Of Burning Bushes and Fig Trees

Text:  Exodus 3:1-15 & Luke 13:1-9

Theme:  “Of Burning Bushes and Fig Trees”

Third Sunday in Lent

February 28, 2016

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

5 “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” 6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father,[a] the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

7 The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. 8 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. 9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

12 And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[b] will worship God on this mountain.”

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[c] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,[d] the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,

the name you shall call me

from generation to generation.

* * *

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 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? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

6 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. 7 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?’

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

While not a huge fan of country music, I do enjoy an occasional song from Jerry Jeff Walker via my iTunes playlist!  One of my favorites is called “Gettin’ By”. 

Just gettin' by on gettin' bys my stock in trade, living it day to day

Pickin' up the pieces wherever they fall

Just letting it roll, letting the high times carry the low

Just living my life easy come, easy go

It’s a catchy, snappy tune, and it contains a philosophy of life, or outlook on life, that is very much in vogue.  Life has high times; life has low times.  Take it as it comes.  It’s easy come and easy go.  It’s about getting by.

The reason I’m on this earth is to “get by”.  You are on this earth to “get by”.  We are on this earth to “get by”.

How comfortable are you with this philosophy?  Are you okay with it?  I mean, it does tend to put things in perspective.  It takes into account that there will be low times, and, therefore, you don’t have to have some kind of cosmic meltdown when things don’t go your way.  It also encompasses the good times; you enjoy them for what they are.  You realize they won’t go on forever, and so you just take it all in stride. At the end of the day, it’s about gettin’ by.  You don’t ruffle anyone’s tailfeathers; you hope no one ruffles yours. You get by and you get along.  Simple.

If you wanted to make room for God or religion in this philosophy, I suppose you could but it’s not required.  God, religion, going to church, etc., could be good insofar as they assist you in getting by.  If not, then there’s no need for any of that.  No harm. No foul.

Long, long ago, there lived a man named Moses.   At first, his philosophy of life dealt primarily with emotions. The picture that emerges is that they (emotions) drove him. The emotion of anger prompted him to kill a man for beating one of his countrymen.  Then the emotion of fear prompted him to leave the land of Egypt and arrive at a place called Midian.  And there in Midian, tending the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro, he could live out his days under the rubric of “gettin’ by”.  No more anger.  No more fear.  Just end tend the flocks.  Get by on gettin’ by. 

But then something happened:  a burning bush happened.  God spoke from that bush.  The hearer was Moses.  “So go, now.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

“Who am I that I should go?” replies Moses.  It sounds just like what a guy would say whose philosophy is “gettin’ by”. “Who am I?  I’m no big deal. Surely there are people far more capable than me to accomplish this huge task.  I’m perfectly fine just tending the flocks here.” 

God said:  “I will be with you.”  In those moments, the philosophy of “gettin’ by” vanished from the life of Moses.  From that point on, his life would be one of faith in God and service to God’s people.  He did go with God, challenge Pharaoh, and lead His people to the promised land.

Many, many years later, Jesus, the Son of God made mention of another bush or tree.  He told a story, or parable, about a fig tree.    Now, the philosophy or purpose of a fig tree is not to simply “get by”.  A fig tree, in Jesus’ reckoning, isn’t there for looks or landscaping.   Given its name, the purpose of the fig tree, the reason for its existence, is to produce figs.  If it doesn’t produce, it has no purpose.  It might as well be cut down. 

The tree that Jesus spoke of was going through a three-year dry spell.  The owner of the tree kept coming back to the tree only to find no fruit, no figs.  What’s the point of the fig tree if there are no figs?

The person in charge of the vineyard made an appeal.  “Give me another year.  Let me water and fertilize it.”  In other words, let’s give it another chance. If it doesn’t work, cut it down.

Jesus employed this image of the fig tree in a conversation about repentance.  To repent means to change your mind, to do a complete 180 and go a different direction.  A non-repentant fig tree is a non-producing fig tree.  A repentant fig tree is a producing fig tree.  To repent, therefore, is to change course, change direction, and turn to or turn back to what God wants us to be.  No wonder John the Baptist, the cousin of our Lord, said “Bear fruit that befits repentance.” 

