THE FIG TREE -

GETTING THE AXE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Third Sunday in Lent C, is, “The Fig Tree - Getting the Axe!”

Today’s gospel has two parts. Let me begin with Part 2

PART TWO: THE FIG TREE

Part Two of today’s gospel from Luke 13: 1-9  has the parable of the fig tree. [Cf. verses 6-9]

In the gospels we hear about the fig tree three    times. I like Luke’s version far better than Matthew and Mark’s telling of the story. [Cf. Matthew 21:19 and Mark 11:13]

In Matthew and Mark the fig tree gets the axe. It disappears. There is no second chance. It’s not producing figs. Get rid of it. In Matthew and Mark,  it’s not a parable. It’s an incident that happened in the life of Jesus - that made it into print - for some profound and mysterious reason. It must have had impact on those who experienced Jesus cursing and making a singular fig tree just dry up.

In Luke the story has become a parable. In Luke the fig tree gets another year. It gets  a second chance to produce fruit - figs - otherwise - then - it will get the axe.

The owner of the fig tree says to the gardener, “For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. [So] cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?”

Did you hear the word “exhaust” as in “exhaust the soil”?  What a neat translation of the Greek word “katargei”. Other translations into English use the word “waste” or “use up”.

I was trying to get a handle on this - how we think and talk about this same experience.

Wouldn’t we hate to overhear someone describing us behind our back with one of these comments:

·        “He’s just taking up space”?

·        Or “What a waste!”

·        Or, “She’s so lazy, she exhausts me!”

·        Or, “He’s a couch potato! A lump! He doesn’t do   anything around here”?

Why do people get the axe?  Why do people get the boot? Why do people lose their job? Why do some marriages fall apart?

Sometimes - and I’m underlining sometimes - sometimes  it’s because people are lazy. They are just taking up space. They are taking up all the oxygen as someone put it.

And sometimes people get the axe - get fired - get dumped -  get dropped - and it’s not their fault.

Sometimes life is fair; sometimes life isn’t fair; sometimes life is all mystery - to be figured out at a later date - sometimes.

So all this is an, “It all depends!”

PART ONE: THE OTHER TWO EXAMPLES IN TODAY’S GOSPEL

In Part 1 of today’s gospel we have two examples of tragedies that happen. Unlike the lazy fig  tree that should be getting the axe, Jesus says what happened to some folks was not their fault.

We better not let  the two incidents in today’s gospel - that of the Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate and that of those who died when a tower collapsed on them in Siloam - we better not let these two incidents slip through the cracks of our consciousness. They are worth pondering.

Lots of people think God zaps people - and then think it’s because of their sins. Jesus says those Galileans whom Pilate wiped out  - were no greater sinners that the rest of the people in Galilee. Then Jesus adds, “Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them - do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means!”

But Jesus does add, “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!”

There’s the possible message coming out of tragedies. They can be wake up calls - for necessary changes in our lives.

Listen to people and their take on why people die in plane crashes or why people are blown up in a bus in Bagdad - or people who die in natural disasters - or why people get cancer and so and so doesn’t - or why someone loses a job or a spouse or a kid for what seems no reason whatsoever?

Sometimes we don’t know why tragedy crushes certain people. Sometimes it seems people just  happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sometimes a body goes berserk - breaks down - and someone dies - before the time we’d expect them to die. And some people go crazy with guns and some people go crazy with power - and the little people get hurt or killed.  Bummer.

As we know from life and from Forest Gump and bumper stickers, “It happens!”

WAKE UP CALLS

So a message is that tragedies can be wake up calls. Sometimes it’s our fault. Sometimes it isn’t.

Having read today’s gospel and today’s readings a bunch of times these past few days, I sense  “Wake Up!” is a key and a basic call from today’s Gospel as well as today’s other readings.

