Everything In Between Contemplation & Action

Everything In Between, Week Three

Luke 13:1-9

Third Sunday in Lent

Rev. David Collins

Listen

It is so good to have the Maitland Symphony Orchestra , the University High School Titan Show Choir, and of course our own Chancel Choir here today. Thank you all for sharing two of the amazing gifts God gave you with all of us here.

I say two gifts because God obviously gave you talent. But more importantly, God gave you the ability and desire to practice. And that gift is hard to quantify, isn't it? That ability and desire to practice? Because it’s absolutely a gift from God, but it kinda but really feels like you’re doing it yourself, right? Because you are!

We will get back to that, but seriously, thank you for being here.

We are in the third week of our sermon series for Lent called Everything In Between, where we’re looking at all of these seeming opposites that we are pulled between in life, and so was Jesus it turns out. We are looking at the stories from his life in the gospel of Luke leading up to holy week and Easter, starting with the time he set his face to go to Jerusalem, where he knew he would suffer and die and rise again.

His teachings and actions were especially poignant and powerful during this stretch because his time was so limited and his circumstances were so fraught.

Today we’re going to look at a parable he taught that was in response to a question that everyone always asks, and we still ask all the time, and we really would like an answer. It’s a question that wakes us up in the middle of the night if it allows us to go to sleep at all. And the question goes a lot like this:

Am I safe?

“Am I safe? Is everything going to be okay? Because I don’t know that everything is going to be okay!

"God? Are you there? It’s me! Dave! Am I okay? Is everything going to be okay? Because I don’t know that everything is going to be okay?”

The people were asking a version of that question in our text today. Or close enough at least.

Like us, they were trying to make sense of the world around them. The violence, the injustice, the random tragedies—and what it all meant for them. For their safety. For their future.

They didn’t ask the question in exactly the same words, but the fear behind it? The anxiety under the surface? That part hasn’t changed.

Because they weren’t just following Jesus toward Jerusalem. They were walking into a powder keg.

You see, Jesus and his disciples and their whole entourage were from Galilee, which had a reputation in Roman occupied Israel as a bit of a trouble spot. Their people were rabble rousers and known for getting into good trouble.

And they were headed to Jerusalem, the capital, where the occupying authorities lived, and the Jewish authorities did too, when were there at the pleasure of the true ruler, who at this time was Pilate.

The Jewish authorities, your priests and Levites and what have you, knew that they had to follow the rules if they wanted to stay at the table, and keep things as good as they could be. But outsiders from Galillee didn’t always see things that way. In fact, they were known not to.

Which is why this next moment feels a little sudden—but also, completely in character for the kind of tension that was building.

Luke doesn’t ease us into it. He just drops us right into the middle of a conversation.

So that’s the context behind this first verse.

Luke 13:1 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.

Luke doesn’t say who these people were that offered this tidbit. Maybe they were just bystanders in that city being super helpful.

“Oh, hey! You all are Galileans on your way to Jerusalem. I know a story about Galileans in Jerusalem. Pilate killed them while they were in the Temple! Are you going to the Temple? Oh okay! See you later!”

Don’t you just love it when people say things like that? The person who I knew in your situation…DIED. So helpful Thanks.

But everyone knows about these stories right? And so everyone has another story they put on top of the first story to help them live with it.

You do it. I do it.

That’s called interpretation. We do it all the time. We hear about a tragedy, and then immediately we try to interpret it in a way that makes us feel safer. A way that puts some distance between us and whatever happened.

Sometimes those interpretations come out as blame.

“They should’ve known better.”

Sometimes they come out as superstition. “They must not have said their prayers that morning.”

Sometimes, they come out as judgment. “Well they must’ve done something to deserve it.”

And sometimes… those interpretations come out as guilt.

Because maybe the people who died weren’t reckless or wrong. Maybe they were brave. Maybe they were doing what was right. And that makes us uncomfortable too.

Because then the question isn’t just, “Why did that happen to them?” It’s also, “Would I be willing to go that far?” And most days, we’re not so sure.

But in our scripture today, it seems that the common interpretation was that bad things happen to bad people. And Jesus was having none of that.

2 He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

And then he brings up another tragedy.

