Lent 3 - What does it mean to say God is with us?

Gone a bit "off piste" with the lectionary this week - preaching on Habukkuk 3: 17-19 and Luke 13: 1-9

You may have barely heard of Habukkuk – you might, like me, have trouble spelling his name – but I promise you, you will want to know the question he asks.

About 600 years before Jesus – time after Assyria conquered God’s people in the land of Judah – and the Babylonians or Chaldeans ruling Judah instead.

The tiny land of God’s people has just breathed out from one invasion, and then another comes. And in the midst of it the prophet Habakkuk asks ‘what does it mean to say God is with us, if it doesn’t mean safety and success?’.

 

If we are God’s people; if God is with us; why is it all going so wrong?

More importantly, can we still believe in God when life is at its toughest?

 

Habbakuk’s answer is a kind of poem:

The fig tree has no buds

The vine bears no harvest,

 

The olive crop fails,

The orchards yield no food,

The fold is bereft of its flock,

And there are no cattle in the stalls.

EVEN SO I will exult in the lord and rejoice in the God who saves me.

The Lord God is my strength.

 

Habakkuk is clear that God’s people will not be protected from all the bad things that can happen in this world – and surely being without food is the worst – but God is God, God is with them, and God will bring them through it.

 

You might have heard that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, a week after the invasion by Russians troops started :

"Even if you destroy all our Ukrainian cathedrals and churches, you will not destroy our faith, our sincere belief in Ukraine and God, belief in people.”.

Zelensky is from a Jewish family – he might well know about the prophet Habakkuk – he certainly understands about the deep faith of the Ukrainian people: about 25% of the population claim to be Orthodox, and about 6% Catholic – despite the persecution of Christians in the days of the Soviet Union.

 

A terrible war rages in Ukraine, and yet the president declares, and many of the people believe, that God is God, God is with them, and God will bring them through it.

 

And here we are – half way through Lent, remembering that Jesus was no stranger to suffering. As we travel closer to Easter we remember Jesus’ own sacrifice and suffering, but we have heard the story today of Jesus’ reaction to stories of suffering of others, in his time.

 

Some people want to know how Jesus reacts to the stories of terrible persecution by Pilate (whatever the details of what actually happened) – and Jesus also mentions a tower falling on 18 people at Siloam.

Jesus wants to address the question of ‘what does it mean to say God is with us, despite all that is happening around us?’.

He starts by being clear that it is not that terrible things happen to terrible people “Do you suppose that because these Galileans suffered this fate, they must have been greater sinners than anyone else in Galilee? No”.

Jesus then points out that the end will come for all of us – and we need to turn away from sin, to repent, to show good fruit in our lives, while we get the chance.

 

Then Jesus tells a parable – to get us thinking.

A man has a fig tree in his vineyard – but no figs. For three years he’s had no figs.

So he tells his gardener, his vine-dresser, to cut down the fig tree ‘why should it go on taking goodness out of the soil?’.

But the gardener says ‘Leave it for one year, while I dig round and manure it…and if it bears fruit next season, well and good’.

 

It’s not a hard parable to understand – give it a chance, wait and see. If it is about us and our fruitfulness, we might breathe a sigh of relief that God will give us a second chance.

 

But.. it is not JUST a story about waiting and seeing. It’s a story about change.

The gardener doesn’t just wait – he does something to bring about a change in the tree. He digs round, he manures it.

 

I have learned a bit about fig trees while I’ve been living in the South West. In the garden, when we moved in, there was a tiny tree – not much more than a stick  - about a foot high, with just 2 little branches & about 10 leaves. It was a fig. It was in a sunny corner, and it seemed relatively happy – but small. Someone told me that fig trees want a lot of feeding – in fact they had once been told the best way to encourage a fig tree to grow was to bury a dead donkey at the roots. There being no dead donkeys around in Somerset, I tried compost instead. Last year was its seventh year of being treated with compost dug in around it every Spring.. the tree is now about 10 feet high, with several quite mature branches, and we had probably about 30 or 40 figs from it over the summer.

 

Jesus gives good gardening advice – wait patiently, and dig in manure.

But he wants us to think about our own lives, not just our plants.

When life is hard, we have to hunker down sometimes – and remember that God is God, God is with us, and God will bring us through the hardship.

 

What does it mean to say God is with us? It means that we can endure.

But knowing God is with us also means we need to embrace what helps us to grow – what feeds our roots, what brings joy and peace – because that is what will produce fruit in us. 

It is not enough to grimly endure hardship, we need to look to live our lives turning to God, allow the gifts of God to nurture us, and be ready to show the gifts of God’s Spirit in our lives, to bless others.

 

In the words of Habbakuk and in the words of Jesus today there is a challenge to us.

Hold onto faith in God even when times are hard – even when there are no figs – exult in the Lord your strength.

Hold onto faith in God even when there is suffering – but remember that God is with us in the darkest night.

Hold onto faith in God and trust that God’s love, mervy and grace can feed your soul – and that you can not only survive but thrive – changing your life to be more faithful to God, walking more closely with Jesus, and producing the fruit of the Spirit.

All to God’s praise and glory. Amen.