Today’s second reading from 1^st Corinthians says just that in various ways. Paul says things like: “I don’t want you to be unaware.” “Do not grumble. Death happens.”  “Whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall.” [Cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1-6, 10-12]

Today’s first reading from Exodus has the example of Moses.  He has married Jethro’s daughter. He has become a shepherd. He’s leading a flock across the desert. He comes to a mountain. He has a God experience. Surprise. He’s sees a bush on fire. He discovers he’s on Holy Ground. He experiences a God call.  He discovers who God is. God simply says, “I Am Who Am”.[Cf. Exodus 3:1-8a, 13-15]

Moses hears the most basic explanation of who a person is: “I Am Who Am!”

I am not my stuff. I’m not my titles. I’m not my look. “I Am Who Am!”

I’m sure all of us somewhere have had a Moses like God experience: seeing a burning sunrise or sunset - autumn leaves bursting with color - the birth of a child - the love of one’s life - being at the death of a parent with the family all around - being together for a family wedding or 25^th or 50^th anniversary - being at Mass or a baptism or a wedding. When we realize the simplicity of life, when we realize God has created and redeemed us all - when we realize we are who we are and God is the great, “I Am Who Am” - when we realize these things we realize we’re made in the image and likeness of God!

CONCLUSION

God experiences can’t be planned. We have them at times - if we’re awake and aware.  The test that it’s real and not all feeling is when we hear in the moment, in the experience, a call from God. It’s the most basic vocation in life: to be God - to become God - in this life - and not just in the next.

Surprise - Christmas can happen any day now - for us. Christ chooses smelly stables and dark caves - to be born in - again and again and again.

We come to Mass - because we know down deep - we want deeper communion with God - and Jesus came to bring us into the Trinity.

But we don’t just stand there - on the holy ground of  a God experience.

We don’t just glow in the middle of that burning flaming moment - nope - the call is not to just be me - a fig tree - but we’re called to be a fig tree - that gives fruit - gifts to others.

When we do that we’re more and more like God - being creative and feeders - redeemers - helpers to others - especially the stuck.

When we do that we have become a person who is like God - and people meeting us can have a God Experience - because we’re using  the gifts we’ve been given to create a better world in loving and feeding one another.

Otherwise we’re just taking up space. Otherwise get the axe. 

THE PRIVATE ME

Quote for Today - March 3,  2013

"The heron's a saint when there are no fish in sight."

Bengalese Proverb

GAMBLING

Quote for Today - March 2,  2013

"A racetrack is a place where windows clean people."

Danny Thomas [1912-1991]

FAVORITES

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Friday in the Second Week of Lent  is, “Favorites.”

This is one of my favorite themes: favorites.

I love to ask parents who have more than one kid, “Who’s your favorite?”

The first response is usually a blocking hand [Gesture] and then, “I have no favorites.”

The second response is often, “I love them all - but differently.”

The third response is sometimes, “The one I’m with.”

The fourth response is sometimes, “The one who needs me the most.”

The fifth response - but only later on - and usually out of ear shot of all the kids - and often one to one -  and often with a bit of hesitation - and sometimes with lowered voice, “Joey! I always loved Joey. He is my favorite.”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s first reading from the first book in the Bible, Genesis 37: 3 begins quite bluntly and without hesitation, “Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons” and then the author gives the reason, “for he was the child of his old age.”

So he makes Joseph a long tunic. It’s the famous coat of many colors.  Then the story quickly gives the plot, the conflict, the turn, the twist, “When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much more that they would not even greet him.”  Bummer!

Then when they see him coming from a distance - his father had sent him to them when they were sheperding out in the fields -  they plot to kill him.

The Book of Genesis has many key stories. This one ranks up there near the top - because it’s tells us how the Israelites get to Egypt.

And today’s story ends with them not killing him, but selling him for 20 pieces of silver.

We know Jesus is sold out for 30 pieces of silver. The price of betrayal  had gone up.

The Joseph story is great story telling. That’s why it has been preserved in the Writings - the Sacred Scriptures.