The story of the burning bush tells us that it is entirely possible for the philosophy of “gettin’ by”, so prevalent in our world today, to be replaced by something else:  faith in God and service to His people.  The story of the fig tree tells us that it is entirely possible to change your mind, to turn toward God or back to God and live a life of faith, love, and service.

Having heard of burning bushes and fig trees, it’s now time for a gut-check and some gut-level honesty.  I can almost hear someone thinking if not saying this:  “Pastor, I’ve tried and tried and tried.  I want to go with God, do what God wants me to do and serve His people, but sometimes I feel like I really don’t.  I mean, Christianity has become so political  -- both on the left and the right – and so judgmental too.   I’m conflicted about it.  I feel so old, incapable, so tossed around by this messed up world, so worn out.  I hear the nasty  discourses of candidates for elected office going on now, and it sickens me.  I hear of a 16 yr. old girl, a freshman in high school with her entire future ahead of her, and her life is snuffed out in a random, tragic, senseless accident. The world as it is overwhelms me, pastor.   My fightings and fears within and without nearly drive me insane, Rev. Dunklau.  About the best I can do is “get by”; it’s like I have no other choice.  Let the bush burn out.  And the fig tree?  Cut it down.

So what good are the burning bush and the fig tree if all they do is bring us back to square one?  Instead of a complete 180, it seems like a complete 360!  We’re back at where we started, gettin’ by on gettin’ by.

The good news I have for you, my friends, is that there is a third tree.  When a burning bush or fig tree is not enough, there will ALWAYS be the third tree. 

It wasn’t long after Jesus told the parable of the fig tree that some of His closest disciples were placed under arrest by the religious establishment.  They were ordered NOT to proclaim the gospel; they were not to share the good news that the death and resurrection of Jesus brought to people. 

In direct contradiction to that order of the religious establishment, the disciples said this:  “We must obey God rather than men!  The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead – whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.  God exalted Him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins.

The burning bush tells us that faith in God and serving His people is possible.  The fig tree urges us to embrace that possibility ourselves.  The tree of the cross grants forgiveness for all the times we haven’t.

Today, I don’t want to get by.  Let that not be my stock in trade.  No, today I want to overcome the world and I want you to join me.    As the apostle John said so beautifully:  “Everyone born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”

Amen.

They Nearly Threw Him Off A Cliff!

MEDITATION

Text:  1 Corinthians 13:1-13 & Luke 4:21-30

4^th Sunday after the Epiphany

January 31, 2016

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

* * *

He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”

24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy[a] in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

28 All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. 29 They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

The year was 1878.  Rutherford B. Hayes was President of the United States.  In February of that year, a war began that has come to be known as “The Lincoln County War” in the New Mexico area.  It brought names to national prominence – names like Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.  1878 was the year Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.  The Remington No. 2 Typewriter (with a shift key that allowed for lower and upper-case lettering) was introduced.    On a sad note, it was 1878 when yellow fever took the lives of over 13,000 people in the Mississippi Valley.   On a happier note, the Pope Manufacturing Company gave us the high-wheel bicycle, and that started a cycling craze in our country. 

Meanwhile, closer to home in Denton, Texas; in May of 1878; nearly 138 years ago, a Presbyterian mission congregation was established.  There were fourteen souls – 4 men and 10 women – as charter members.  At that time, two of the four men were ordained installed as ruling elders:  Mr. Louis Van Brown and Mr. Henry Upton DeVault.  Ordained and installed as the first deacon was Mr. D.R. Long.

Today, that same church – here and now – ordains and installs Charles Hubbard and Eric Manor as ruling elders and Christina Renteria as deacon.  There is a continuity of grace here that should not be overlooked.  The New Testament Scriptures teach that our ascended Lord gave gifts to His church, and among those gifts are the offices of elder and deacon.  And in keeping with God’s way of giving gifts, there is always more:  the gifts of these offices are gifted with the unique gifts of the people called to occupy them.  This has gone on quietly yet unmistakably for nearly 138 years.  To borrow a phrase I don’t use very often, “Can I get an ‘Amen’?”  AMEN.

