Gospel Commentary: The urgency of love

By Fr. Joseph M. Rampino | For the Catholic Herald

3/20/19

GOSPEL COMMENTARY Lk 13:1-9

This third Sunday of Lent, the Lord has strong words for us: “If you do not repent, you will all perish!” We might consider this to be a little too much were it coming from the pulpit. Such a statement, that unless we turn from our sins, we will die a horrible death, might easily fall into the “fire and brimstone” category. But Jesus is insistent, and we know that everything he says comes from his Sacred Heart, which constantly burns with perfect love for each of us. So those difficult words are in fact words of incredible love. They must be.

Jesus reveals the meaning of his startling words through the parable that follows his warning. We hear of a gardener who defends the life of an unproductive tree on the land of his master. He earns one last growing season for the tree, during which he provides it with everything it could possibly need for growth, and more, in the hope that it will, at long last, bear the fruit for which it was planted. Who is the gardener but Jesus himself? Who is the tree but each one of us?

When Jesus warns us to repent, he is telling us he has earned for us one final age, this one, in which to find mercy. He is telling us he has pleaded for us, and won us the opportunity to bear the fruit we were meant to bear: love of God and of our neighbor, that we might enter heaven. He is telling us he will provide everything we could possibly need in terms of divine assistance, if we would only let him help us.

We must take Our Lord at his word and understand him as seriously as he seems to desire. His urgency is the urgency of love, like the warning of a parent to a child in grave danger.

The truth is that if we do not continually turn away from sin and, with the help that comes from God alone, learn to love him more deeply than we love anything else, we will in fact perish forever — not as the arbitrary punishment of a capricious and cruel God, but the natural result of turning away from the source of our life. The commandment that we love God above all else is not a demand from an insecure deity who must always be affirmed to feel comfortable, but simply the truth that human nature is only at rest when in the act of loving God. Indeed, God does not need our love, being already complete in himself, but he knows that we are structured in such a way that we desperately need to love him in order to become entirely who we are as human beings.

The Lord pleads with us only that we do what is already for our benefit, and which will therefore be for the benefit of others. If we listen to his urgings, if we examine our lives for the things that keep us from loving God totally and if we confess our sins well during this Lenten season, the perfect love of the Father stands open to us. What stops us but pride, or the fear that comes from pride? What is the price of this mercy but humility? We do well to recall our Father’s voice in the book of Ezekiel:

“Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone … so turn, and live” (Ezek 18:31-32).

Fr. Rampino is parochial vicar of Blessed Sacrament Church in Alexandria.

Sunday Gospel Reflections

3rd Sunday of Lent
Reading I: Exodus 3:1-8,13-15 II: 1Cor 10:1-6,10-12

Gospel
Luke 13:1-9

¹ There were some present at that very time who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
² And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered thus?
³ I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
⁴ Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Silo'am fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who dwelt in Jerusalem?
⁵ I tell you, No; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish."
⁶ And he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.
⁷ And he said to the vinedresser, 'Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?'
⁸ And he answered him, 'Let it alone, sir, this year also, till I dig about it and put on manure.
⁹ And if it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Interesting Details

(vv.1-5) Luke alone records these incidents. In this highly politically charged atmosphere of Roman-occupied Palestine, Jesus faces yet another trap. If He ignores this event, He will be accused of insensivity to His people. But if He criticizes Pilate, He will probably be reported to the Roman authorities and be punished by them.
The fig tree would have three years to grow after planting. From then, the tree bears fruit ten months out of the year, and so one can reasonably expect to find fruit at almost any time. The fruit of the next three years is considered forbidden (Lev 19:23). The fruit of the seventh year is considered clean and ought to be offered to the Lord (Lev 19:24). The owner in this parable has come seeking fruit for three years, hence it is nine years since planting, and yet it is still barren.
The parable is not about trees but about the nation's leadership: the scribes and the chief priests. They (= the fig trees) are stealing life from the people (= the vineyard; Isa. 5:7). Jesus accuses them as fruitless and should be rooted out. Later, in 20:19, they understand that the vineyard parables are directed to them.
Luke's approach of the fig tree stories is particularly interesting. Unlike Matthew & Mark which relate an encounter between Jesus and a fig tree bearing no fruit. But in Luke, the fig tree is allowed to have more time; indeed, it has already had its time.

One Main Point

What took place in Galilee and at Siloam were not judgments of God. But a severe judgment lies ahead for another place, Jerusalem, where God established a dwelling place among the chosen people.

Reflections

Am I so often focused on the evils to be uprooted that I neglect the need for personal reform as well?
If I learned that I will die tomorrow, what is the one thing that I would have done differently? How hard would it be for me to do that every day?