Episode 227 The Parable of the Fig Tree (Luke 13:1-9, 31-35)

This week BibleWorm reads Luke 13:1-9 and 31-35, which includes Jesus’s discussion of the causes of suffering, the parable of the fig tree, and Jesus’s lament over the city of Jerusalem. We wrestle with the popular theology that bad things happen to the worst sinners and with Jesus’s apparent counterclaim that all of us, in fact, are sinners who deserve punishment. We ponder Jesus’s parable of the fig tree, which offers a model for nurturing rather than threatening people into repentance. And we encounter Jesus’s tender lament over Jerusalem, the city he wishes to embrace, but which is so enthralled with its own power that it cannot receive his prophetic voice.