March 11 sermon
Luke 13:1-9
Growing in Christ
I love to garden. I have pretty much all my life. When I was a kid, we always had a large garden, one time, almost half an acre. I love to watch everything grow, and anticipate just what is growing and how big it will get.
When I was in Jr. High, we lived just outside of town and (of course) had a garden. It was in what used to be a horse pen or some sort of cow pen. I tell you, everything in that garden grew better than any of the others. I’m not sure why… We had rows of tomato and pepper plants. Mom really liked to can hot sauce. We also had squash and cucumbers.
I would plant some watermelons, because there is nothing better than being a kid in the summer sitting on the front porch eating a slice of melon. Unfortunately, we had the wrong soil or wrong bugs or the wrong color of thumbs for watermelons. At the end of the season they looked more like green grapefruit than watermelons.
But we didn’t just grow veggies. We also grew flowers. Some flowers attract a certain type of insect which eats another type of insect and then WE can eat our veggies and not the bugs.
Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow? What does it take to make a garden grow? Water of course. It’s good when it rains every week or two so you don’t have to water. What about fertilizer?? Of course that will help…according to the TV commercials. What else helps your plants grow bigger and better than ever??
Did you ever prune your plants? As you cut off the runt branches, the bigger and higher up ones can grow even better. In my mother-in-laws front yard there used to be a nice sized tree. Every couple years she would have it pruned. Actually she would have it chopped. If the tree had feelings, I think it would have felt the same way a long haired man feels when he joins the Marines. This tree had a huge trunk going up about 12 feet and then 10-12 nice size branches going out. No leaves anywhere. You wonder how it will make it. But within a year, it’s all filled out again.
Jesus, of course, was not talking about gardening. As with every other parable, this one had a spiritual undercurrent ready to sweep us in just like it did those first believers. He says twice, for emphasis, “unless you repent, you will perish.” Man that sounds kind of harsh. The report of the tragedy experienced by the group of Galilean pilgrims is not an attempt to test Jesus’ attitude toward the Romans and specifically Pontius Pilate.
Rather, those who offer this report are giving Jesus what they see as a good example of the sort of judgment Jesus has been talking about. Jesus rejects that idea and focuses on repentance. What is repentance?? The Greek word for repent is “met-an-eh-o”. It’s a verb meaning to “think differently or reconsider.”
Repent, is to see your sin and disobedience, turn away from it, and (this is most important), turn to God. Jesus says in Luke 11, “when an evil spirit comes out of someone he goes looking for another resting place. If he does not find one, he turns and comes back to the original house. When he finds the house empty, he brings 7 of his friends and inhabits the house again. They have a toga party.”
Repentance is more than just turning away from a sin, bad habit, making bad judgments, gossip, and everything else against God. When you turn away, your house will be empty. If you don’t replace the sin or bad habit, it will come back. Let’s think of an example. I run up my credit cards. I buy a new car, big house, a nice boat. But I don’t make enough money to pay for all this.
Well I get my tax return in and I pay off a credit card, ‘cause that’s what I should do. What do I do then? Go on a shopping spree of course!!! Xbox 360; plasma TV. YEAH….No. sorry. What do I do?? God gives us specific rules for money management.
The bible says I give to God 1st in my tithe. I then pay for food and shelter. Those should be my $$ priorities. Repentance is turning from the sin, and then turning to God. God takes over my life. God takes over my priorities. No looking back.
How do we grow now? When we get our priorities straight, how does our garden grow?? Water is our baptism. Do you remember your baptism?? Baptism is a using a common element, in this case water, as a vehicle of divine grace. When Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, the sky opened up. The Holy Spirit came down into Jesus. Grace was in him. The Holy Spirit was working thru him. The water for us and for Jesus was a growth agent.
The gardener says “let me fertilize it.” What is spiritual fertilizer? John Wesley talked about Spiritual Disciplines being our fertilizer. He called them “works of piety”. The main one of these was prayer, whether private or with the great congregation like this one. He also emphasized searching the scriptures (meaning reading, hearing, and meditating on them), receiving the Lord’s Supper, and fasting among others.
Christians are to pray constantly without ceasing. “Whether we think of, or speak to God, whether we act or suffer for God, ‘All is prayer’ when we have no other object than his love, and the desire of pleasing him.” What is your prayer life like?? How do you talk to God? God is not looking for a bunch of “thees and thous”. He is also not wanting a grocery list, although he will take it. My prayer life can be like that many times. “Lord, bring more people to the church. Lord heal my friend, fix my car, give me a good nights sleep, warm up the weather.”
