In Luke 13.1-9, Pontius Pilate had just done the unthinkable. Apparently, his soldiers attacked worshippers in the temple while they performed their sacred rituals. One might expect heartfelt compassion from Jesus, but he doesn’t respond that way at all; rather he gives a warning of sorts. One that might lead the listener to think that maybe God was punishing people for their sins- you know, the sort of thing modern preachers do when a natural disaster causes the death of “sinful people.” Before the listeners can get their head around what Jesus is saying, he launches into a parable.
The parable is about a fig tree that doesn’t bear fruit. And at the end, it sounds like the tired caricature of an angry axe-wielding God who wants to cut the whole thing down. But what if Jesus’ parable was intended to wake the listener up? And what about the gardener in the story who defends the tree? The one who wants to give it a whole year to tend to it, to see that it will bear fruit? Maybe this parable shows that bad things don’t happen because God is angry. For whatever reason they do happen, and they have a chance to wake us up. And when we do awake, maybe there is a gardener who wants to tend to us – so that we can bear the fruit we were made to bear.
February 26, 2023: A Picture of the Divine - Dave Neuhausel
February 19, 2023: The Message is The Medium
February 12, 2023: Girl Stand Up - Bekah Stewart
February 5, 2023: Living in the Tombs - Michael Hidalgo
January 29, 2023: And Also - Jonathan Merritt
January 22, 2023: Four Wisdom Sayings - Michael Hidalgo
January 15, 2023: Nothing Wasted - Amanda Lum
January 8, 2023: The Tragedy of Loving Little - Michael Hidalgo
December 24, 2022: The Extraordinary Ordinary
December 18, 2022: Kings and Other Things - Michael Hidalgo
December 11, 2022: A New Exodus - Bekah Stewart
December 4, 2022: Go Back a Different Way - Michael Hidalgo
November 26, 2022: Take Her Home - Michael Hidalgo
November 20, 2022: You Were Expecting Me? - Amanda Lum
November 11, 2022: A Tale of Two Crowds - Michael Hidalgo
November 6, 2022: Faith in the One Who Sees You
October 30, 2022: Good News for Postmodern Humanity - Brian McLaren
October 23, 2022: Living the Future in the Present - Michael Hidalgo
October 16, 2022: When You Can’t Go Back - Michael Hidalgo
October 9, 2022: The World Is Always Ending - Jonathan Merritt
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