FINDINGS II

Lent III - C - March 7, 2010
Exodus 3: 1-15; I Corinthians 10: 1-13; Luke 13: 1-9




Harry T. CookBy Harry T. Cook
3/1/10


RUBRIC

The Third Sunday in Lent is as good a time as any to roll out the old Sunday school deity of the furrowed brow and sepulchral tsk, tsk. That deity will jump out at us in the Corinthian reading as Paul will tell his troublesome communities in Corinth that their Hebrew ancestors, who imbibed from "a spiritual rock (called Christ) that followed them" (nice trick), nevertheless "were struck down in the wilderness" (where better?) because they did not please Yahweh.
 
With Lent IV up next, being "rose" or "mothering" Sunday when traditionally the somber penitential vestments give way to those dyed with a less threatening tint of mauve, Lent III must be the appointed time for trouble. We'll see it, too, in the gospel passage with threats of perishing Galileans and felled fig trees.
 
This god means business -- as we will also hear in the Exodus reading. He is a deity before whose presence Moses was obliged to shade his eyes, a deity who is about to lay down the law some 17 chapters hence, a deity who is who he is or will do what he will do, a deity who just plain is. "Don't mess with him," is the clear message here. Have a nice day.



WORKSHOP

At this place in the gospel, Luke's Jesus resembles the person with whom he evidently broke earlier, viz. John the Baptist. The message of these nine verses is "repent" (metanoia), i.e., "change your mind or your ways." Although the call to repent is frequently heard in the gospels, no parallel exists to this passage. It is Luke's alone among the canonical four. The "time" mentioned in v.1. is the time following what had been going on since 12:1 as Jesus spoke with the crowds. Luke takes this opportunity to depict another conversation with "some present" who reported grisly news about Pilate's depredations (13:1).
 
Flavius Josephus wrote of Samaritans, not Galileans, being persecuted and killed by forces under Pilate's command, though it occurred about midway in the fourth decade of the First Century C.E. -- a good generation and then some from the later time of Luke's editing. Josephus wrote: "Pilate prevented (the Samaritans from) going up by seizing upon the roads with a great hand of horsemen and footmen, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when they came to an action, some of them they slew . . ."/1
 
From all that is known of the Roman military's general relationship with the Palestinian populace, such atrocities and worse took place regularly. However, Paula Fredriksen insists that such pogroms did not take place in Galilee. "Perhaps the best clue to the overall tenor of life in the Galilee is what did not happen. Under Herod Antipas -- which is to say, from 4 B.C.E. to 39 C.E., virtually the entire period of Jesus' life - the Galilee was quiet."/2
 
So what is depicted in 13:1ff would have been an anomaly or would have occurred much later in the century and could have been an event about which Luke had known.
 
In any event, the reply Luke gives Jesus to speak about the alleged Galilean atrocity is pretty rude: "Do you suppose that the Galileans were worse transgressors than others in Galilee, because they suffered that way?" (13:2) It is the First Century version of our 21st Century folk wisdom to the effect that stuff happens, kind of like the rain falling on the just and the unjust indiscriminately. Luke then has Jesus say that a similar fate awaits those who do not reform their lives. To hammer home the point, Luke has Jesus refer to a supposed accident during which a tower collapsed, killing 18 people. While it is said that was an accident, the same thing could well happen to the unrepentant.
 
But accidental death as judgment? This paints a picture of deity not usually found in Luke's kinder, gentler text. Yet, because longevity as we know it was not generally enjoyed in antiquity, death by any means might sometimes have been interpreted as judgment upon the deceased. Yet comes a note of grace in 13:6 -- the too easily allegorized parable of the fig tree to which horticultural creature Luke turns out to be far kinder than Mark (11:12-14) and Matthew (21:18-20). Mark's and Matthew's Jesus cursed their fig trees. Matthew's is made to wither on the spot. The fate of Mark's is left uncertain, but Jesus is made by Mark to say, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again."
 
Luke's fig tree is given a break: Give it time. Put some manure around it and see how it does. If in a year from now, it does not bear, well then, cut it down. (We could call Lent III-C "Manure Sunday.")
 
Had the fig tree been unattended or was it merely deficient in and of itself?
 
Maybe this was Luke assessing the general situation out of which the parable may have come, viz. post-Temple synagogue Judaism's conflict with Jesus Judaism and its Gentile converts. In any event, the parable holds out the possibility of grace and favor, dependent upon human effort (13:8) -- sorry, Paul and Luther. Equally possible is the tree's demise, given that time is a precious thing and that human effort has its limits and limitations.
 
The situation on the ground might have been that Community A will be encouraged, cared for an evangelized, but not indefinitely unless desired results manifest themselves. It may not be that the Jesus of Luke's imagination consigned an actual community to perdition, but simply to euthanasia if things didn't work out.
 
1/ Antiquities,Book 18, Ch. 4, 86-87
2/ Fredriksen, Paula, Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, 1999, Vintage Books, p. 165



HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
 
A parish secretary who worked with me for several years once tried to obtain a letter of transfer of membership from a certain congregation in another diocese and state. The request was returned as undeliverable, leading her then to contact the bishop's office in that diocese. She learned that the congregation no longer existed. It had been closed and the building sold due to a lack of money and members. Luke's fig tree parable may simply represent a First Century philosophy of ecclesiastical management.
 
It's similar to what befell the Galileans of 13:ff: Things sometimes take their course, and both the deserving and undeserving share the same lot. Paul told his Corinthian flock that an angry deity struck down those with whom he was displeased.
 
Luke's Jesus said in effect that "stuff happens," yet one can keep some "stuff" from happening by undergoing the self-discipline of "metanoia," passing from one perception to another, or seeing things anew and presumably more clearly. "Repentance" is the usual translation of "metanoia," suggesting that it is an act of contrition made to appease an unseen deity for sins committed.
 
Yet the members of the congregation that had to close its doors and become nothing more than an historical statistic brought it on themselves. They did not change their ways or way of thinking.
 
The chain-smoker to whom his physician finally gets through sees that he is killing himself and quits smoking. That's a "metanoia" in progress: clear or clearer perception and commensurate action. He realizes that he could not blame an angry god for taking his life if he himself did not take care to conserve and preserve it.
 
Exodus lays out the law, and once you get past all the "no other gods but me" material, those laws make absolute good sense for a fulfilling life: don't make unreal things objects of worship, honor parents, take a day off in seven, don't murder, don't cheat on your spouse don't steal or envy overmuch what is another's.
 
Ann Landers could tell you as much and go on to say that you have yourself to blame if you don't follow such counsel.
 
Go ahead and have a metanoia. If you don't do so, try not to blame some deity for your troubles.


© Copyright 2010, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.


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