Humans are good Deuteronomists.  If you do good, good things will happen.  If you do bad, bad things will happen.  That seems to be the theme of a great deal of TV religion.  When disaster strikes it is so easy to attribute it to the judgment of God.  How would Jesus respond?

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When Katrina struck the mid-Gulf coast, a number of pastors immediately declared it the judgment of God on…, and you c

an fill in the blank. Some of our Lutheran pastors wanted to run a newspaper advertisement along the same line. I demurred. I couldn’t help thinking of passages like the Gospel lesson for today.

The opening words of the Gospel lesson sound like they had been plucked from the six o’clock news, or at least from what the people were talking about. Some Galileans were ordered killed by Pilate while they were sacrificing in the Temple. Although this is not mentioned by Josephus or a historian of the time, it is certainly in keeping with Pilate’s reputation. It would have caused outrage not only because of the deaths, but also because of the violation of the Temple. The Temple grounds were sacred to the Lord. The other incident sited may have been a simple accident, or the result of shoddy construction. According to common Jewish belief at the time, both would have been signs of God’s judgment.

Human beings are good Deuteronomists—if you do good, good things will happen. If you do bad, bad things will happen. That seems to be the theme of a great deal of television religion. Jesus takes two different tacks. An example from my own experience: One day while serving the church in Corpus Christi, I was having lunch in the break room, along with the church secretary. Her teenage daughter joined us and immediately launched into a teenage complaint: “Why do I have to tell you where I’m going and who I’m going with, and when I will be back.” I sat there thinki

ng: “Because your mother is my secretary, I have to tell her where I’m going and who I’m going to see, and what time I’ll be back. What makes you better than me?” That was the first thing that Jesus said to those who raised the question: “What makes you think you are better than those people whom Pilate killed or the ones upon whom the wall fell?” If God held them accountable, if they stood under the judgment of God, don’t you also stand under his judgment? If they needed to repent, don’t you think that you need to repent also?

Then, does it surprise you, Jesus told them a little story. He told them about a non-productive fig tree. This tree hadn’t produced in three years. Figs were a cash crop. Think orange groves in a Florida context. If the tree isn’t producing fruit, it is worthless and is simply taking up sp

ace. Why not cut it down and replace it with a productive tree? Enter the gardener. “Let’s not be so hasty. Let’s see what I can do. I’ll loosen the soil a bit around it and give it some fertilizer. If after nurturing it, it still doesn’t produce then we can remove it.” Patience, the gardener advised. The tree may be saved.

A week ago I attended a seminar conducted by one of the professors from our seminary. It was like being back in the classroom. He talked about the Apostles’ Creed, and in particular the First Article of the Creed. The earth is the Lord’s and he made it. Not only did the Lord create the earth, but he established laws to govern it. The law of gravity works whether you believe in it or not, and, even in a democracy, you can’t repeal it. There is an order to creation. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Fine, but there was an undercurrent in what he was saying. We must fit ourselves to the “isness,” his term, of the way things are and if we consistently don’t then we are unrepentant. You can see the progression. Unrepentance should be met with church discipline and ultimately with excommunication—expulsion from the body of Christ. His approach would make for a wonderfully pure church. Unfortunately, I would never be able to make the grade. I would never be pure enough to be a member.

The scribes and Pharisees were not bad people. They truly wanted everyone to do what God desired. They constructed an entire network of pious practices to ensure that they really were doing what God wanted and they condemned anyone who wasn’t trying as hard as they were. So Jesus told them a little story about a fig tree. It wasn’t so much a moral lesson that they should be more patient with people, it was a lesson in how patient God has been with us.

The first article of the Apostles’ Creed is certainly important. It points out to us that the world really is God’s world. He made it and placed human beings in his creation to look after it, to manage it. And, yes, there is a certain “isness” to the world, an orderliness, a reality that scientists are still probing and seeking to understand. But did you ever notice which of the articles of the Apostles’ Creed is the longest? The Second article is the longest, and there is a reason for that. We are indeed a sinful people in need of repentance. We periodically disobey the physical laws of the universe, sometimes with tragic results. Two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. When people refuse to believe that they end up explaining to the insurance company how they managed to wreck their car. And we certainly violate the moral laws with equally devastating results. We don’t need to wait for a tragedy to remind us that we need to repent.

I was involved in a car accident, and the insurance company said that if I was a good boy and didn’t violate any additional laws of physics, in five years they would forgive me and wipe this accident off my record. The second article of the creed says that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary; that he suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified, died and was buried. He descended into hell on sort

of a victory lap and rose from the dead on Easter morning. He did all of this so that we could be forgiven—not five years from now, but immediately. The creed goes on to say that when the time arrives that we are to stand before the judgment seat of God, that we will have an advocate with the Father. Some of the people in the Old Testament really understood what the Second Article would be about. The psalmist said “But there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared” [Psalm 130:4]. Job said, “I know that my Redeemer lives.” The Second article is longer than the first because God knows that we need forgiveness. We need the amazing grace of God.

Jesus told a little story about a fig tree. It wasn’t producing. It wasn’t doing what it was created to be. It was simply taking up space. It was worthless. The smartest thing to do would be to get rid of it. Chop it down. Put something in its place that would produce, that would be worth something. The grove manager, the gardener said, “Wait a minute. Let’s see what we can do. Let’s see if we can’t nurture it and make it productive. Let’s see if we can make it be what it is supposed to be.” And when you apply the story to us—that’s grace.