The readings from the Bible you’ve heard today, for the 4^th Sunday after the Epiphany, present two things to minds and hearts.  First, we have a statement on love in 1 Corinthians – and a famous, beloved statement at that.  Secondly, we have a story from the life of Jesus.  With His public ministry underway, the Lord returns to His boyhood home of Nazareth and is a worship leader and preacher.  The people at the synagogue welcomed Him warmly.  They marveled at His gracious words.  It seemed to be a most happy day for them and for one of the sons of their synagogue.  Some of them had probably known Jesus since he was, as they say, “knee high to a grasshopper.”  “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” one of them asks.

Something utterly fascinating happens when we set this statement on love alongside the story of Jesus leading worship in His hometown.  This is what happens:  we’re given a choice.  Last week, you might recall, there was a similar choice that emerged.  In a nutshell, the question was along these lines:  are we going to be about membership, about being “card-carrying” Presbyterians who find their place in a religious organization, or are we going to be about discipleship?  With discipleship, we learned that it’s not about what we want for our organization, it’s about what God wants for His people. 

This week, similarly, we have two starkly different visions of what discipleship can look like.  It can be 1 Corinthians 13 discipleship, you might say.  In other words, it’s about love.  We could be the greatest church in town with police officers directing traffic due to the massive number of cars heading for the buffet after worship; we could be the religious “talk of the town”; we could have a golden-tongued preacher – some reincarnation of Billy Graham --  that everyone thinks is the cat’s meow; we could have outreach and inreach and programs for every conceivable need.  But if LOVE, God’s love, is not the sole motive, driving force, and reason for our being, then all we are doing is taking up space (in some instances, millions of dollars worth of space)  and cranking out carbon dioxide.  We might as well go home – and not begin the 139^th year!

What is love?  GOD is love, and, as our text declares:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.

That’s the first vision of what discipleship looks like:  it’s about love and it looks like love.  It’s God’s love.

The second vision of discipleship is about being right.  People of faith who are all about being right can often be most friendly and APPEAR to be most loving.  They can be conversational and even kind – to a point.  They can be warm, welcoming, and appreciative.  They can be pious and prayerful and devout.  In addition, they can be most generous.  They’re willing to sacrifice portions of time, talent, and treasure for the good of the cause.  They actually look like the believers in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth.

They can be many things, but there’s one thing they cannot be – and that is be wrong.  At the core of their being, they have to be right.  If they are not right, they crumble as individuals and as a community of faith.  If their version of right is challenged, they “take offense” almost immediately.

You see, that they were welcoming and friendly toward Jesus in Nazareth is only half of the story.  When Jesus started to share a few of what we might call “inconvenient truths”, their warmth and friendliness turned on a dime. 

He said that a prophet “is not welcome” in his hometown.  That got them scratching their heads.  But then He gave them a few observations from Israelite history.  When there was a famine in the land, to whom did God send a prophet?  It wasn’t to an Israelite. It was to a pagan widow from Sidon.  Back in the days of Elisha, there was a scourge of leprosy (kind of like a scourge of yellow fever in the Mississippi Valley in 1878).   None of the Israelites were cleansed, but only a pagan military commander from Syria by the name of Naaman. 

These statements from Jesus pushed those worshippers over the edge, so they literally attempt to throw Jesus over the edge.  Luke reports: 

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

You see, at the end of the day Jesus didn’t fit in with their view of what was right.  For them, it was all about being right.  Once you get past the coffee, the cookies, and the welcome team, there are churches like that today – churches that have to be right – and some of them are very successful in the way the culture defines success.

What does Jesus do?  Call down fire from heaven?  No.  He just walks through it all.  He goes on His way.  He and His followers, His disciples, walked through that crowd of people that had to be right. 

There is so much more than just being right:  there is Jesus.  He is God in the flesh, and God is love.  Jesus is the fulfillment of all that is right and the forgiver of all that is wrong.  His crucifixion was – and is! – sufficient payment.  Was payment accepted?  His resurrection from the grave at Easter clinches it.  In a word, it’s LOVE.

We are headed, as His followers, into, Lord willing, the 139^th year of existence – and today we follow on with two newly ordained elders and one newly ordained deacon. 

“Faith, hope, and love.  These three remain, but the greatest of these is love.”  And we get to walk with it, follow it, and live it. 

Amen.