Unity Lutheran Church + Chicago
follow us
  • Welcome
  • Who Are We
    • Eternal Flame Saints
    • History of Unity
    • Affiliated with
    • Welcome & Vision Statement
    • Constitution & Bylaws
  • Our Faith in Action
    • Concerts at Unity
    • Green Space
    • Social Justice
  • Space Sharing
    • Flyer for Space Sharing
    • Calendar
    • Picture of our Rooms
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
    • Offerings & Gifts >
      • Unity Special Funds
  • Community Resources

March 3, 2013 + Lent 3(C) + "The Owner and the Gardener"

3/3/2013

0 Comments

 
Lent 3C
  • Isaiah 55:1-9  
  • 1 Corinthians 10:1-13  
  • Luke 13:1-9

The Owner and the Gardener
Have you ever eaten a fig before?  It’s not your everyday menu item, here in the cold mid-west!  But knowing they are plentiful in the Mediterranean and Palestine, immediately I thought of the Middle East Bakery & Grocery on Foster just off Clark.  And sure enough, they had two brands of packaged dried figs, imported from Turkey.  They were tightly wrapped in plastic rounds of 25 or 30 figs each.  As I considered which one to buy, I noticed a pint container of figs just a shelf above, which were larger yet, and even though there weren’t as many, were more expensive.  Ah, and it had the Middle East Bakery & Grocery label on it.  As I paid, I made sure there was no added sugar, and then asked if they were actually made there, and the man broke into a big sheepish and proud smile.  Oh yes, I’m a fig farmer he said.  I make these! 

Well, I couldn’t wait until lunch time, and as soon as I got to church, I opened the container and chose the largest fig of all and took a big bite.  Umh!  As many of you know I give up sugary deserts for Lent, and this fruit was so sweet and delicious that I felt like I was cheating somehow, the little gooey seeds sticking to my teeth. 

Figs are a kind of luxury and wonderful gift.  The fig tree is also iconic for Israel, a kind of gift, the chosen people of God.  And practically, it’s a very beautiful tree, the fig tree, its leaves are large and its branches welcoming and inviting to owners and guests alike, providing a place of shade and rest from the heat of the day. 

Here in the city it’s so easy to feel disconnected from the land, and the source of our food and nutrition.  But the ownership of the land and its wealth are still important, perhaps more so than ever. 

Having been to the Palestinian West Bank of Israel, the Occupied Territories, I’ve seen the rocky soil that actually is perfect for growing fig trees.  We visited farmers near Hebron, where families lived in villages, that by our standards at least, were extremely primitive.  For centuries they have planted and harvested and never worried about their social standing.  But living day to day, like this, has its risks.  And when radical-fundamentalist Jewish Settlers, many from the United States, came to live illegally on the edge of their farms, occupying the highest hill across the valley, their way of life became threatened.  In addition to verbal intimidation, and even throwing rocks at their school children walking to school, they began night raids.  Not attacking villagers, but on the eve of the harvest, they came to uproot and destroy their fig trees.  It’s a tactic that’s been used for a decade or more, as the radical Settlers try to push the Palestinians off their land and take it over. 

As one young American working in Palestine said writing home: “I am a proud Ohio farm girl living and working as a Christian Peacemaker with our Palestinian partners in Palestine. [Coming from the farm life] My rootedness to the earth has helped me feel at home here in West Bank, Palestine where the land is valued so strongly. …For them the earth is mother.  It provides for their families. …Back home in the States, however, I never had seen my home demolished, my trees uprooted, my land confiscated, my irrigation lines destroyed like my Palestinian friends have.  …No one ever forced me to leave my … huge fig tree shading my courtyard, or my terraced garden that feeds my soul.” (http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2010/11/15/al-khalil-hebron-reflection-we-love-land)

Who owns the land makes a difference when it’s your livelihood and your life blood. 

Jesus tells a parable of a fig tree, unique to the gospel of Luke, as he’s on his way for the last time, to Jerusalem.  As Luke says, “Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem.”  He’s not exactly looking forward to Good Friday!  But he has taken on the prophet’s mantle of speaking the truth, living with the people who don’t make the history books, and leaning into the cosmic healing of the world God calls him to, in the work of the Three Great Days.  And, along the way, Jesus isn’t afraid of sitting down with friend, or foe, enjoying a fig, or maybe some fig pudding, and a locally produced glass of wine.  But no one owns him.  Rather, he proclaims release to the captives, sight to the blind. 

The owners of 90% of this country’s wealth, the 1%, received another gift just this past Friday, as the latest politically manufactured fiscal crisis by our elected leaders, reached a new low.  This time the game went bust, and for the first time we actually went over the cliff.  No deal was reached on the Sequester, a deal so draconian, its across the board cuts so clumsy and intentionally unfair, it was never meant to stand, only to force the two parties to sit down and compromise.  But a radical fundamentalist minority in the House prefers to further gift the obscenely wealthy owners – sometimes ironically called ‘the job creators.’  They continue to pay half the tax rate you and I do, while the real problem, jobs, is predicted to get worse, as a consequence.  And the true-believers actually think they’re doing the country a favor!  

Whoever owns the wealth, owns those who hope to make a living off the land and the manufacturing economy. 

So Jesus tells a parable, a story of a fig tree that disappoints!  Even after 3 years, it still isn’t producing fruit yet.  But the gardener graciously pleads for one more year to give it a chance to bloom and grow.  At first we might identify the owner of the vineyard as God in the story.  He’s in charge, and we recognize the management style:  that this fig tree, that doesn’t produce, shouldn’t have the right to sit there and waste the soil – cut it down and find a new one! 

But when the gardener surprisingly intervenes and asks for a pardon, and is willing to come down to, to kneel in the earth, to actually till and care for it, to give it some nourishment, water and feed it, suddenly we recognize this one, as the God we know in Jesus.  The owner, is just another owner trying to capitalize on his investment, which isn’t bad in itself, except he hasn’t bothered to factor in Mother Earth or the garden workers – he stops by only to look for his profits.  But Jesus – just like the Gardener Mary Magdalene mistakes him for in the garden of his death and resurrection – this Jesus, is a compassionate advocate for us all. 

And so, to the worker working 2 or 3 jobs to feed a family today, and then is characterized as “lazy” because his or her “job creator’s” company merged with another corporation, and needed to lay of thousands of employees, and the worker, still working a job or two, now has to apply for SNAP to feed his or her children – Jesus says, wait, they’re not wasting the soil, don’t chop them down!  I will come down to them, I will feed them; I have come to release the captives, and give sight to the blind – to pardon and feed, to proclaim and reveal. 

All of us can use that, a little metanoia, a little transformation, an opportunity to repent and turn around from our destructive ways and selfish captivity.  That’s what Lent is all about.  And it’s what Jesus tells the disciples and the crowds on his way to the cross.  You may not get it quite yet, but you will, after the cross and resurrection.  Just let me till the soil and give you a little more “bread of life” fertilizer. 

Jesus teaches in parables, but is much more than a Teacher.  Jesus is a revealer, a living icon, who reveals to us the way of abundant life by transforming us, changing us, feeding us, because he is the cross and resurrection, the dying-to-this-world and rising-to-God’s-world, agent. 

And so we may even recognize Jesus in Isaiah’s Lady-Wisdom character,
as she’s hawking us:
“Hey there, you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.”  

Come away from your Exile, Jesus invites us, from that land of death;
Learn the way of metanoia, and transformation;
Come to the feast, the table is set,
Uhm, uhm, uhm! Let us eat figs!  

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly