God’s
grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My sermon is entitled Three P’s on Lent’s
Third Sunday and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 13:1-9). Let us pray. Heavenly
Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let
us go to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within
your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit
enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we
pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.
Three P’s stood out for me as I read
this Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent: Pilate, Parabolist and Practice.
First, Pilate. Reading about Pilate reminded me of a conversation I had years
ago with my friend, the late Richard Gottfried. Richard was a practicing
Conservative Jew at New Light Congregation. He and his wife agreed to see Mel
Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ with me and to present our views on
it to a Catholic and Jewish audience. One of the remarks Richard made was that
the characters of the high priest and others were rather flat. He wished Gibson
would have further developed these people in the movie. I thought the same
about Pilate as I prepared for this sermon. We don’t know Pilate like we do
Peter, Andrew, James and John. He’s more along the lines of Judas Iscariot and
Herod. So, since, he is mentioned in our Nicene Creed, a word about Pilate.[1]
The Pontii family, from which the
name Pontius is derived, lived in Southern Italy. Some think that Pilate was a
freedman, and that his name came from the word pileus, a cap worn by
freed men, but there is not enough evidence to prove this, and it is unlikely
that a freedman would attain an important post. Pilate owed his appointment as
Procurator to the influence of Sejanus, a former body guard and personal friend
of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius.
A Procurator was similar to the rank
of a Knight. Pilate had enough money to own a horse, but was a member of the
lower class of aristocrats in Ancient Rome. His official residence was the
palace of Herod at Caesarea, where there was a military force of about 3,000
soldiers. This palace was on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. He sent soldiers
to Jerusalem at the time of the feasts when the city was full of strangers, and
there was greater danger of disturbances. So, it makes sense that Pilate was in
Jerusalem at the time of the Crucifixion, as well as the time when this event
occurred in our Gospel.
During the time of Jesus, Judea, that
is, the Southern Kingdom of Israel, was placed under the rule of a Roman
procurator. Around 26 A.D., Pilate was appointed to this position and was given
greater authority than most procurators in the Roman Empire. In addition to the
ordinary duty of financial administration, he had supreme judicial power. His
unusually long period of office (A.D. 26-36) covered the whole period of active
ministry of St. John the Baptist and Jesus.
Jews hated Pilate and his
administration, because he was not only very severe, but also was inconsiderate to Jews and their lifestyles and customs. The incident mentioned in Luke 13:1,
is not cited in anywhere else in the Gospels, but it was in line with other
authentic events of his rule. Pilate was also anxious that no hostile reports
should be sent to the emperor concerning him, and so, I think this is why there
is no mention in Roman archives.
Pilate was a worldly man, knowing what
was right and was anxious to do it so far as it could be done without personal
sacrifice, but yielding easily to pressure from those whose interest it was
that he should act otherwise. He would gladly have acquitted Christ, and even
made serious efforts in that direction, but gave way at once when his own
position was threatened. If word got back to Rome that Jesus was known as King
of the Jews, as the Sanhedrin labeled him, it would have been curtains for
Pilate.
Anything else about Pilate would be
apocryphal. We don’t know why his rule ended or how he died. There are some who
thought that Pilate eventually became a Christian, but again, there is no
evidence for this. As a minor footnote, the Abyssinian (Baptist) Church in
Harlem views him as a saint, and assigns June 25th to him and his
wife, Claudia Procula. For us, the important thing to remember is that he was
not opposed to killing people to maintain rule, and that included Jesus and
those Galileans mentioned in our Gospel today.
And so, we move from Pilate to the
Parabolist. I thought of this word because Jesus tells so many parables, like
the one we heard today. Parabolist sounds intriguing. It reminds me of a
gentleman I interviewed for a security clearance. He retired from the FBI where
he administered polygraph tests. He went on to work for a private government
contractor as a polygrapher. Introduce yourself to someone with that title and
you’re sure to get attention.
A parabolist is simply one who
narrates or tells parables, and Jesus was the Master Parabolist. Responding to
the report that Pilate had slaughtered Galileans who were at the Temple for
sacrifice, Jesus immediately turned the subject to repentance. In fact, just
before He heard this report, Jesus was speaking of the need to settle with your
opponent lest he drag you before the judge who will sentence you to prison.
The offer of repentance and the
forgiveness of sins is a major theme throughout Luke. In fact, some of the last
words Jesus spoke to his disciples were, “repentance for the
forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.”[2] God is the judge of our
behavior and yet God offers to all of us the opportunity for repentance.[3] He is severe or gracious,
but not a mixture of both.
Our passage has two distinct parts.
The first part (vv. 1-5) recalls the tragic events: a bloody vengeful act by
Pontius Pilate against worshippers and the collapse of a tower near the pool of
Siloam. The first is an act of human evil and the second an act of natural
evil. Each ends with Jesus warning his audience, “I tell you; … unless
you repent, you will all likewise perish.”[4]
The question addressing both of these
is the same one we ask today: Why did this tragedy happen to these people? To
grasp a better understand of this, we turn to John 9:2, where the disciples ask
Jesus about the man born blind from birth whom they passed on their journey,
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” You
could read further into this question by reflecting upon Psalm 37, Psalm 73,
and the Book of Job. The question assumes a direct correlation between
suffering and sin. Yet, Jesus suffered the most through his tragic, painful death.
Jeered and spat upon. Flesh whipped away. Head pierced by thorns.
Thrust through with a spear. All at the hands of lawless men. Still, Jesus was
sinless. And still, people came to this sinless Jesus for an answer regarding
this tragedy.
