Sledgehammers and Crowbars and the Kingdom of God

Lent 3C; Exodus 3:1-15; Luke 13:1-9; St. Paul’s Smithfield, NC 2/28/2016

Jim Melnyk: “Sledgehammers and Crowbars and the Kingdom of Heaven”

“The disciples of a rabbi came to him, and they asked him about the zaddick, a zealous people who work themselves into a frenzy to reach ecstasy and religious enlightenment.  So [the rabbi] told them this [parable]…

‘Once a king created a great maze of complicated passageways.  He then sat in the center of the maze and told his followers to come to him.  The first group entered the maze with sledgehammers and crowbars.  They forced their way to the center.  The second group came in very quietly and gently, wandering around the maze.  Whenever they came to a complicated, twisted turn, they wrote out a little message and left it there for those who were to come after them.

The rabbi said that those of the first group were obsessed with the command of the king to come to him.  Those in the second group, conversely, had faith that the king would magnetically draw them to himself’” (Edward Hays, The Lenten Labyrinth).

This is certainly a story about God.  It’s a story about a God who is patient, who calls for us and waits for us, and who trusts us to find our way home to our Creator.  This rabbinic parable is also a story about humanity – about a people who choose many ways to seek the God who calls.  The parable is about a people who can be obsessive, single-minded, and violent in their search for God; and about a people who can be patient, thoughtful, and caring toward others, as they seek the heart of God.

The hammer-wielders of this world boldly and heroically smash their way toward the kingdom, trying their best to push or pull others along the way and crush those who get in their way.  The quickest route between here and heaven is a straight line with the gas pedal pushed to the floor, and God help (or consign to hell) anyone who doesn’t jump on board or gets in their way. 

The hammer-wielder’s God is not always patient, and their God’s quality of mercy is often strained.

The wanderers of this world know their final destination, and trust God to see them there.  They are the ones who stop for others in need along the way.  They are the ones who leave little messages along the way for those who follow after.  They hear the voice of God in the stranger as well as the friend and neighbor.  The wanderers know that heaven can indeed wait, and will wait.  They know that God will honor their faithfulness in the journeying.  The wanderers’ God is constantly calling, correcting the wayward, and embracing the whole of creation. 

The God of those who wander is the God who claims the name “I Am”, or perhaps better translated, “I Will Be Who I Will Be”, or “The One Who Causes To Be What Comes Into Being.”  This God is a God of process – this God is a God of becoming – who has left sledgehammers and crowbars behind long ago.

Our Gospel story today shares a theological reality with the rabbinic tale.  It’s a story about the patience of God in a situation that seems to beg a more expedient solution.  The comments by Jesus about the Galileans killed by Pilate, and those killed by the falling tower, tell us that Jesus is very conscious that time is running out – especially as he nears Jerusalem and what awaits him there.  There is a tension between the seriousness of people closing their eyes and ears to the Good News, and Jesus’ hope for humankind.  We can sense our Lord’s frustration as he tells his listeners, “but unless you repent, you will perish just as they did.”  By this pronouncement from Jesus, we are reminded of our own sinfulness, a nature shared by all humanity.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He goes on to tell a story of his own.  It’s a story about the mercy of God – about the steadfast love God shows to God’s people.  The owner of a vineyard comes to the gardener wanting a barren fig tree cut down.  Fig trees exact a great toll on the soil, and to have one taking up the soil’s nutrients without return seems wasteful.  But the gardener stands between the owner and the fig tree and asks for patience.  “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

One cannot help but see the promise of the Risen Christ in the words and actions of the gardener.  It’s a powerful image given to us in this story – it’s an image of God, who in the person of Jesus, kneels in the dirt and mud, digging about the roots of an unwanted, unfruitful, tree, in an attempt to bring about new life.  Think of the image of a God who is willing to get scratched and muddy, hands and arms manure-streaked and bruised, for the life of one tree.  Going even further – consider the image of those who managed to cut down a bothersome tree – only to see it rise again three days later.  Oh, what a wonderful God we have – who shares so much with us – who’s passion for us runs so deeply.

We might ask, “What of the next year?  What if there’s no fruit on the fig tree after all that work?”  Surely the owner of the vineyard has a limit?  Surely the mercy of God has its limits?  But I’m inclined to ask, “What if there’s the slightest bit of new growth?”  Wouldn’t the gardener find a way to give that tree one more season, then another, and another?  Would the Christ we claim to have descended to the dead to proclaim Good News not accept our turning at any point?

When we, or God for that matter, draw a line in the sand and say, “No more!” doesn’t our love – doesn’t God’s love – become conditional?  Maybe it’s our inability to love with the heart of God that demands a deadline for the barren fig tree – and some sort of “holy deadline” for humanity. 

Maybe it’s our own need for God’s love and forgiveness that makes us more concerned with the plight of the barren fig tree, or the other person’s sin, instead of the love of God which calls us each into new life.  The hammer-wielders of the rabbi’s parable see the barren fig tree as a lost cause to be cut down and thrown into the fire, or an obstacle to be ignored and slammed out of the way.  There is little patience on their part for those who cannot or will not get with the program – which coincidently matches their own belief systems.  The head-long, hammer-wielding, rush to the king at the center of the maze has no time for those who are left along the way, or those who don’t fit neatly into compact, set-in-stone belief systems.  Yet in another Gospel story, this one by Matthew, the hammer-wielders who find themselves before the throne of God are at a loss when they hear, “Depart from me… for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me” (Matt. 25:41-42).

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all face the world as the rabbi’s wandering disciples faced the king’s maze?  As wanderers we would stop for that barren fig tree.  Heaven can wait – God will wait – while we dig about its roots with the gardener’s help, and offer it care and nourishment along the way.  As wanderers we will risk getting run over by the hammer-wielders or caught upside the head by a stray crowbar every time we stop to care for those in need of help and love – every time we stop to leave a little message of encouragement or direction along the way – every time we stop to offer the Good News of God in Christ rather than a word of judgment.  And stop we must as followers of the One who stopped for us on Calvary’s tree.  Wanderers are vulnerable in this world – but then again, so was our Lord.

The hard truth is that each of us is often as much a hammer-wielder as a wanderer – Lent reminds us that sometimes we take up a crowbar instead of the cross.  The wonderful promise – the Good News – is that God gives us the power and the heart to become more and more the wanderer we see and know in Jesus.  And as wanderers, we know that heaven can indeed wait – that heaven will indeed wait for us – that God will indeed wait for us – as we journey among our sisters and brothers with the love of Christ enfolding us – as we journey into the heart of God.