Lent Sun 3, C March 20, 2022
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
“For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none.” For three weeks now, we have been in Lent. Have we born fruit? The answer to that question determines everything.
Think about it. Why does Jesus decide to say three years? That was the same amount of time for his ministry on earth. In other places in the gospels, Jesus makes a comparison between the fig tree and the chosen people, the Israelites. God the Father is the owner of the orchard. Jesus is the gardener. He is captured in the garden of gethsemane. He is buried in a garden. Mary Magdalene sees him as a gardener when he first rises from the dead. Just as Adam was set in the garden to tend it, so Jesus – the new Adam – is set in the garden of this world to tend it.
Now this Gardener – Jesus – has tended the orchard of the Israelites for three years, but they have born no fruit. So many of the Jews reject him, especially their leaders. God the Father is prepared to strike them down, but Jesus the gardener makes one final plea. Let me cultivate and fertilize it to give it a final chance.
And how do you think he does that? Where does Jesus dig in the ground? What does he place into that ground in order to fertilize it? The only thing dug for him is a tomb and in it he places his sacred body to fertilize the fig tree that is God’s chosen people.
This is what brings us to today’s dire warnings. Now we are the fig tree fertilized by the death of Jesus Christ. We are quite literally nourished by his body placed within us in Holy Communion.
That’s the context for what St. Paul is writing to the Corinthians and to us. He points out that just as our ancestors were “baptized into Moses,” so are we baptized into Christ. Moses feeds the people with spiritual bread and spiritual drink. Jesus feeds us with the spiritual food and drink of the Eucharist. Despite all this, the followers of Moses are struck down in the desert for their sins because they bore no fruit. Just being baptized, just receiving communion is not enough!
“These things happened as examples for us.” The Old Testament is both history and warning. Jesus gives his own version of this with the tower of Siloam and the slaughtered Galileans. Two real historical events that are warnings to us. Jesus says “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”
Yet, there is a tension here. Because Jesus just warned his followers not to think that the victims of these events were more guilty than anyone else in Jerusalem. This is because, rather than learning to repent from these events, people looked at them and said “Oh, they must have been terrible sinners to die like that. Because I didn’t die like that, I must be just fine!”
Sin causes suffering, illness, and death. Yet, not all suffering, illness, and death comes from a specific sin. Sometimes Jesus heals people and warns them that sinning again will cause them to get sick again. Sometimes people ask him which sin caused an illness and Jesus says there wasn’t any.
In a general sense, all suffering and death is a punishment for sin. In a general sense, we all deserve it. This doesn’t mean, however, that we can judge a someone based on how much they do or do not suffer. The exact connections between specific sins and particular instances of suffering are generally beyond our ability to see – they belong to the mystery of God’s plan. There is no such thing as Karma. That is a demonic lie designed to turn us away from reliance on God. Karma makes us think we can judge people by their circumstances. Karma tricks us into thinking we don’t have to work for justice because the “universe” will do it for us. Karma is not real.
But God is. And He has told us that we cannot judge a soul because they suffered some terrible evil and died. He has told us that we will be judged and he has told us how we will be judged: by the fruit we bear. As with the Israelites in the desert with Moses, as with the Jews of Jesus’ day, simply belonging to the right group of people is not enough. Baptism is not enough. Going to communion is not enough. We must do these things, but we can fail to benefit from them if we do what those who came before us did.
What was that? What prevents us from being saved by Baptism and Communion? Even though we don’t see them all in this one passage, St. Paul’s letter gives us some crucial examples.
First, there is the one that is listed here: grumbling. Moses leads the entire nation of Israel out of Egypt, but all of them except two died before they got to the promised land. Why? Because they “grumbled,” they complained about God and they complained about Moses. Our Church is full of corrupt people. We can and should hold such people accountable when it’s in our power. But the reality is that God’s authority is at work even in sinful people. Jesus told his followers to obey the pharisees even as he condemned them for their sins. Work for justice and protect the weak – yes! – but do not complain, grumble, and foment division or you risk being kept out of the promised land like those before.
The other sins Paul focuses in on are sexual immorality and idolatry. What is on your phone or computer? What do you count as entertainment? How do you spend your Sundays? When you wake up, when you go to bed, throughout the day – what is most important to you? Merely showing up to Mass to get communion does not mean you aren’t also worshipping something other than God the rest of your week.
After forty years in the desert with Moses, a whole generation died in their sins despite receiving spiritual food and drink. Forty years after Jesus died and rose from the dead to “fertilize” Jerusalem, the city was torn down and left desolate despite being the site of our salvation. After forty days of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, will it be clear why Jesus died? So that we could live like the rest of the world in comfort and selfishness? Or so that we could bear fruit in the virtues of chastity, generosity, patience, and piety? Fruit in detachment from worldly things? Fruit in caring for the least among us? Fruit in bringing souls to God? Either we bear fruit or we are cut down. It is only his grace and mercy that even makes the choice possible, but it is still choice that must be made. And the only one who can make it is you.