I think that the blunt, harsh, prose
words of John the Baptist would have sufficed for the people to repent, but no.[5] Here, in the second part
of our passage (vv. 6-9), Jesus answers not as John did, but with the Parable
of the Fig Tree Still, an answer as blunt and harsh as John’s. Figs and grapes
have been and still are two of the most prized fruits of Israel. Personally, I
love figs and grapes. I have visited vineyards in the valleys of Napa,
Livermore, and San Luis Obispo in California. I’ve been to vineyards in
Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia and Ontario. This much I know, I have never
seen a fig tree planted in a vineyard. No one would do that because the tree
would shade the vines and take nutrients from the soil. And yet, Jesus opened
this parable by telling his listeners that a man planted a fig tree in his
vineyard.
Jesus meant this parable for the
religious establishment of his day. Luke meant it for the church, and it is
meant for us today. Jesus’ words are not about Israel’s stubbornness or
Pilate’s arrogance. It’s not even about the relationship between individual sin
and punishment. Jesus addressed sin and judgment for all humanity as a way of
explaining how we should properly understand God’s mercy. Jesus called for
repentance and revealed God’s merciful patience during a critical time. The
parable’s point: anyone who does not repent will perish.
The Gospel of the forgiveness of sins
through the blood of Jesus Christ is for anyone and everyone.[6] The Gospel offers comfort
and hope even when God’s justice remains hidden in a world of sin, suffering
and death. We must examine during the critical time that we are going before
the judge with our neighbor to see that judgment is imminent and flee through
repentance into the kingdom that is coming through Christ’s Paschal Mystery – his
suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. We must view human massacres and
natural accidents from the perspective of the Cross.
Friends, the forgiveness of sins is
present in the Risen Christ who remains present in his Church through the
proclamation of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments. It is here, in
this Divine Service, that you – the suffering Christian – meet the suffering
Christ and see in those sufferings your own comfort, peace, redemption and life
everlasting after your release from every pain in this world.
God has delayed the Day of the Lord
in order to give more people the opportunity to repent and avoid the final
terror of judgment. There is time for repentance before judgment, but we must
take both seriously.
And that brings me to Practice. By
Practice, I mean your Lenten Practice. As I sat at my kitchen table eating
lunch on Ash Wednesday, I looked at the title for the day’s meditation in
Portals of Prayer. It was entitled “Practice.”
That meditation reminds us that it’s
not that we practice virtues hoping to become like Jesus, pinning our hopes for
salvation on how well we’ve modeled our lives after Him. Rather, confessing
faith in Christ alone, we are free from sin and free to make every effort with
the help of the Holy Spirit to practice virtues that will draw us closer to
Jesus Christ.
Jesus has done everything for us. His
death on the cross ensures forgiveness. His resurrection promises everlasting
life. Without the pressure of required perfection, the daily practice of our
faith can and should be joyful.[7]
We are approaching Lent’s halftime.
How’s it going for you? Is your Lenten practice joyful or joyless? Does your
practice involve prayer? How about fasting? Almsgiving?
Does your Lent involve practicing
repentance? Does it involve mercy without measure to those who have offended,
slighted or harmed you? I gained some insight recently on this parable and the
mercy of God through another article I recently read. “The landowner wants to
cut down his fig tree because it bears no fruit. The gardener asks for mercy – one
more year of careful tending might be exactly what the tree needs. God is like
that gardener. He sees the ways we’re not fruitful. He sees our sin more clearly
than we do. And he shows us mercy. He cares for us, feeds us, protects us, and
cultivates our soil. Like the gardener, he offers us another chance to bear
good fruit.”[8]
And while God offers other chances,
society and self may not. Certainly, Satan offers no second chance. “A common
fallacy the devil likes to promote is that once you and I have fallen into a
state of sin there is no opportunity for mercy and redemption. The parable of
the Prodigal Son, which we will hear next week, refutes the devil’s
proposition because it demonstrates the infinite power of God’s mercy toward
His children. As Luke tells us, the son freely chose to leave his household,
squander his inheritance and seek an alternate life than the one provided by
his father. … Luke again reminds us that the merciful love of God Has no
limits or conditions. Our spiritual commission to sin no more relies on a
trustful desire to seek reconciliation with Jesus Christ. When we seek mercy
and forgiveness, we acknowledge our past offenses against Jesus Christ.
In acknowledging our sinful state, we begin to understand the saving
power of Jesus Christ and why he offered himself in death on a cross to save us
from the evils of sin and death.”[9]
Friends, our God is not a God who
acts like Pilate or any other tyrant in our world. Our God is not one who
relishes in the destruction of life by natural or man-made disasters. God does
not seek death for his children in the womb, on death row or a nursing home
bed. Our God seeks a loving relationship and righteous living for us, and it
all begins in Christ. Jesus Christ is here among us in Word and Sacrament. He
is present to you and yours. All He asks us to do today is to repent and rely
upon Father, Son and Spirit to bestow graciously forgiveness of sins. All I ask
you to do is to practice that response to God’s grace daily. Practice responding
to God’s grace, and when you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all
understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
[1] if
you are really interested in Pilate, I suggest you read the book by Pastor Paul
Maier.
[2]
Luke 24:47.
[3]
Craddock, 167.
[4]
Luke 13:3, 5.
[5]
Luke 3:8-9.
[6]
Just, 536f.
[7]
Caitlin M. Dinger, Portals of Prayer. Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis.
Vol 85, No. 454.
[8]
Daily Meditation on Luke 13:1-9, The Word Among Us, at https://wau.org/meditations/2022/03/20/334334/
[9]
Marlon De La Torre, “The devil offers no one mercy, Jesus remedies this through
the sacrament of penance,” KnowingIsDoing.org, February 14, 2022.
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