4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

Jesus is super clear here: those people weren’t worse sinners. Their suffering wasn’t a sign of God’s judgment. But then he says something that does sound like judgment: “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

And that’s where we need to pause.

Because it’s easy to hear the word repent and immediately think of heaven and hell. You know, Fire insurance. That pervasive heresy that says that this life is a test and that’s the only thing about it that matters. But Jesus is never vague when he’s talking about eternity. When that’s the point, he says so.

This isn’t that.

This is about right here. Right now. About the path we’re on, the choices we’re making, the world we’re shaping—or ignoring.

Repentance, in this context, doesn’t mean being sorry about a list of sins, and saying a prayer just right, so you can get into heaven when you die. It means turning around. Changing direction. Rethinking everything.

It means not shrugging off tragedy with blame or fear or guilt—but letting it wake you up.

Jesus says, unless you do that, you might end up in the same boat too.

And then—just when the urgency is peaking, when you expect Jesus to sound the alarm and demand immediate action—he tells a parable that isn’t urgent at all.

The Parable of the Fig Tree

6 Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” 8 He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

You all have just voiced one of humanity’s greatest anxieties. Let me tell you about a little tree on a farm. But it’s actually a really profound image.

Let’s work our way through that verse by verse, okay?

6 A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

Let’s start by asking the obvious question: who are these characters supposed to be? Because this isn’t just a story about a tree—it’s a story full of stand-ins. Let’s see who might be who.

Some folks are quick to say the man is God, coming to check up on things, inspecting for results, expecting a return on his investment. And maybe that’s true.

But maybe that’s just our default way of seeing the world. Maybe we’re so used to hierarchies, to bosses and evaluations and someone always being in charge, that we assume the landowner must be God.

But what if he’s not?

What if the landowner is us? What if we’re the ones coming to the same places in our lives over and over again, frustrated that nothing seems to be changing?

Maybe the fig tree is your faith. Maybe it’s your marriage. Maybe it’s your hope. Maybe it’s this world that seems so stuck and scary and empty of anything nourishing.

You show up again and again, and it’s just not giving what it’s supposed to give.

So you say what we all say eventually, “That’s it. Cut it down. I’m done.”

And who speaks next? The gardener.

8 He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it

The gardener shows up as this quiet, patient voice. A voice that still sees potential. That wants to get low to the ground and get his hands dirty, smell that manure, and believe that something might still grow.

Is the gardener Jesus? Could be. Probably.

But maybe the gardener is also who we’re called to be.

Maybe we are meant to be the ones who kneel in places other people have given up on. Maybe we are meant to be the ones who stay when others leave. Who love what looks fruitless. Who believe that change is still possible even when the timeline stretches on and on.

Or maybe—maybe you are the fig tree.

Maybe someone else is the gardener, pleading for more time on your behalf. Maybe God is the one in the soil with you, breaking up the hard places, adding what seems like waste but is actually nourishment.

And maybe you don’t even know it’s happening yet.

Because repentance, at least the way Jesus seems to be talking about it here, isn’t about DOING SOMETHING. It’s not a dramatic moment of resolve where you shout, “I’ll do better!” and mean it for a week.

Repentance begins smaller than that.

It begins with noticing. With paying attention.

True Repentance

It’s the fig tree feeling its connection to the ground beneath it. It’s the quiet realization that something is different. That someone is close. That something is happening, even if you didn’t ask for it. Even if you didn’t know to ask. Before you grow anything new, before you bear fruit, before you change your life—repentance starts with a stillness. With a listening. A pause. A breath.

That’s where change really begins. It starts within, long before anyone else can see it. That’s what contemplation is.

It’s not zoning out or floating away into some mystical headspace. It’s staying put. Rooting down. It’s choosing to be present—to your own life, and to the world around you.

It’s resisting the urge to rush into fixing or producing or proving something, and instead letting yourself be still long enough to notice what God might already be doing. Contemplation is the space where repentance begins—not with guilt or shame or a checklist of what to change, but with a willingness to be honest, to listen, to be loved before you’re useful.

There’s a space between contemplation and action—a necessary space. A space where we start to notice what’s been going on under the surface. A space where we’re honest about what’s not working, but we’re not ready to fix it yet. A space where we’re listening, paying attention, waking up.

And that space matters.

We don’t have to rush out of it. We don’t have to turn contemplation into a to-do list.

