Talk about an obscure reading! [Luke 13:1-9; lectionary from week this essay was originally published.] On first read, it can boggle the mind and confuse. It’s easy to misread, thinking Jesus is essentially saying: bad things happen to people because they deserve it, and if you don’t straighten up, bad things will happen to you. But he’s saying something quite different.
In the story scene, the crowd references two chilling events of the period. In one, Roman soldiers have killed Galileans—often disdained in Judea—humiliating them by mingling their blood with temple sacrifices. We aren’t told the reason for the execution, only that people talking with Jesus know of the humiliation and suffering. In another horrifying event, an engineering failure has caused a tower to collapse, killing onlookers. There is no doubt about it: unthinkable things happen to people. Each of us is aware of unthinkable things happening in the world right now and perhaps even in our own lives. So much suffering—caused either by human brutality, like what befell the Galileans in the aforementioned story, or by dumb bad luck, such as being in the path of a collapsing tower, or a tsunami, or a wildfire. It is natural for humans to ask ‘why?’ in such circumstances—a pressing, unrelenting question we never seem to let go.
People have long looked for explanation or meaning in terrible events by assigning blame or ascribing to events divine order or will, as if God orchestrates or allows horrific events as punishment for those involved. In this teaching passage, Jesus dispels the idea. He basically says, “Don’t think bad things happened to these people because they deserved it. Don’t think they are worse offenders than you, and terrible things befell them for this reason. That’s not how it works.”But interestingly—and this may be why we read the passage in Lent—he doesn’t emphasize the positive in human nature. Instead, he’s saying: Those who suffered were not ‘getting what they deserve,’ as they are no worse than you or any others. In fact, unless you repent, you will meet the same fate they did, because in our untransformed states, that’s what humans do—we visit suffering onto ourselves and one another. We are all equally messed up. Don’t thinkotherwise. We equally need transformation, and unless we experience transformation, we are doomed. People always suffer—it is part of this life; but in our untransformed state, we multiply pain upon pain.
As I’ve said before, I love the rich meaning of the Greek word for “repent”—meta-noia—which literally means “big mind.” It beckons us to be transformed to new ways of thinking and being, transcending constricting categories that cause us to flank-guard and seek revenge and look out mostly for ourselves. Repentance is not about groveling, it is about growing. It’s about reaching our full potential as beings imbued with the divine in every cell of our being. It’s about having the courage to see that and live into it.
We all need repentance; we all need “big mind.” At this time, when we’re at a particular crossroads globally, will we choose democracy or authoritarianism? Will we protect our Mother Earth, our home, or prioritize material pleasure and consumption without counting the cost? Will we look on all humanity—no, all species, as brothers and sisters, instead of hiving off into familiar enclaves? All of us, every one of us, needs the transformation of mind and heart; we need bigger mind, or repentance, if we are to meet the challenges we face as a human family.
But lest they think our prospects are too dire, Jesus offers the crowd a story as he’s wont to do—a parable. It’s important to remember that parables aren’t allegories, or stories where each detail represents something metaphorically. A parable is essentially a snapshot, one picture that conveys meaning. The meaning conveyed in this snapshot is of a fig tree wasting space in a vineyard without producing fruit. And it’s a parable of contrasts—a contrast between the landowner, who looks at things fatalistically without seeing possibility, and the gardener, who maintains hope, who sees beyond the obvious. In the parable, the perspective elevated is that of the gardener: the hopeful one who won’t give up on the fig tree, but who notes it simply needs air to breathe at the roots, more compost to nourish the tree, more time. Another chance.
This story is offered as a response to the teaching that came before it—which was about how we are, every one of us, pretty screwed up; we need repentance or bigger minds, we need transformation. We don’t have to look far in this world to see how massively we have screwed things up. With our stockpiled nuclear weapons, our reliance on Earth-destroying fossil fuels and the moral compromises it requires in a time of war, our dehumanization of and disregard for the other, our lust for conquest—whether literal or figurative. But, Jesus seems to say via the parable. But! We can hope. Like the gardener, we can see where the needs are and put our hands to work releasing the compacted roots and nourishing life and regeneration where the good is being choked out. In the context of Jesus’ conversation with the crowd, the message of the fig-tree snapshot is: Don’t give up on anyone or any situation. Be like the gardener. Hope. See the endless possibilities before us. Nothing is beyond hope of transformation. An example of this gardener-behavior was demonstrated by a clutch of Ukranian soldiers who fed and treated with dignity a Russian conscript. It is one example, but a significant one.
However often humans perseverate on the question of “why”—why do bad things happen? why is this or that happening to me? why do those people over there do such terrible things?—we never come to satisfying answers. And really, we don’t have time for such perseverating. We have work to do. We have roots to nourish, sickness to heal, despair to acknowledge and embrace so love finds room to breathe. We have generations-old systemic injustices to right and narcissistic habits to change. We have repentance work to do! We have minds that need expanding and growth. Lent is a season where we focus on some of these things in a particular way. Not because we get anywhere by unduly focusing on ourselves. Sometimes penance veers into egotism if we pat ourselves on the back for our penitence, for our success at deprivation regimens. But Lent can also be a time to broaden self-awareness and really see our own fig tree and what it is lacking, what it asks of us, so that we can better nourish the roots. This work is hope-filled and regenerative and humbling. It is the transformative work of Lent.
WREN: Winner of a 2022 Independent Publishers Award Bronze Medal.
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