Burrito or Pizza? | October 24, 2015

October 24, 2015

I have this great ministry tool at work called the question ball. It is a regular beach ball with dozens of icebreaker questions sharpied all over it. Whenever I interview kids or just hang out in the youth center, I pull out the question ball and we throw it back and forth answering whatever question our right thumb lands on. The questions range from “Burrito or Pizza?” to “How would you describe heaven?” It’s an effective tool that is non-threatening and makes it easy for teens to talk. Anyway, there is one question on the ball that says, “What if everyone looked identical?” It’s one of those questions that make you think just a little harder and then your brain starts to ache at the thought of everyone actually looking the same as one another. We talk about how we would differentiate ourselves and that personality would be even more paramount than it is today. We would rely on our different strengths and talents to shine through and perhaps the sound of our voice would be a defining characteristic. Clothing could be a form of differentiation as well and the discussion can go on and on. I think today’s gospel gives us another insight as to what defines us as unique individuals with a soul and that is the fruit produced through our life.

The gospel begins with Jesus pulling an object lesson out of a current event. Apparently Pilate had 18 Galileans killed (reason is unknown) and irreverently he mixed their blood with that of the Sabbath sacrifices. Jesus uses this as a talking point for sin and our human idea that there are various degrees of sin. The ancient culture associated death, sickness, and suffering with an individual’s sin and the more severe the death, sickness, or suffering the greater the person’s sin must be. So Jesus started asking some rhetorical questions, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?” Jesus answers his own question with an emphatic, “By no means!” (knowing that each one of them probably already answered yes in their head), “But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!” Jesus is leading up to the point that we are not defined by our sin unless we allow it to define us and repentance is the only way to fight against that possibility. We are responsible for our own actions and while we might look identical to one another because of our sin, in that we ALL do sin, and the consequence of ALL sin is in fact death, we have an opportunity to define ourselves another way. Repentance is the first step in differentiating ourselves from one another and the first step in the process of our spiritual growth.

Jesus tells a parable for the next part of the story. A fig tree is used as a metaphor to demonstrate whether sin or faith define our lives. Jesus had been preaching for about three years all throughout the region correlating himself to the landowner in the story that had been watching a particular fig tree for three years as well. The tree was receiving the proper care by a full-time gardener and still had not produced any fruit. The master instructed him to cut it down so that it no longer exhausted the soil in which it was planted. This message was obviously meant for those that Jesus had been with for three years including the apostles, disciples, and yes, the religious leaders, but it most definitely applies to us as well. We are all under the care of a full-time master gardener and we have been given many tools, gifts, and talents to receive that care in the most effective way possible. The thing that sucks the life out of our fruitful harvest is sin, but repentance for our sins is the thing that advances our spiritual growth in ways that we can never fully grasp. The gardener serves as an example that prayer and intercession can and do move the mind and heart of God, for he pleads with the master to give him just one more year to cultivate and fertilize the tree. We are the gardeners to each other’s souls and we know that a life lived in Christian community is very fertile ground. When one of us is not producing fruit, we serve as advocates on behalf of one another, and we step in to cultivate and fertilize. I rely on my soul friends to make sure that the soil around me is rich, to pray for me when I am barren, and to cultivate my faith when it is weak.

Jesus wants us to be fruitful because he wants our faith in him to define us. We get so caught up in our own sin and the sin of others that we forget to pick the fruit and soon it falls to the ground and rots, and our limbs are left empty with nothing to show of our faith in Christ. Let us take some time today to turn our hearts back toward God in repentance for the things that have turned us away from him. Let’s not worry about the sins of others, but rather take care of their soil, pray for the lost, and harvest the fruit that comes from our faith in Christ. When asked the question, “What if everyone looked identical?” hopefully, we would be able to say that we can distinguish ourselves by our fruits and that identity will give each one of us a unique and irreplaceable presence that says, “Faith defines me, not my sin!”

(And that answer is always burrito over pizza! Duh!)

Reading 1 ROM 8:1-11

Brothers and sisters:
Now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has freed you from the law of sin and death. 
For what the law, weakened by the flesh, was powerless to do,
this God has done:
by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for the sake of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
so that the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us,
who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh
are concerned with the things of the flesh,
but those who live according to the spirit
with the things of the spirit. 
The concern of the flesh is death,
but the concern of the spirit is life and peace.
For the concern of the flesh is hostility toward God;
it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it;
and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh;
on the contrary, you are in the spirit,
if only the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
the one who raised Christ from the dead
will give life to your mortal bodies also,
through his Spirit that dwells in you.

Responsorial Psalm PS 24:1B-2, 3-4AB, 5-6

R. (see 6) Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;
the world and those who dwell in it.
For he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the rivers.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?
or who may stand in his holy place?
He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,
who desires not what is vain.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.
He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,
a reward from God his savior.
Such is the race that seeks for him,
that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.
R. Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face.

Alleluia EZ 33:11

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked man, says the Lord,
but rather in his conversion that he may live.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel LK 13:1-9

Some people told Jesus about the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.
He said to them in reply, 
“Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way 
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
By no means!
But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!
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 I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”

And he told them this parable: 
“There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, 
and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none,
he said 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?’
He said to him in reply,
‘Sir, leave it for this year also, 
and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; 
it may bear fruit in the future.
If not you can cut it down.’”