Dear Trekker,
I went to church last Sunday morning. My ‘church’ is the Peterson Air Force Base Chapel. The old Colonel and his lady still are comfortable in a military setting; we enjoy military people, and it ‘suits’ our lifestyle. But make no mistake; we go to church not because we are comfortable or enjoy the people or like the preacher. We go to church to worship God. He alone is worthy of our praise. Be careful that you don’t find yourself thinking or saying “I don’t get anything out of it”…or, “I am not fed there.” ‘Church’ is about our worshipping God! We are to lift His name and give Him thanks.
The feeding of the flock is secondary at best! But every now and then, a sermon ‘hits me’. I begin to grapple and wrestle with the teaching. What do these words mean? What do they mean to me? How do I apply them to my life? I become more blessed. I am challenged, my faith in God is strengthened and deepened, and I worship Him! And I repent!
Such was last Sunday. The chaplain spoke from Luke 13:19, a series of three metaphors which were two historical events and one parable. Jesus, the master Teacher, is driving home the necessity for repentance by all! Repent or perish! Change your ways; make an about face! You are alienated from God; return to Him, or sudden catastrophe is always around the corner! Not as punishment, but as the inevitable result of estrangement!
The concept of punishment we sinners love to harp on, particularly to explain suffering. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, as well as the tower of Siloam falls, as in the passage. Did the tower fall on the people because of their guilt? The Lord emphatically said “No”! If you fear “9/11” was about judgment on America, you might want to study this passage. Though God judges nations, a lot of innocent people die in the process.
My mind has gone back to Job. One of his detractors said, “Who ever perished who was innocent?” (Job 4:7) How cruel, how judgmental! Jesus denied that we individually are arbitrarily singled out for punishment. Don’t believe the lie we, in our own sin, are so prone to lay on each other. If we continue with indictment, rebellion, plotting for revenge, etc. we will commit individual, and perhaps national suicide. The Jews did! The Romans snuffed them out. And if we continue seeking personal justification or an earthly kingdom instead of God’s Kingdom, death is inevitable.
I have concluded Luke 13:19 is somewhat of a paradox. Individual suffering and sin are not straight line connected’, but we can say national sin and suffering may be so connected. Nations who have forgotten God will pay for it. The price is suffering and ultimate extinction. So has history been written. As individual citizens, we are caught up with life ‘in our time’. As citizens, we may object, protest, and vote ‘no’ at the ballot box. But when consequences come, when the ‘tower of Siloam’ falls, one cannot escape individual involvement. We often are involved in situations not of our making; suffering of the innocent will result. The ‘war of life’ always involves the non-perpetrator, the noncombatant. For sure, to attribute all suffering to human sin is in itself a result of our sinful condition; but it is always a possibility that the nation who trusts not in God is on the way to disaster.
But, this passage is about the ‘God of the second chance’. In the midst of such dire warnings, Jesus speaks an intriguing parable. God is the owner of the vineyard, Jesus is the gardener, and man the fig tree. As the fig tree was a symbol of capability, i.e. what could be produced, so we have been created to be ‘fruitful and multiply’. This parable teaches us that non-productivity invites rejection and non-acceptance, and yes, even destruction. This parable also teaches that life is not just about receiving. One must produce. That which only takes cannot survive over time. The fig tree was producing nothing. Trekker, make no mistake, we are either putting in more than we take out of life, or taking more out of life than we are putting in. A quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln is applicable: “Die when I may! I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower whenever I thought a flower would grow!”
But the fig tree was given a second chance, and so are we, over and over again. The Lifegiver, Jesus, is the God of the second chance. He tarries with us, cultivating the soil of our lives and applies divine fertilizer in the process. The Lifegiver is the only genuine environmentalist as well as the master gardener. Oh trekker, God has given me so many chances. He forgives and forgets. He does not cut me down. Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene would also tell their story of the ‘second chance’. No doubt you, too, resonate with the ‘God of the second chance’.
The parable, nonetheless, makes it absolutely clear there is a ‘final chance’. May we never exhaust our chances! But if we fail to produce, we will eventually be cut down, useful only to be burned in the fire. May we never be firewood, no matter how dormant or ‘driftwood’ over time. God does not arbitrarily ‘cut us down’; we may however, cut ourselves off from God by allowing our sins to run their course.
Trekker, along the way, I hope you have and continue to encounter Jesus, the trailblazer and guide on the journey of life. Follow Him! Think differently, live expectantly, keep moving up the mountain. Don’t look back, don’t place blame, don’t try to explain the inexplicable! Journey on with God; this is the essence of repentance. And if we stumble, let’s get up, knowing our God is the ‘God of the second chance’.
Trekking with Jesus,
Jim Meredith
