Sunday, March 23, 2025

Third Sunday in Lent

Psalm 63:1-8

Comfort and Assurance in God’s Presence

A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.

¹ O God, you are my God; I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,
beholding your power and glory.
³ Because your steadfast love is better than life,
my lips will praise you.
⁴ So I will bless you as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands and call on your name.

⁵ My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast,^[a]
and my mouth praises you with joyful lips
⁶ when I think of you on my bed
and meditate on you in the watches of the night,
⁷ for you have been my help,
and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

Luke 13:1-9

Repent or Perish

13 At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. ² He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? ³ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. ⁴ 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 other people living in Jerusalem? ⁵ No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

⁶ 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. ⁷ So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘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?’ ⁸ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. ⁹ If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Spring Cleaning of the Soul

            The snow and ice are gone, and this week we had some long days of soaking rain, but yesterday, the sun was out. We opened doors and windows at our house. I swept off the front porch and sidewalk. It’s time to start spring cleaning.

Repentance leads to Joy

            Our readings this morning are about gratitude and repentance. These are central themes of Lent. During these lengthening days of spring, we take time to reflect on our lives, to acknowledge our past mistakes, and to feel repentant. All of this is to prepare us for the joy of Easter morning.

            The Christian path is a heart opening path. This process of the heart opening unfolds in a pattern that has been handed down to us from generation to generation. There are many salvation stories, but perhaps one of the most famous is John Wesley’s.

Wesley’s Aldersgate Experience

            John Wesley studied at Oxford and was ordained a priest. He and some friends were quite serious about their faith, keeping a strict schedule for prayer and devotions. They were so serious, in fact, that people made fun of them, calling them the “Holy Club.” But indeed, at the time, Wesley was trying to be holy. He was trying to live the perfect spiritual life. He felt that he needed to earn salvation, that he needed to be holy enough to deserve salvation.

            Then, he was asked to go to Savannah Georgia, to be a missionary there. But because of his rigid views of holiness, and his stubborn and unyielding style of ministry, he failed in Savannah, and had to return to England.

This experience left Wesley depressed. He questioned himself. He lost his confidence. He became disillusioned.

            Until one night in 1738, still depressed, he attended a service on Aldersgate Street where someone read a text by Martin Luther about God’s grace. When Wesley heard Luther’s words, something happened to him at that very moment. As he later described it, “While [Luther] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

            It was from this “Aldersgate experience,” as it came to be known, John Wesley realized personal salvation by faith. Even though he was already a professed Christian, he had not experienced this assurance of grace and forgiveness, and so this was a life changing event for him.

The path to joy.

            The teaching here in our readings shows us the path to joy. It begins with repentance. In this third week of Lent, we are doing our spring cleaning, a spring cleaning of the soul.

            We cannot fully experience the joy of Easter without repentance. And so, this period of repentance is important. It is painful, too. Like John Wesly, we may have to look at some things we don’t really want to see. But the pain is worthwhile. We admit our mistakes, ask God to forgive us, and then move forward.

            So, what is going on in these readings?

The key to the gospel.

            Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, and in this section of Luke 13, he concludes a long series of teachings into which he has woven all the well-known themes. This section, the first nine verses in Luke 13, is the conclusion to all his previous teaching. He wraps up the whole thing with one key point; the key to the gospel message; and the key to the good news of salvation. The key is repentance.

            There are three different images in the reading from Luke. The first is the murdered Galileans. We don’t know much about this story, but it seems that Pilate killed some people while they were making sacrifices and then mixed their blood in with the blood of the sacrificed animals. So, this is a horrible story. The second image is of eighteen people killed by accident when a tower fell on them, another horrible story. The third is the fig tree.

Look at your own sin.

            People ask Jesus about these two horrible events. “Why did they happen? Were the people who died especially sinful? Is that why they died? Was this some kind of just retribution? Did they die because they were bad people?” But these questions were more than just simple questions. They were judgements.

