The mother sat in a gazebo outside the children’s hospital; her little daughter was inside having surgery. Earlier in the week, the girl had been playing with a friend when her head began to hurt. By the time she found her mother, she could no longer see. At the hospital, a CAT scan confirmed that a large tumor was pressing on the girl’s optic nerve, and she was scheduled for surgery as soon as possible.
The mother sat in the gazebo beside an ashtray full of cigarette butts, and she smelled as if she had puffed every one of them. She just sat there, staring at the floor planks with a half-hypnotized look. A chaplain sat down beside her, and after some small talk the girl’s mother began to tell her just how awful she felt. She talked about the load of terror and sadness pressing down on her. And she talked about God.
“This is my punishment,” she said, “for smoking these damned cigarettes. God couldn’t get my attention any other way, so he made my baby sick.”
The chaplain wanted to tell her, “The God I know wouldn’t do such a thing,” but she also knew this wasn’t the moment for a debate about God. This mother needed to get a grip on the disaster of her daughter’s illness. She needed to control the chaos. She needed to know a cause, a reason. She needed it so badly, she was willing to be the reason.[1] Her parched soul thirsted for an answer, thirsted so badly, she was willing to drink from the dark well of her deepest fear, and she made a god in the image of her fear. This god made her baby sick to get her attention about a bad habit she hadn’t been able to quit.
When the late Rev. Bill Coffin was senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City, his son Alex was killed in a car accident. Alex was driving in a terrible storm; he lost control of his car and plunged into the waters of Boston Harbor. The following Sunday, Dr. Coffin stepped into the pulpit and preached a now famous sermon about his son’s death. He thanked the congregation for their messages of condolence, for food brought to their home, for an arm around his shoulder when no words would do. He was grateful, but he also was angry, very angry; he raged about one well-meaning friend who had hinted that Alex’s death was God's will. This is what he said:
Do you think it was God’s will that Alex never fixed that lousy windshield wiper? Do you think it was God’s will that he was probably driving too fast in such a storm, that he probably had a couple of 'frosties' too many? Do you think it was God's will that there are no street lights along that stretch of the road and no guard rail separating the road and Boston Harbor?
And after taking a couple of breaths he continued,
The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, 'It is the will of God.' Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God's heart was the first of all our hearts to break.[2]
When tragedy strikes we search for reasons, answers, explanations, something to contain the chaos. Our souls thirst for meaning, thirst so badly, we are willing to drink from just about any well.
They came to Jesus waving the morning paper and quoting the front page headlines:
PILATE’S GUARDS SLAUGHTER GALILEANS IN TEMPLE
TOWER OF SILOAM COLLAPSES: EIGHTEEN KILLED
Tragedy strikes and we want reasons, explanations, answers. Was it the Galileans’ fault? Did they provoke the Roman guards with anti-Roman slogans? Galileans were known for that kind of thing. Or was it Pilate’s fault? Was the governor unable to control his own military, or was he himself behind this cruel act? He was known for that kind of thing. And where is God in all of this?
Jesus asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” Do you think they died in this way because somehow they deserved it? Do you think God’s justice rewards some people for their actions with frequent flyer miles they can cash in for the ultimate trip to heaven, while other people are judged and punished, seemingly randomly, to teach the rest of us? Is that how you imagine God’s justice?
“No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Jesus shows no interest in letting us drive by the tragedies of life like that, rubbernecking and speculating about the connection of sin and suffering and the justice of God. If God were the kind of tit-for-tat God you think God is, why, do you think, would you still be standing here explaining your way through the morning news of state-sponsored terror and collapsing buildings?
And then he tells us the story about a man who had a fig tree planted in his vineyard and came looking for fruit on it for three years and found none. Frustrated, he said to his gardener, “Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” Now that’s a story about God’s justice, isn’t it? Judgment for those who fail to produce the fruit of righteousness. You remember John the Baptist, how he called people to repentance with hard and unrelenting words, “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” Plenty of warning since the days of Moses, but very little repentance, very little change, no fruit. Not a single fig, so the owner says, “Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?”
The story could end there. The story could end with the gardener going to the shed to get the ax, and some preacher saying, “You all shape up before he comes back or else …” But the gardener hasn’t left. Standing beside the barren tree he says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not you can cut it down." Jesus tells us a story about the gift of time and the work of God.
The death of young golfers aboard a passenger van in Texas this past week is as tragic as the death of the eighteen buried under the tower of Siloam centuries ago.[3] And God’s hands weren’t on the wheel of the pickup that a young boy drove into the northbound lane of a Texas road, striking the passenger van head on, as they weren’t on the wheel of Alex’s car years ago in Boston. But, says Jesus, let their deaths remind you that life is fragile and threatened by chaos at every moment. And there are things that you cannot keep putting off until tomorrow or another day. Repentance is one of them. The moment to repent is now; not tomorrow, not sometime, not when you get to it – now. The moment to fully reorient your life toward God and God’s reign is now. Jesus wants us to understand that we are not spectators looking over the wall into a vineyard speculating about the fate of a barren tree. We are the tree, thirsty for lush, fruitful life, and perhaps never more than now, when humanity finally needs to come together to address our planet’s climate crisis in decisive ways, but our souls are pummeled daily with news from the war raging in Ukraine. With the psalmist we cry out, “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”[4] And we hear a voice from the book of the prophet Isaiah, calling us, “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters!”[5]
There is water for the dry and weary land, water for the parched soul, for the barren tree. Soil can get so hard and packed down that even after a long spring rain the roots are still dry because all the water ran off on the surface. But a patient and dedicated gardener can break the hardened soil so that water and nutrients can reach the roots.
It takes only minutes to cut down a tree that appears to be dead and barren – but digging takes time. Judgement only takes a moment – but love takes time. The gardener in Jesus’ parable asks for time to do the life-nourishing work of love, one more round of seasons. We are reminded that we are not alone in our desire for fruitful living, and we are not alone in our efforts to help bring it about. God expects fruit, but God is also committed to caring attention and loving work. To ask God to do that work with us can be a first step to repentance.
The prophet warns us not to spend our labor for that which does not satisfy.[6] Not every well we turn to looking for life is a fount of blessing. Many have turned to nationalism in recent years, all over the world, as a source of meaning and identity. Carrie Frederick Frost, an American of Ukrainian descent, writes,
As much as I am sympathetic to the strengthening of Ukrainian identity in the wake of the invasion, I have reservations about the kind of national identity that trumps every other loyalty. As an Orthodox Christian, I try to remember where I store my treasure. When I am at my best, my ultimate allegiance is only to my Creator. This identity, as a beloved child of God, is my primary identity. My tribe is the human tribe, created in the image and likeness of God. … If we truly understood ourselves and one another as creatures formed in the image and likeness of God, war would not be possible.[7]
If we truly understood ourselves and one another as creatures formed in the image and likeness of God - but we don’t, which is why the prophets call us to repentance, and why Jesus never tires to invite us to trust the work of the caring gardener. God’s strong mercy breaks open the hardened soil so all of us thirsty ones may drink with joy from the wells of salvation.
[1] Barbara Brown Taylor tells this story from her own time as a hospital chaplain in “Life-Giving Fear,” The Christian Century, March 4, 1998, 229; I have modified the story only slightly.
[2] From the sermon, Alex’s death, delivered January 23, 1983. See Warren Goldstein, William Sloan Coffin, Jr.: A Holy Impatience (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 309-310.
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/sports/golf/golf-team-crash.html
[4] Psalm 63:1
[5] Isaiah 55:1
[6] Isaiah 55:2
[7] https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/christians-first?