This is one of those Bible stories that I’ve never fully gotten my arms around. Both parts. The first one is gruesome and almost sounds cruel. Here’s a take, people aren’t killed (or die) because they’re evil or deserve it. The key point seems to be when Jesus says, “Were worse sinners…” If the idea is that those Galileans died because they were wretched sinners, Jesus has something to say about that. Now a tower falling on someone isn’t unicorns and rainbows but death happens. Sometimes it’s gruesome and unexpected and other times it happens just at the end of someone’s life. But Jesus words, “Unless you repent..” certainly sounds urgent. Are we ok with urgency in our faith? 

   The fig tree parable seems unfinished. What happened? An important thing not to do here is to assign roles of God and Jesus to the characters in this parable. It’s not as if God is angry and Jesus comes to our defense. That doesn’t jive with our theology. Now there is some call to account here. This tree isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do and the owner is justified in their frustration. But there is also grace. For three years it has wasted the soil but there is hope that it will bear fruit. But we don’t know what happens. It is given every opportunity to do what it’s supposed to do and we could do some expansion on what manure looks like in our spiritual lives. 

   Maybe the classic Lent feel to this passage is how open ended it is. We have no idea what happens to the tree, we have no clue how the deaths of the Galileans or the victims of the tower collapse were resolved. There is tension to this passage, as if more is yet to come, and needs to come.