Sometimes, the most faithful thing we can do is stay in that middle space. Keep showing up. Keep listening. Pay attention.

Action will come. Fruit will come. But it’s not a race. And you can’t force it.

Do you think that trees try hard to bear fruit? Of course they don’t. It just happens as a natural result of them being healthy. Kind of like our musicians up here, and that second gift God gave them. The first was the kernel of talent, but the second was that ability to practice. Which does not involve God taking you over and making you practice. If that was how it worked, I would be so good at so many things.

But it does’t work like that. That second gift is the desire to keep showing up. To keep tuning your ear. To pay attention to what’s off and try again. That’s what makes art possible.

Artists are willing to be really bad at something they love, over and over again, fixing one little problem at a time, and they keep doing that well past the point that can do it the way they want to once. Artists keep at it until they can’t play it wrong.

That’s what it means to bear fruit. And that takes time.

Think about how long it takes to get from the original idea of a piece of music—maybe just a tune a composer heard inside her head—through all the steps it takes to bring it to life. One person practicing their part alone. Then showing up to rehearsal, again and again. Then playing as a group. Listening to one another and adjusting. And then, finally, the performance. The moment when something beautiful is offered into the world.

That’s fruit.

And that’s how we are meant to bear fruit, too.

That’s exactly what this parable is about—not the pressure to produce something overnight, but the willingness to stay in it.

That’s what the gardener is saying here, 9 “If it bears fruit next year, well and good;

It may well take a year! It takes the time it takes.

but if not, you can cut it down.”

Now that line has some tension in it, doesn’t it?

But notice something: the gardener doesn’t say, “If it doesn’t bear fruit, I’ll cut it down.” He says, “you can cut it down.”

That’s not a threat. It’s a recognition.

A recognition that not everything lives forever. That not every tree bears fruit. That there is a time for patience, and eventually, there’s also a time for letting go.

But even then—there’s something generous about this moment. Because what the gardener is really saying is: Let’s wait. Let’s give it more time. Let’s do everything we can before we call it dead.

And in the meantime? In the meantime, there’s still room for growth. For surprise. For repentance—not as a punishment, but as a possibility.

Because what if this is the year?

What if this is the season where something finally starts to shift?

What if the roots really are waking up even now?

What if the gardener is still down there, sleeves rolled up, hands in the dirt, believing in you?

Believing in us.

Not because we’ve earned it, but because that’s just what love does.

Love waits. It works. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. It gives it one more year. And maybe, another year after that. But that’s next year’s problem. We are just meant to be here. Now.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget where this whole conversation started.

It started with tragedy. With blood in the temple. With a tower falling. With people asking the question we all ask in the face of suffering:

Why did this happen? Were they to blame? Are we next?

And Jesus doesn’t give them a formula. He doesn’t explain why the tower fell or why Pilate’s violence was allowed. He doesn’t give us that answer either.

Instead, he tells this story.

This slow, earthy, open-ended story about a fig tree, a gardener, and a little more time.

Which means maybe the point wasn’t to answer the question of why bad things happen, but to change the question altogether.

Instead of “Why did this happen to them? And how can I keep it from happening to me?’, becomes “What will I do with the time I’ve been given?”

Instead of trying to explain or defend or theologize every turn of events, maybe Jesus invites us to just live differently because of them. To respond—not with blame or fear or guilt—but with attention. With compassion. With a deeper awareness of how fragile life is, and how much it matters.

And maybe that’s what repentance really looks like in a world where towers fall and injustice still reigns.

Not a panicked scramble to save ourselves, but a steady, faithful decision to keep growing anyway. To bear fruit anyway. To stay tender to the world’s pain and still believe that love matters.

Because the gardener hasn’t given up.

And we still have time.

So maybe this is the invitation for us, here, in this in-between space.

Not to solve the mystery of suffering. Not to force fruit.

But to stay in the story. To trust the gardener.

To pay attention to what’s shifting beneath the surface of our own lives, and in the lives of those around us.

To repent—not in fear, but in faith. Not out of guilt, but because we’ve glimpsed what might still be possible.

Because the ground is being tended. The soil is being stirred. There’s still time. There’s still grace.

And maybe—just maybe—this will be the year.

Amen.