How does Jesus tell us to pray? Our Father who art in heaven, hallow be your name….that is, God you are my God and I will ever praise you. You are awesome and all powerful. Everything you do is perfect, even if I don’t recognize it.
Your kingdom come, your will be done….Lord, I want what you want. Your will is mine. Do with me what you will.
On earth as it is in heaven…earth is not the Eden it once was. Adam and Eve had everything and threw it away. Lord, I want that back. I want to see your perfection reign supreme in this land. No more death and destruction, just beauty and love.
Give us this day our daily bread….Lord supply my needs for today. I won’t worry about next week. I’ll wait for you.
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us….Lord, forgive those things I’ve done against you, like not trusting and not believing in you.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil….Lord show me how to turn away from my sins and turn to you. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory forever and ever. Amen.
When you wonder what to pray, you can’t beat copying the master. Transform it to your own words. God is not looking for anything fancy. He is looking for your conversation to come from your heart.
Next on Wesley’s list is bible study. Set apart a specific time each day either in the morning or evening for bible study. Search for the holiness and the Lord’s words to work in your life. Pray before and after you read the scriptures. Only the Holy Spirit can give us discernment on what the bible actually means.
The last thing Wesley says is to pause, and examine ourselves when we read. This will give us praise where we find God conforming our will to his, and give us humiliation and prayer when we find our will falling short.
There are other means of grace and piety, and all these are to bring you closer to the divine God. As you get closer, this fertilizer will help you grow.
What about pruning? We prune trees, shrubs, flowers. What about spiritual pruning. Times when you don’t feel God standing next to you. Times when the signs aren’t flashing with direction arrows for you.
Times when you’re not on the mountain top, but feel like you’re sliding down, rolling over rocks and bushes as you go. These are spiritual pruning times in your life.
The best advice I can give you is to “fake it ‘til you make it.” What does that mean?? Just because you don’t feel God with you doesn’t mean he is not there. You will get out of worship what you put into it.
In our worship service we must embrace both the transcendence (or the out of this world awesome powerfulness) of God and the immanence (or the close personal availability) of God. An undue emphasis on the transcendence makes God remote and disconnected, whereas an exclusive focus on the immanence of God can lead to a preoccupation of holy intimacy.
God will be reduced to a special “buddy” who provides comfort and support but seldom challenges. It is in the dynamic tension between the immanence and transcendence of God that people encounter the holy mystery that both attracts us and causes us to withdraw in awe-inspired reverent fear.
If you don’t feel God, he hasn’t moved. You will get out of worship what you put into it. In the process, you might get pruned. You will feel vulnerable, alone, beat up, bloody, going thru fire, and out of options.
When you come thru this though, you will grow into something special for God. Don’t turn away. This time of trial will make you, not break you.
Who is the gardener in your spiritual life? Who is watering, fertilizing, and pruning? If you say “I’m the gardener. I went and got baptized. I study my bible. I pray. I fast. I have Christian conversations with friends. I go on retreats.” With you as the gardener, your spirit may grow, but your fruit will be that grapefruit sized watermelon.
But with Jesus Christ as your gardener, with the Holy Spirit guiding you, the fruit you produce will show your true colors. Every good tree bears good fruit and every bad tree bears bad fruit.
By my fruit, does God recognize me? Jesus says in Matthew 7, “every bad tree is cut down and thrown into the fire. Not everyone who says to me “Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to him “Lord did I not prophecy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles.” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me you evildoer.”
Jesus went into all the towns in Ellis and the surrounding counties preaching and teaching the Good News. Then he said to us, his disciples “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Whom shall I send?” Do I raise my hand? Do you? He is the vine, we are the branches. Are we plugged into him?
The gardener Jesus waters and fertilizes and prunes us. Are we able to make fruit now. Are we growing spiritually and are those around us (not just in the church) growing because of us? I want to grow. I want to follow the directions he gives me. I want to see golden red tomatoes on my spiritual branches that nourish those around. What about you? Do you want to produce fruit? Do you want to nourish? On the last day, will you hear “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Luke 13: 1-9 page 848
At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with there sacrifices. He asked them, “ Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?
No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them – do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?
He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I did around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”