The bottom line is that the tellers of the story are not mainly concerned with favorites - but with how God saw Israel as his favorite - and how he rescues them from their slavery in Egypt - the key theme of the second book in the Bible, Exodus.

And I’ve heard Scripture Scholars saying that Creation is not the favorite theme of the Bible. It’s Redemption. The key book is Exodus not Genesis. Genesis just sets the scene.

Where we are from, who are parents are, our childhood, our growing up, that’s all setting the scene stuff. Exodus - Redemption - Starting again after our falls - after finding ourselves addicted to self, money, sex, drugs, youth, or whatever,  that’s when real life begins.

Want to be God’s favorite: mess up. Become a lost sheep - a lost Son - a lost coin with God’s image stamped on us. [Cf. Luke 15]

THE CHANGE - CONVERSION STORIES

I remember visiting a couple once. The kids were grown up and gone. The husband was sitting there in the living room - within ear shot of his wife - who was pulling together the last stuff of a supper salad. He says to me, “I married her because she was beautiful. I married her for sex. Then after two years I had to change. I had to stop being a jerk. I had to turn off the TV and be attentive to her and talk to her.” In that first sentence his wife yelled from the kitchen - her husband’s name - when he said he married her for sex. Translation: shut up. But she lit up at the second part. He came to his Book of Exodus.

Most people who consider the movie, The Natural, as one of their favorite movies,  knows the scene when Roy Hobbs [played by Robert Redford] is in a hospital bed in a maternity ward. Iris Gaines [played by Glenn Close] says to Roy Hobbs - who is feeling horrible for what he did to her in his life and what he had done to ruin his life. As it is worded in the novel by Bernard Malamud from which the movie was based, Iris says to Roy, “We have two lives... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness.”

There it is:  the story of how life works.

7 CONCLUSIONS

Here are 7 conclusions on this theme of favorites:

Of course we don’t say to one kid over the other, “You’re not my favorite!” or “So and so is my favorite.”

Sometimes we say to every kid, “You are my favorite” - so that long after we’re gone, they’ll discover at some Thanksgiving Dinner we said that to everyone - and they laugh at it.

If we aren’t the favorite, maybe we didn’t do what is right and there is work and self growth called for.

Of course teachers, neighbors, friends have favorite friends, neighbors, co-workers, teachers. We do. They do. Get over it.

We have our favorite priests etc. etc. etc. I love the saying about priests and others, “One third like you. One third don’t like you. One third don’t care.”

We have all heard the saying: “Be yourself!”  Well, there’s a healthy, “Be yourself” and an “Unhealthy be yourself!” It’s unhealthy if you are insecure and you do things to buy friendship or to try be the favorite or what have you. It’s healthy if you after 25 buy the saying, “Be who you is, because if you be who you ain’t, then you ain’t who you is.” And then you don’t care who’s the favorite. It’s nice to be, but it’s also nice to not have to work at it as a motive.

God has his favorites. The poor. The downtrodden. The dumped. The hurting. The Sinner. So the key thing is to bring to God into our conversations about where we stand in life with ourselves and our God.  Maybe through suffering we need to learn to say to God what Teresa of Avila said to him - when asking him, “Why do you let me suffer?” And God said, “Because that’s how I treat my friends.” And she said back to God, “Well maybe that’s why you have so few friends.” Ouch!

FUTURE

Quote for Today  March 1, 2013


"The future is not what it used to be."   


Paul Valery [1871-1945]

INNER ADULT

Quote for Today - February 28, 2013

"The pursuit of the Inner Child has taken over just as the moment when Americans ought to be figuring out where their Inner Adult is, and how that disregarded oldster got buried under the rubble of pop psychology and specious short-term gratification."

Robert Hughes [1938-2012] Culture of Complaint, Oxford University Press, 223 pages, 1993

COMPLAINING

Quote for Today - February 27,  2013

"I personally think that we developed language because of our deep need to complain."

Lily  Tomlin [1939-  ]