Sermon: "God gives up on no one"

It can be possible to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I’m sure we have all at some time been walking along the street on a wet day and a car has passed when we were near a large puddle on the road, or we have been at the seaside when a gull passes directly overhead ! 

Such instances as these can be annoying but somewhat amusing when we look back on them, but other instances of being in the wrong place at the wrong time are very serious. Such is the case for people who are victims of terror attacks or people who happen to be in a building when it unexpectedly collapses.  The building of the new super liner “Queen Mary 2 “  was marred when a gangway collapsed and a number of people fell to their deaths. 

In this reading from Luke,  Jesus speaks of two incidents that were very much in everyone’s memory.   In an attempt to impose the authority of Roman imperial rule in Jerusalem at the busy Passover festival, Pilate the Governor ordered his soldiers to wear civilian clothing concealing a dagger and to mingle with the crowds and to kill people indiscriminately.  History records that this displeased even the Emperor.    The second incident that Jesus recalls is when the tower of Siloam fell down and eighteen people were killed.  

Jesus made his hearers think why this happened.   In those days many people believed that such disasters happened to people because God was punishing them.   Did these people lose their lives by God putting them in the wrong place at the wrong time as a form of punishment for their sins?    Jesus makes it quite clear that this was not the case.  God does not work like that.  This people were not being punished.  The prophecy of  Isaiah tells us of God saying “Your ways are not my ways neither are your thoughts my thoughts” 

However, Jesus also makes the point that this doesn’t make everyone innocent.  As St.Paul tells the Romans “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Jesus goes on to call everyone to repent.   This is what we are specially called to think about in this season of Lent. 

This is a difficult and uncomfortable reading, but Jesus adds a story to give hope and encouragement.  It is a story of a fig tree in a vineyard.  The owner of the vineyard comes to collect some fruit from the fig tree but finds it has no fruit. In all probability he remembers that it didn’t bear fruit the previous year either.  He calls the gardener and orders him to chop the tree down.   The gardener’s response is that he pleads for the tree, something like a defence lawyer pleading for a prisoner on death row.   He tells the owner he will take extra care of the tree and that is should be given a chance to bear fruit next year.   The story is to remind us that there is hope for the person who seems to be far from God.  This is about how God does not give up on anyone.   It can be easy to be judgemental of others, sometimes judging people with a greater strictness than the judgement of God.  Once again we recall Isaiah’s prophecy   “You ways are not my ways says the Lord. “ The hymn “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” written by   Faber in the nineteenth century expresses this thought:   

“For the love of God is broader
than the measures of man’s mind,
and the heart of the Eternal
is most infinitely kind, 

But we make his love too narrow
by false limits of our own,
and we magnify his strictness
with a love he will not own.” 

Sometimes people give up on each other.  Think of a person who is filled with hatred for others. Such a person is naturally not popular.  In modern expression a person might be referred to as “wasted space”.  – but wait.  Doesn’t that sound like Jesus’ story of the fig tree?   The owner of the vineyard complains that the tree is taking up space in the soil and because it bears no fruit it is wasting the soil.  The gardener’s plea is the plea of Jesus for humanity, for everyone whose fellow human beings give up on.   God gives up on no one, but he calls all to repent and then offers the gift of reconciliation and salvation.

Preached by the Rev. J.B.Davies at Clocaenog and Llanfwrog churches on Sunday March 11^th 2007.