1 Corinthians 10: 1-13                                                                                                Rev. Dr. Galen E. Russell III

Luke 13: 1-9                                                                                                                                         March 23, 2025

“For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down!”

Prayer: Holy God, ever-merciful, please guide us as we climb this mountain on our faith journeys. Amen.

The aviation industry has been in the news lately. Ever since January, it seems like there was one airplane crash after another. On January 29th, a CRJ commuter jet for American Airlines collided with a US Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River near Washington DC’s Reagan International Airport. A total of 67 people died in that crash.

Two days later, a Learjet operated by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, crashed shortly after takeoff from Northeast Philadelphia Airport killing everyone on board and one person on the ground. 7 total fatalities.

Two and a half weeks after that, on February 17th, a Delta airlines jet attempted to land in Toronto, and just as the wheels touched down, one landing gear collapsed causing the plane to flip over and catch fire.  Amazingly all 80 people survived the crash.

And then, on March 3rd, right here in our own backyard, a small Beechcraft Bonanza, a single engine airplane, took off from Lancaster Airport and crashed landed in the parking lot of the Brethren Village right across the street. No one died in that crash, either.

The first two crashes had catastrophic fatalities. The last two had no fatalities. Do you think that the people killed in the first two crashes were punished by God because they were worst sinners than those others who flew and made it safely to their destinations?

Or, do you think that the people whose lives were spared in the last two crashes were somehow not as sinful as others, and that’s why their lives were spared?

No, I tell you. Because my faith journey has taught me that both of those kinds of ideas are theologically faulty! Full of holes. Leaky as a sieve. Because lives lost or lives spared has nothing to do with sin. Tragedy and chance and happenstance and good things happen in life to the faithful and the unfaithful, the sinful and the less sinful.

But, God is faithful. And present.  And God provides a way for us to endure life’s tragedies and accidents. Not to believe that I think causes spiritual leakage and takes you away from having faith in God who is above all tender and just, full of mercy, grace, love and forgiveness.

Jesus heard of tragic news stories of his day, too. And he asked those people if they really thought that those Galileans who were killed by Pilates’s armed guards were worse sinners than all other Galileans?

Or, how about those poor victims who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them? A terrible accident. Killing 18 people. Were they worse offenders than everyone else living in Jerusalem?

“No, I tell you,” said Jesus. “But, unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Now I know… on the surface doesn’t that sound like a threat? That these people had better repent from their sins or else God is going to bring disaster upon them?

Yes, threats can change behavior, but they don’t always turn your thinking. They don’t change hearts and minds.  That’s what the word ‘repent’ means. Jesus is about helping us turn, or to repent, perhaps changing hearts and minds from leaky beliefs to life-giving beliefs.

That may be a reason why Jesus tells this parable right after that. It’s is an allegory. Meaning that the story’s parts represent things in real life. So, the man is God, the vineyard is God’s kingdom, the fig tree is knowing and having God’s covenantal life, taught by religious leaders of the temple for the people of God, the figs are the fruits of growing God. Love, justice, joy, grace, and forgiveness are to be found in God’s people, And the gardener is Jesus.

So, the parable goes like this: the fig tree of God’s covenantal life is not producing the fruits of love and grace and the justice of God in the people and hasn’t for years. They were unfruitful, unfaithful, an unrepentant people of God. God, the owner, kept looking for the fruits of God’s life in people, but always found nothing. So, God had enough, and orders that the fig tree be cut down.

But the gardener, Jesus, intervenes and asks for another year. A second chance. And with some fertilizer, some TLC, some mercy, perhaps God’s people will turn to back to God and show the fruits of God’s covenantal way of life, in their lives.

And that’s our good news, friends. That Jesus is forever intervening on our behalf. Forever helping us to do some faith mountain climbing, helping us climb the mountain of spiritual leakage. Helping us to change thinking and beliefs from leaky theology.

But, sometimes changing hearts and thinking is a big ask. With the arrival of baseball, I’m reminded that last fall Pete Rose died, one of the greatest baseball players ever. He never got inducted into the Hall of Fame because he gambled on his own team. Pete Rose denied it forever, until he wrote his book when he finally admitted it. He thought that admitting it, saying the magic words that he was sorry, people could move on and let bygones be bygones. And he’d be in the Hall of Fame. That didn’t happen. And he was bitter to the end of his life. Pete Rose never grasped honest repentance. He didn’t want to climb that mountain. He never wanted a change of heart. He never desired forgiveness. What he wanted was forgetfulness (Long, Thomas, “Preaching Toward True Repentance,” Journal for Preachers, Lent 2025, pg. 14). I would guess he suffered from spiritual leakage. Believing in faulty ideas.

So, I wondered, what do we tend to say and believe that might actually be faulty beliefs causing spiritual leakage? That might be huge mountain-sized obstacles to our faith growth that we have to do some faith mountain climbing in order to repent from them?

I thought of a few… hold on to your hats… Think that the idea of God’s punishment occurring in natural disasters doesn’t apply to our day?  Remember Hurricane Katrina? It was all the talk among conservative religious talk show hosts that God was wiping out the sinfulness of the people in New Orleans.

Or back in the 80s, the AIDS epidemic, it was said that this was God’s wrath carried out on the gay community. People still believe that nonsense.

There are some favorite sayings that many people believe and say partly because they don’t know what else to say in light of tragedy. Or if may help themselves feel good. And these are not biblical, either. Like, “Everything happens for a reason.” Not biblical. Causes spiritual leakage, too. Because for some tragedies, there simply is no reason. Sometimes stuff just happens, you know? God doesn’t cause it. Accidents occur. But God is with us in the tragedy, in the accident, and maybe we learn something from the aftermath. But sometimes things just happen, y’ know.

Or, how about, “God helps those who help themselves.”  Or “God is in control” Or “God will not give you more than you can handle.” All three of those statements are not biblical. And detract from true faith. Well, that last one is a distortion of Paul’s words that “God will not let you be tested beyond your strength” which we heard today in our reading.

Here’s one; “You have to be saved before you can enter heaven.” Or “Following all the rules earns you God’s favor.” Or “If you really love Jesus, you would want more than anything in the world to be good enough for him to love you back.” OMG, you guys! Leaky, Faulty theology—in my book! All of these!

Because God’s grace and mercy are what saves us. God’s promise is that we are saved not because of sin, but because we are loved. Not because we got our act together, but because God sent Jesus while our act wasn’t together, while we were still sinners!

How about “God will bless you with success and wealth if you just trust God more and have enough faith.” Oy! A huge trap called the prosperity gospel. If you are successful, give thanks for your blessings. But have faith no matter what comes in life, whether you have success and blessings or challenges and struggles.

Oswald Chambers says, “Living a life of faith means trusting but never knowing what is coming or where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading” (The Way Of Abraham In Faith , retrieved March 22, 2025).

So, during Lent this year, let’s climb up the mountains that cause spiritual leakage.

Remember that true repentance, a turning of heart and mind to the ways of God, is one of the best tools we can use. With faith, we turn to God’s light and love and away from anything that lets those leak those out. Because we know God’s light and love, God’s mercy and truth, forgiveness and grace always hold their spiritual water. Amen.