As I prep to preach the Gospel for this Sunday, I am struck by Jesus' serious tone. "If you do not repent you will all perish as they did." To turn from the sinful life to the life of Jesus is not easy. We can't do it alone. We need others to help us, to tell us the truth about ourselves, and to help us seek Jesus' way in all things. I think the following article from "Pulpit Resource", a journal I read for sermon help, says something about us:
"We were watching a TV program on "New Paradigm Churches", those burgeoning churches, many of whom are found in Southern California. A young man was being interviewed, a pastor of one of those fast growing churches. His church gathers each week, led in music by a rock band, a church with a median age under thirty.
The reporter asked the pastor to what did he attribute the phenomenal growth of his congregation. The pastor replied,"I think you've got a generation of young adults that never had anybody look them into the eyes, and say directly to them, in love, 'You really, really suck.'"
Jesus knows that God desires to spiritually nourish us for an abundant life. But we choose the "food" that doesn't nourish. We make idols, we lust, we test Christ, we complain. What our the American idols? Money, cars, sports, home ownership, entertainers. how do we test Christ? We keep on sinning, knowing full well what we do. But trusting that God will forgive us forever. But what if judgment is real? What if God won't put up with our crap forever? "He will come again to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end." We profess it as truth.
Jesus tells a parable about an unfruitful fig tree. The vineyard owner wants it cut down, but the gardener pleads to give it another year. He promises to dig around it and fertilize it. If, after a year, it still does not produce, cut it down. How are we like the unfruitful fig? How has Jesus interceded for us, tended and nourished us? Bad news: We suck, we are fruitless. Good news: God doesn't suck. God loves sucky people. God won't tolerate people who know they suck and reuse to stop sucking. We are meant to bear fruit. We are meant to offer ourselves to the creative justice/mercy/love mission of God.
