Our Lenten journey with Jesus is taking us closer and closer to Jerusalem, where we know the horrific fate that awaits him. In this portion of Luke’s gospel, we are reminded that Jesus is not the first Galilean whose blood will be spilled in the Holy City—Jesus lives in dangerous times, when one’s politics can get one brutally murdered, even in the precincts of the temple. The drama of Jesus’ crucifixion intensifies for us in this third week of Lent.
While his followers may have hoped that this disaster story would frighten Jesus, perhaps dissuade him from his death march toward Jerusalem, Jesus will have none of it. He uses the story to show that they have it all wrong—God is not an avenging superhero; God does not zap people for their sins (much as we might hope). Instead, Jesus uses these disaster stories to teach an important lesson about repentance.
This is a lesson we, too, can understand, in the wake of Haiti and Chile and Katrina. In times of overwhelming disaster, people ask, Why? Because these people were more sinful than the rest of the world? Jesus shows us how foolish our usual answers are.
Jesus shows us that there is more than one kind of perishing—the physical death under the collapsing tower, and the perishing of the soul because there has been no repentance, the soul has not changed course and turned toward the kingdom of God. God’s kingdom HAS broken in. Jesus has already called out for people to change their ways which produce only suffering and death.
Today we again witness God’s kingdom breaking in when we see people who refuse to cooperate with the death-dealing ways of the world, people who do not allow their anger and despair to define who they are. We have witnessed this in people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. I have also witnessed this in the Palestinian town of Jayyous, where Israel’s security wall is cutting the farmers off from their fruit orchards.
The parable of the fig tree is something every Palestinian can understand, because fruit trees are the riches of their land, too rocky and barren for wheatfields or vegetable gardens. And patience is a hallmark of a people dependent on olive trees that take seventeen years to produce fruit. In Jayyous, Israeli soldiers uprooted more than 6000 olive trees to clear the way for their wall. Then the wall cut the farmers off from their fields, so that now they have to go through a checkpoint to get from their homes in the village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom of the hill. Somet
imes the checkpoint is not open; sometimes the soldiers will not let them pass, even though they have the proper papers. Photo: Jayyous farmers waiting at the checkpoint, June 2008
But the villagers of Jayyous, these cultivators of olive trees, are a patient people. They do not let the wall define who they are. They do not let the Israeli soldiers’ rudeness and arbitrary behavior determine their reaction. When the soldiers are demeaning, the farmers smile. When the soldiers rough them up, they organize nonviolent demonstrations against the wall. They march and carry signs. They sort through centuries-old documents to prove their claim on their lands. They file lawsuits in Israeli courts, using Israeli law to prove the validity of their claims. They welcome international visitors with hospitality—a delicious lunch prepared by the women of the village. They want the world to see how Israel is behaving unjustly—first by building the settlement of Zufim on their farmlands and then taking more of their lands to build a wall to protect those settlers from attack….from the villagers of Jayyous, who, by Israel’s reckoning must be very angry about all the land that has been taken from them by the bulldozers. But the Israelis have it all wrong.
The people of Jayyous are suffering physically—many of these farmers now depend on UN food aid and families are separated because the young people must go elsewhere to earn a living. Forty of the men of the village are in Israeli prisons, some held for years without even being charged with a crime.
But their souls are not perishing. Even under occupation, they are taking charge of their own lives, CHOOSING a nonviolent response to the violence being done to them and to their hundreds-of-years-old olive trees by the bulldozers. Surely we are witnessing a tiny sign of God’s reign; surely we can join in. Surely we can heed Jesus’ call for repentance, turn from our own ways of military domination, and join them in their nonviolent resistance.
Gracious God, you patiently tend your fig trees, planting, cultivating, nourishing us in faith, as we slowly learn to trust your bounteous goodness. Help us flourish in your tender care. Make us messengers of your good news. Help us bear good fruit for the life of the world. Amen.
While his followers may have hoped that this disaster story would frighten Jesus, perhaps dissuade him from his death march toward Jerusalem, Jesus will have none of it. He uses the story to show that they have it all wrong—God is not an avenging superhero; God does not zap people for their sins (much as we might hope). Instead, Jesus uses these disaster stories to teach an important lesson about repentance.
This is a lesson we, too, can understand, in the wake of Haiti and Chile and Katrina. In times of overwhelming disaster, people ask, Why? Because these people were more sinful than the rest of the world? Jesus shows us how foolish our usual answers are.
Jesus shows us that there is more than one kind of perishing—the physical death under the collapsing tower, and the perishing of the soul because there has been no repentance, the soul has not changed course and turned toward the kingdom of God. God’s kingdom HAS broken in. Jesus has already called out for people to change their ways which produce only suffering and death.
Today we again witness God’s kingdom breaking in when we see people who refuse to cooperate with the death-dealing ways of the world, people who do not allow their anger and despair to define who they are. We have witnessed this in people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi. I have also witnessed this in the Palestinian town of Jayyous, where Israel’s security wall is cutting the farmers off from their fruit orchards.
The parable of the fig tree is something every Palestinian can understand, because fruit trees are the riches of their land, too rocky and barren for wheatfields or vegetable gardens. And patience is a hallmark of a people dependent on olive trees that take seventeen years to produce fruit. In Jayyous, Israeli soldiers uprooted more than 6000 olive trees to clear the way for their wall. Then the wall cut the farmers off from their fields, so that now they have to go through a checkpoint to get from their homes in the village at the top of the hill to their olive groves at the bottom of the hill. Somet
imes the checkpoint is not open; sometimes the soldiers will not let them pass, even though they have the proper papers. Photo: Jayyous farmers waiting at the checkpoint, June 2008But the villagers of Jayyous, these cultivators of olive trees, are a patient people. They do not let the wall define who they are. They do not let the Israeli soldiers’ rudeness and arbitrary behavior determine their reaction. When the soldiers are demeaning, the farmers smile. When the soldiers rough them up, they organize nonviolent demonstrations against the wall. They march and carry signs. They sort through centuries-old documents to prove their claim on their lands. They file lawsuits in Israeli courts, using Israeli law to prove the validity of their claims. They welcome international visitors with hospitality—a delicious lunch prepared by the women of the village. They want the world to see how Israel is behaving unjustly—first by building the settlement of Zufim on their farmlands and then taking more of their lands to build a wall to protect those settlers from attack….from the villagers of Jayyous, who, by Israel’s reckoning must be very angry about all the land that has been taken from them by the bulldozers. But the Israelis have it all wrong.
The people of Jayyous are suffering physically—many of these farmers now depend on UN food aid and families are separated because the young people must go elsewhere to earn a living. Forty of the men of the village are in Israeli prisons, some held for years without even being charged with a crime.
But their souls are not perishing. Even under occupation, they are taking charge of their own lives, CHOOSING a nonviolent response to the violence being done to them and to their hundreds-of-years-old olive trees by the bulldozers. Surely we are witnessing a tiny sign of God’s reign; surely we can join in. Surely we can heed Jesus’ call for repentance, turn from our own ways of military domination, and join them in their nonviolent resistance.
Gracious God, you patiently tend your fig trees, planting, cultivating, nourishing us in faith, as we slowly learn to trust your bounteous goodness. Help us flourish in your tender care. Make us messengers of your good news. Help us bear good fruit for the life of the world. Amen.
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