"Second Chances"

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Third Sunday of Lent ~ March 7th, 2010 Isaiah 55:1-9; 1Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9 “Second Chances”

Would you go into a job interview prepared to say, "I have to tell you. I have a habit of missing work, of criticizing my supervisors and others, and I enjoy listening to office gossip?" How about a date and confesses to the other person, "Listen. I have to tell you I tend to be difficult to live with and I can be a real bore at times"?However imperfect we may be, we've learned from life around us that it's better not to parade our imperfections out in public. As one little girl said to her classmate, who had to sit in the corner, "To err is human, but to admit it is just plain stupid!"How ironic it is then, that Jesus would tell us to repent. Instead of offering a word of support and understanding for our all-too-human tendency to cover up our wrongdoings, Jesus tells us to disclose the evil within us, to admit that we have failed. The apostle John tells us the same thing very clearly when he writes, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us."Whoever we are, whatever we do, we all share one thing in common - we are sinful. Saint Augustine once wrote, "Whatever we are, we are not what we ought to be." Mark Twain, with his characteristic sense of humor, tells us how he understands that when he wrote, "Man was made at the end of the week, when God was tired."Repent, Jesus says, for that's the first step in the Christian life. Confess your sins before God and receive God's forgiveness. In that sense, confession is good for the soul, true confession, not the kind of glib admission that says, "Sure I've sinned. Who hasn't?" That’s NOT confession! True confession begins with a heartfelt remorse, a feeling of failure to live up to God's love and a desire to reform – to be changed. The Beatitudes – remember those … "Blessed are those who mourn," Jesus said, and part of what he was speaking about is those who feel the pain of a guilty conscience and grieve in the awareness that we have failed to live up to the expectations of God and those around us.Confession is good for the soul -- yes, we know that -- but heartfelt remorse? Most of us are willing to confess our sins as long as we don't have to change. We are willing to admit to a blemish or two on our moral complexion but nothing that can not be cosmetically covered up with a coating of good manners. None of us wants to admit that our sinfulness may require reconstructive surgery! After all, we like to think that God is happy with us the way we are and really only wants to make us happy with ourselves. ***When we compare ourselves to Jesus, in light of his life, our lives look awful! Sure, terrible wrongdoing, grisly crimes, sins of passion and violence may not be part of our personal history -- but what about our neglect of the poor, our passive acceptance of injustice toward others, our silence in the face of hurtful gossip, our failure to reverence God as we ought? When we look at our lives in the light of Jesus' love, even our best, our righteousness is, as the Scriptures tell us, like "filthy rags."Confession is good for the soul, we know that. It is the first step in beginning to live the Christian life, and the recognition that without God we are incomplete. Sin is not a matter of taste. It is sampling the forbidden fruit. Sin is taking poison into our lives, and the only antidote for sin is repentance. We need to repent of our sinfulness, receive God's forgiveness, and produce the fruit that God desires. We need the spiritual strength and renewal that confession can give us. ***Remember, Jesus is not demanding anything that we cannot produce. He doesn't ask the fig tree to produce bananas. He doesn't expect the fig tree to grow tall as an oak or be fragrant as a cedar. He is only asking it to be what it is, to do what it ought: produce figs. You and I have differing gifts. Some have wonderful singing voices. Others are plumbers. Some are gifted cooks and bakers, others are crafty, others are good with numbers, and others still are good with people. Each of us has our own unique gifts. The miracle that happens through repentance and forgiveness, those gifts are released for the good of God and others around us.When we acknowledge our sinfulness and receive God's forgiveness, God releases us from the power of sin. And only when we are free from sin do we have the possibility to become who God has created us to be -- children of God, young and old, each able to produce the fruits of faith. *** Jesus' short parable about a fig tree speaks of imminent judgment. A cultivated yet unproductive tree may continue to live even without bearing fruit, only because it has been granted additional time to do what it is supposed to do. Unless it begins to bear fruit - an image of repentance, according to Luke 3:8, the result will be its just and swift destruction.Like Jesus' earlier words in response to the recent tragedies, the parable warns against false reassurance. Just because you have not been cut down, do not presume that you are bearing fruit.The tone of the parable emphasizes that patience and mercy temporarily keep judgment at bay. The role of the gardener offers a crucial characterization of this patience and mercy. The tree has not been left to its own devices. Everything possible is being done to get it to act as it should. Correspondingly, God does not leave people to their own resources. NO – God encourages their repentance!Allegorical interpretations of this parable are unnecessary. Identifying the vineyard owner as God, the gardener as Jesus, and the tree as whoever it is we wish would hurry up and repent—this strips the parable of its force and produces theological confusion. Nowhere else does Luke imply that Jesus pacifies a God who is too eager to clean house.Instead, the parable's power comes through the suspense it generates. *** Will fruit emerge in time to thwart the ax? How will this season of second chances play itself out? How do the gardener's efforts make the tree's existence a state of grace and opportunity?Repent!Repentance becomes less interesting when people mistake it to mean moral uprightness, expressions of regret, or a "180-degree turnaround." Instead, here and many other places in the Bible, it refers to a changed mind, to a new way of seeing things, and to being persuaded to adopt a different perspective. "Repent," Jesus says. "Acknowledge your sinfulness." That's the first step in beginning to live the Christian life. None of us is without fault. And yet how difficult it is for us to admit that. We know better than to openly admit our wrongs. If we want to get ahead in this world and be accepted by others, it's generally better to conceal our shortcomings and put on a good front for others.