while his body grew weaker.

Miraculously, Robert outlived the thirty-day prognosis.

Somehow, he lived another TEN YEARS!

Imagine that?

God gave Robert some time, and a little manure – the fertilizing gift of repentance.

And we saw a miracle.

I guess you could say Robert produced – figs!

So as you prepare to go and live life this week, what will you do with the time God has given you? I hope you’ll use it wisely. I hope you’ll “manure-ize” it by examining what your life looks like in relationship to God’s will. And then making the changes you need to make.

And when you encounter other travelers along life’s road – most especially those you would be inclined to give up on and chop down like a barren fig tree – would you do God a favor?

Give them some time.

And a little more manure.

Maybe – just maybe – they’ll bear fruit.

Like my friend Robert.