Luke 13:1-9
Lent 3 - Year C
It is extremely helpful to have a scapegoat. Along comes a hurricane, it must be the fault of those who were killed or injured — recompense in the world. Here is an earthquake, we were hurt and that isn’t right so it must be our favorite out-group to blame — they are even worse than we thought. A flood rises, it is a god’s right to do in everyone for the fault of a few (remember the bargaining over Sodom) — cynics arise, you are right that steadfast love is not what it appears and there will be no pie, by-and-by, but we will all be in a pickle.
Without a scapegoat, a blamee, we have to look more closely at a longer time of reference. When we do so a wider view leads to greater patience and clearer points of decision.
Anyone want to blame the gardener for all the ills of the current state of affairs? If only we had cracked down more quickly and directly, there wouldn’t be the specific disappointments confronting us?
Anyone want to blame the owner or mechanisms of the economy for whom immediate productivity takes precedence over any longer term benefit called common-good?
I am going to die — so... — what do I have to lose to show patience to another and to nurture others at each stage of their growth in wisdom as well as stature? And what do you have to lose? What does our culture have to lose to gain perspective?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/02/luke-131-9.html
NISB Note: "People who can interpret the present (12:56) ought to see in it a call to live lives characterized not by sterility but by fruitful productiveness (13:6-9)."
Key to every prophetic utterance is clarity about the present - what is now going on will have consequences. The "true" prophet is the one who best sees the present and thus is able to project the consequence.
With this clarity about the present comes the insight about what it is that really needs to change. This clarity is energizing in the moment and protective of future generations.
Are you at the generative stage of life? Look clearly at what is currently going on without being fooled by cultural cliches and make the changes, the repentance, needed that good fruit will be coming forth next year, in due season.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
If we crank the dying motif back we first hear about it in Eden when we are told the result of taking in the knowledge of good and evil will result in dying. No it won't, says the one from the chaos beneath the flat earth.
Well it does and it doesn't. It doesn't mean physical death but relational death. This play is so tricky for us as we think we are tracking down one path only to find the real issue was no where near as evident as we thought. No more walking in the cool of the evening to revel in simply being together. No more dealing with the real stuff of life but always having to force a meaning when such only gets in the way. No more seeing to productivity and commodification as the key key-to-life.
We find ourselves separated from creation, community, and commerce and needing to get beyond shame, blame, and fame. The art in this is saying "no" to first glimpses, immediate reactions, and waiting for the fullness of time.
One way of evaluating this is the response of the gardner - investment, mercy, hope - alongside accountability. This tension holds us in good stead in every situation I know about where there is disagreement. Keep holding one another and investing in a dialogue but have it move productively forward, stasis, like war, is not healthy for figs or other living things.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/march2004.html
Unless you pay attention in a different way than you have, you will perish as did those at a deliberate hand of violence or in another anonymous occasion of death.
Our usual process is to use comparisons. I'm better than they, so I deserve better. They are worse than I, so they deserve what they got. Or, we get lost in trying to parse a nuanced duality of good and evil out of a creative impulse and bump into irreconcilable differences.
Here repentance doesn't change the final outcome of death, but it does change the energy of it. To pay attention in a different direction is to focus on that which brings life and leave death to do its own thing. We don't try to justify one death as being different than another. We do, however, bring careful compassion to individuals and prophetic justice to unjust systems. In so doing we join G*D and Jesus in watering lives and changing the pH of contexts.
Just a note: often we associate G*D with the "man" in parables and, here, the gardener with Jesus. Given the beginning of this section, "the man" might better be seen as Mr. Market Force, Pilate, or the Principalities and Powers - always looking for an advantage and claiming a seven-year fig in only three - always ready to destroy. In like fashion, the gardener role becomes you, so enjoy digging in the stuff of life.
- - -
a cacophony
survival needs
desires of niceties
clamor and echo
to listen in its midst
is like tuning a hearing aid
to hear a whisper
amid the latest dissonance
was that a fire siren
a clink of toasting glasses
warning us away
drawing us close
get me some head-on (r)
I can't pay attention any more
and wander and waver
where's good fruit
its not comparing deaths
its not theod-I-see
lets simply see one tree
and bring it many cares
- - -
Duke (Reader) said...
I am struggling with the "hosautos" (likewise) in Luke 13:3. Please explain what you mean by: "Unless you pay attention in a different way than you have, you will perish as did those at a deliberate hand of violence or in another anonymous occasion of death." Thank you.
- - -
Wesley (Blogger) said...
This comment tries to connect the language of repentance (a turning here not from evil to good in one fell swoop or from disbelief to belief, but a shift in attention from such dualistic preoccupations toward a step in the direction of a more unified field of meaning) with a look beyond our experience base of violent, intentional death-dealing and a consequece of being in the wrong space/time, accidental death.
Likewise might be considered a form of blowback where we get caught in monkey-see/monkey-do circular thinking and reap the backside of an ill wind. Are we first looking at experiences in light of who is at fault, then fault will be what we see wherever we are. There will never be an escape from having missed the mark and since we all do we will continually repeat sin very unoriginally. Keep looking in this fashion and you will likewise become what you see - sin.
There is an old story about someone anticipating a move to an area and asking about the nature of the people there. The response is a question, "How were the people where you were?" This understands that as we are currently finding our neighbor so we will likewise find them wherever we are.
To change our "likewise" we need to shift our attention (begin a repentance of our prior first response).
Thanks for the question. I hadn't seen how such an innocent little word as "likewise" carries such consequence. It is worth wrestling with some more.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html
Do you think that those whose Lenten experience includes a physical hanging on a cross makes them better saints than those who only avoid chocolate? These kinds of distinctions or arguments go on in every arena of life. Are those who are killed in battle better patriots than those who simply pay their taxes to support a military/industrial/educational complex or participate in some form of "loyal opposition"/conscientious objection?
Jesus tells an interesting story. After talking about repenting and repenting again, we hear about the value of manure leading to fruit. This is a process of renewal that reaches back to creation. Consider G*D as manure, changing the nature of the dust of the earth into a living being that will eventually return to dust (a slightly different picture than that on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel). This catalytic nature of manure that will transform dead wood into fruiting wood is worth considering as a process. So it is with forgiveness, an investing in the grounding of another that a different fruit will eventuate. So it is with assurance, an investment in our own ground-of-being that a new flowering will come to pass. Note that this is not an automatic and guaranteed outcome of manure or forgiveness/assurance. There may not be a fruiting, a renewed life. But, without the attempt the odds of change are minimal (remembering that everything is possible).
By this wonderful image of manure we pause to consider what element is most needed in our own life that we might come to a point of abundant living, of being restored to our best dust. Is it a more extreme discipline? Is it more coin of the realm? Is it more time to bloom? Is it assurance or forgiveness? Is it a 70% chocolate bar? Well?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/03/luke-131-9.html