*** Jesus' words about judgment and repentance are scary, yet they depict human life as a gift, albeit a fragile one. Tragedy and hardship have their ways of nudging people toward God, but these verses suggest that tragedy and hardship come so suddenly that they often mark the end, not the beginning, of our opportunities to live lives inclined toward God. Jesus’ call for our need for repentance is one of urgency. The vulnerable creatures that we are, we can presume little and do little to preserve ourselves. The Christian outlook on repentance points toward something greater and deeper as a result – that is JOY. This JOY finds grace experienced within the unusual insecurity yet strange beauty of our fleeting existence. *** Fritz Kreisler, the great violinist, expresses it this way. He says, "I have not the slightest consciousness of what my fingers are doing when I play. I concentrate on the ideal of the music that I hear in my head and I try to come as near to that as I can. I don't think of the mechanics at all. You might say that a musician who has to think of the mechanics is not ready for public performance yet."That's what Saint Paul is trying to tell us. The violinist's fingers may still make a mistake now and then, just as we may still make mistakes as we live out our lives. But when our hearts and minds are tied to the Spirit of Christ, when we have been released from sin by repentance and forgiveness, when we hold steady the example of Jesus in our lives, our hearts and minds will move the melody of God's love. The key, however, begins with repentance and confession. For there we receive the release we need, there we are filled with the power of forgiveness. Amen. Next week, we will explore the, "Yes, but how?" (Part of this sermon is taken directly from the book: Taking The Risk Out Of Dying, Lee Griess, CSS Publishing Company, 1997, 0-7880-1030-1 ################################## If the vineyard's owner has the right as owner to expect fruit from the tree, and there is none for 9 years, (3 for initial growth of the tree, 3 for maturing and then 3 years without fruit), then it is only by the vine-dressers intervention that the tree is not cut down. Correct? It is the vine-dresser/gardener that must save the fig tree (Israel/pharisee or you/me) from the axe, the tree can not change itself and produce fruit. The tree needs saving. The vine-dresser is the savior. Correct? The gardener is the one who pleads with the owner for another year, another chance. Given the tree's history, it's only hope is the savior's ability to break the hardened soil around the tree, and put it (the tree)into manure. It is the self-sacrificing tender care and love of the vine-dresser that makes a way for the fig tree's continued life. Correct?So it seems to me that this is more about Jesus, the gardener, who wants us to live, that is the real story. Jesus knows my history, knows all the reasons why i deserve to perish - who knows every fear I confess and every truth about myself I reject - it is Jesus the tender of my soil/soul that wants me to live! That is a kind of love - (the only love really) that can get me to change my ways and repent. It is only in surrendering to the vine-dresser's love that allows me not to perish. Let to my own devices (my own nature) I will not and cannot change and become fruitful --no matter how many times the Owner threatens me with death! Just as no tree can breakup the rock-hard soil that prevents it's growth, I can not break (open) my own heart. It takes a Savior willing to step in front of the felling axe-blade swinging axe for my sake/sins that motivates change; Grace not Law. Correct? *** ******************** (((((((((((((((((((((( A man borrowed a book from an acquaintance. As he read through it, he was intrigued to find parts of the book underlined with the letters YBH written in the margin. When he returned the book to the owner, he asked what the YBH meant. The owner replied that the underlined paragraphs were sections of the book that he basically agreed with. They gave him hints on how to improve himself and pointed out truths that he wished to incorporate into his life. However, the letters YBH stood for "Yes, but how?"Those three letters could writ on the margins of ours souls: "I ought to know how to take better care of myself, but how?" "I know I ought to spend more time in scripture reading and prayer, but how?" "I know I ought to be more sensitive to others, more loving of my spouse, more understanding of the weaknesses of others, but how?" These are all good qualities and we know that, but how can we acquire them? As Christian people we know the kind of life we ought to live, and most of us have the best of intentions to do so, but how? We are afraid because we know where the road paved with only good intentions leads!This morning we hear Jesus' parable of the fig tree, telling us to repent and bear good fruit. We know what the Christian life requires of us and yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we also know how far short we fall. So the question that confronts us this morning is: "Yes, but how?"It's a dilemma that has confronted God's people throughout the ages. Even Saint Paul found himself trapped. In Romans 7 Paul writes: It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God's will so far as my new (redeemed Christian) nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind, I want to be God's willing servant, but instead I find myself enslaved to sin. So you see how it is; my new life (the redeemed life in Christ) tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me (my sinful human self) loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I'm in! Who will free me from this slavery to sin? Thank God! It has already been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free! %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Remember Saint Paul's words: "What a terrible predicament I am in! Who will free me from this slavery to sin? Thank God! It has already been done by Jesus Christ my Lord. He has set me free."That's the key to our dilemma, the answer to our question, "Yes, but how?" How do we live the life of faith we are called to live as followers of Christ? How can we do what we ought to do? The key to living the life "worthy of our calling" as children of God is to remember that God has already set us free! In Christ Jesus I am free! I am free to be who God has made me to be. It is up to me to get on with it. I only need allow Christ to live in me and take control of my life.Sometimes we think that when we give up control of our lives to Christ, we are no longer responsible for them. But just the opposite is true. When we turn our lives over to God, allow Christ to direct us, then we become truly responsible for ourselves.Jesus' parable of the fig tree calls us to take responsibility for ourselves, for God gives us the key. Repent, Jesus says. Confess your sins and allow the power of God to live within you. Allow God to enable us to live as we ought. Let Jesus take possession of us and live in him.