Luke 13:1-9: Am I Especially Good?

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” - Luke 13:1-9

It is interesting to me that those who asked Jesus about the mixing of Galilean blood seem to be asking Jesus if the Galileans were particularly sinful. If it was me, I would have been asking Jesus to pronounce judgement on the Romans, not the Galileans. Then Jesus uses another example: residents of Jerusalem who died when a tower collapsed. Did they die because they were especially bad?

It is easy to find reasons why victims of a tragedy are victims. We always are trying to find reasons for why things are the way things are. We are trying to find a reason because we are trying to defend God's choices about who dies and who lives--as if he needed defending. 

But searching for the sins of a the victims in a tragedy is asking the wrong question. Rather than asking why they suffered, we should be asking why we aren't suffering. I am so full of mixed motives sometimes that I'm sure that it would be simpler for God to just remove me from the scene so he would have fewer moving pieces to worry about. But he doesn't. By his mercy, I'm still around. 

The next verses about the fruitless fig tree give us a clue: the man tending the fig trees asks for just one more year to let the fig have time to finally bear fruit. Figs typically bear fruit within 3-5 years. So if the tree in Jesus' story isn't bearing fruit after 3, it isn't because it is a waste of soil and sunlight. The tree just needs a little time to reach the potential that was there in that tree when it was planted.

God looks at us and while some might think: what a waste of food and oxygen, He can see the full potential that he put within us when he created us and then saved us. He has a plan and he does not cut short that plan when we are inconvenient to him. Rather he lets us live until the potential he sees in us comes to fruition. Or he cuts us short when his plan has run its cource.

Not because we were better or worse than other people, but because he has a race for us to run.