Some people arrived and told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices. At this he said to them, “Do you suppose these Galileans who suffered like that were greater sinners than any other Galileans? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen on whom the tower at Siloam fell and killed them? Do you suppose that they were more guilty than all the other people living in Jerusalem? They were not, I tell you. No; but unless you repent you will all perish as they did.”
He [then] told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it but found none. He said to the man who looked after the vineyard, ‘Look here, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be taking up the ground?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it: it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”(Luke 13: 1-9)
Repent or perish! I cannot deny that Jesus sounds like a hardcore evangelical here. For some of us just hearing the words: “Repent or perish” sends shivers down our spines. So many of us have come from church backgrounds where shame and fear were the primary tools used to keep a faith community together. Still today, the fear of hell is what primarily motivates some Christians to go to church and read their Bibles and pay their tithes. Not that there’s anything wrong with tithing for charity. In fact, if there’s anyone out there who would like to give 10% percent of their income to the Order of St. John Paul II, you are more than welcome to do so! Please don’t all of you get up at once to write a check! But is this what Jesus is doing here, using fear to keep people in line? Is Jesus telling people to dot all their ‘I’s and cross all their ‘T’s in order to avoid eternal damnation? Does this sound like the Jesus you know?
I don’t believe this is what Jesus is doing. Instead, in the face of tragedy, which can sadly become commonplace, Jesus provides comfort and a sobering call for all of us to examine our own lives. Some horrible things have happened. Pilate, whose cruelty has been historically documented, has killed a bunch of people again, and 18 people have died senselessly when a tower collapsed on them. Jesus absolves them of any extra guilt. They were not especially sinful. They were like you and me. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Jesus does use this opportunity to call us all to repentance.
Repentance is not a dirty word. It is more than just remorse or sorrow or a change of mind. It’s a change of heart. Repentance isn’t setting off in a particular direction and slowing down and hitting the brakes from time to time. Repentance is stopping the car, making a u-turn, and driving in the opposite direction. It’s an invitation to turn away from the sin that causes life to shrink and to turn towards that which causes life to bloom. Repent or perish isn’t a threat. It’s an invitation. We either turn away from what causes death in our lives or we are already perishing.
If our lives are controlled by our urges, appetites, and desires, we are already perishing. Our addictions to things like sex, pornography, food, alcohol, or pleasing others only bring about death: death to our integrity and death in our relationships with God and one another. We must turn away from these things in order to live. If our lives are governed by our own selfish ambitions and we become blind to the needs of others, we are already perishing. If we cannot control our anger and lash out whenever we are provoked, we are not living; we are perishing. If we cannot make peace with the pains of our past but keep rehearsing them in our minds over and over again, we are not living; we are perishing.
Repentance is not a prison sentence. It is the hand that liberates us from the bondage we have inflicted upon ourselves and our world. Metanoia, a change of heart, a radical change in direction, is God’s strategy for a world in which so many of us want a full abundant life, but so often settle for so much less. Metanoia, repentance, transformation, one person at a time, this is God’s strategy.
And the call to repentance isn’t crouched in a threat, but in mercy. The owner who plants the fig tree is exasperated when, after 3 years, the tree has yet to produce any fruit and orders it to be cut down. I can relate to the owner. I used to have two fig trees in my own garden! And I do not handle disappointment well. I’m working on it, but when I am disappointed by others my response tends to be swift and sharp. The gardener, however, says to give it more time and I hear the voice of Jesus in the gardener. It’s so easy to give up on others, and ourselves, but Jesus says, “Wait. Hold on. Give me more time. I’m still working on this one. I’ve got more caring and tending and nurturing to do. I just know I can make life bloom and flourish here.”
God’s call to repentance is under-girded by God’s grace, mercy, unfailing love, deep compassion, and God’s relentless desire to see us live a full abundant life, and that can only happen as we repent, as we continually turn away from the things that ensnare us and causes life to shrink back. Let us use this Lenten season to examine ourselves in the sight of God and experience the liberating presence of repentance and the new life it brings.
May God Bless You and Grant You His Peace!