            Jesus responds by saying that these horrible deaths were not related to the victims’ sin. Tragedy does not imply guilt. In other words, the people asking about these events were looking for fault. They were looking to “blame the victim.” They were saying, “Those people died a horrible death, so that means they must have committed horrible sins.” But Jesus corrects them. “You are wrong,” he is saying. “Just because someone is murdered, or, just because someone dies when a tower collapses, does not mean that it was somehow their own fault.”

            So, the people asking these questions were jumping to conclusions, and they wanted Jesus to agree with them. But he does not. Instead, he turns the tables around. He tells them to look at their own lives; to look at their own sin.

            “Instead of judging others,” Jesus says, “take a look at yourself. Repent of your own sins. These people died, but you are still alive. Horrible things happen. But stop looking for blame, stop judging those people who died. The important thing is to look at your own life. Look in the mirror at yourself, and repent.” So this is like, “Mind your own business.” It’s a “mind your own business” teaching.

The barren fig tree.

            The third image is of the barren fig tree. This is a parable about the Christian life. The Christian life should bear fruit. If we are going to all this trouble, to go to church, to read the Bible, to pray and sing, and all the things we do in our practice of Christian spirituality, then it should bear fruit. The Christian life should bear fruit. The point is to bring something positive, something good, something helpful, into this world. If the tree does not bear fruit, then there is something wrong. Maybe it needs some fertilizer. Ok, so let’s give it some fertilizer and see if it bears fruit next year. And if the tree still doesn’t bear fruit, then it’s time to cut it down. Something is wrong. Something needs to change. Maybe we have not really accepted God’s grace, not really experienced this personal salvation.

            This is another way to evaluate what we are doing in our spiritual life. Grace comes first, then true spiritual life will bear fruit. There will be some productive and beneficial result. Otherwise, something is wrong, and we are simply wasting our time.

Three instructions

            So here in Luke 13, we have these instructions for Lent: do not judge others but look at your own life and repent. Then re-evaluate what you are doing. Cut down the trees that do not produce fruit.

            Now, this is not saying, cut down other people who are not producing fruit. Remember, these are spiritual instructions for a personal and introspective evaluation. This is a self-evaluation, not an evaluation of others. Cut down the tree means cut down your own tree, cut down your own behaviors, cut down your own words, cut down all the things that are not helping you, that are in fact, harming you. So, these are very practical instructions on how to live a fulfilled life, a life of joy.

Begin with God’s love.

            These instructions begin with God, and the fact that God loves us. God loves us. This is the foundation. God is love. God is love itself. We read this in 1^st John. God is love. So, if you accept this, then you can accept that God wants the best for us: God wants us to live a fulfilled life, a peaceful life: peaceful and fulfilled in our soul, in the very depth of our being.

How do we do this? It is through love.

1 John 4

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

Psalm 63

            In our psalm reading this morning, the psalmist shows us exactly what a fulfilled life looks like: “I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night, for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.”

            Now, if you can say that with the psalmist, then you are in good shape. When you wake up in the middle of the night, can you say this? Can you bless the Lord? In the watches of the night, in the deepest silence of your soul, can you bless the Lord?

            I talk to a lot of people, you know, and sometimes I’m one of the last people they talk to. And so I have two questions I ask at such times: Two questions I ask a person facing death: “Are you right with God? And “Are you right with your family?” You know? Is there anyone you need to talk to? Are there any conversations you need to have?

            So, these two questions, we can be asking ourselves right now, too. If there’s a problem, then fix it. Now is the time.

And how do you know if there’s a problem. Well, one way you know is if you can’t sleep at night. You wake up in the middle of the night and you can’t get back to sleep. This indicates that something is bothering you. The psalmist shows us the opposite picture: “My soul is satisfied. I meditate on the Lord in the watches of the night, and my soul is satisfied.”

            There is such goodness here. The practice of repentance is not a punishment for our sins, but rather, it is the pathway to joy. The invitation for us this morning is to get right with God, and to get right with our relationships, so that we can honestly say with the psalmist: my soul is satisfied, so I will bless the Lord as long as I live.

May it be so for you. Amen? Amen.