Mar 24, 2019         Bear the Fruit of Repentence                        

About  5 years ago, the Methodist Church in Jerseyville, hosted the winner of the toastmaster of the year award. If you don’t know, the toastmaster of the year award is given to the winner of a series of competitions designed to find the best public speaker. Five years ago that speaker was Rory Vaden, and his presentation that night was about his book “Take the Stairs”.

“Take the Stairs” is a book devoted to helping people to clear away the clutter of their lives, focus on what is important in their lives, and most importantly, address the issues in their lives that need to be addressed. Now many of you might say, that’s hardly anything new, everyone should be doing that, but unfortunately, many people don’t. Sometimes people are lazy and figure they can get around to things later. Sometimes people are afraid, and don’t confront their problems directly. Sometimes people find ways to keep themselves busy with all kinds of secondary issues, and convince themselves they can’t do it all.

Now I can’t say that what Mr Vaden wrote is groundbreaking and new, but for people who have trouble focusing on what they can control in their lives, or on what they should put as a priority in their lives, he does a fairly good job of helping people do that. And one of the things that he tells people about in taking control of one’s life, is that it is important to address the issues we avoid, solve them, get them out of the way, and keep moving on to the next issue in line.

For some people that might mean credit card debt, for others it might mean filling out their taxes, for others it might be dealing with addiction. For some it might mean being reconciled to a family member, or someone at work, for some it might mean doing work around the house, and for others it might mean, looking for a new job, or even going back to school. According to Mr. Vaden, it is human nature for us to avoid dealing with issues or situations we don’t like, and so in recognition of that, we need to intentionally seek to address them.

Now the purpose of my sermon today is not to give you a self-help lecture. No, the purpose of my sermon is to get at what Jesus is saying to the people in our gospel lesson this morning. This morning Jesus asks the people if they think that the Galileans who Pilate slaughtered for false worship, were worse than other Galileans. Or if   people who died when a water tower fell were worse people, or more to the point, if they were being punished by God.

And the difference between what Jesus is asking, and what Mr. Vaden is saying in his book “Take the Stairs”, is that the book infers that bad things happen to bad people, and that God is punishing us when bad things happen to us. In contrast to this, I believe Jesus is trying to move us beyond this way of thinking about the tragedies that happen around us in our lives.   

In fact I think that Jesus point is this, that when these tragedies occur  it is a waste of time for us to lay blame, and that we should always be seeking to live as a disciples of Jesus Christ now, growing in our relationship with God, and bearing the fruit of repentance with acts of mercy, and deeds of loving kindness, before it’s to late, and you don’t get the chance. 

  Which brings us to the parable of the fig tree. For three years the fig tree has just gone along, living but producing no figs. The owner of the vineyard says cut it down, but the servant says, let me dig around it, fertilize it, give it just one more season, one more chance for it to bear fruit. That is what Jesus seeks to do for us, and coincidentally what we are called to do for ourselves. To do the work faith in our lives, to bear the fruit of repentance/new life, because that’s what repentance really means, it means living a new life. So bear this fruit before it’s to late, and we are cut short in our lives. And that’s the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.