Luke 13:1-9 I’m not a gardener. In fact, I have what they call a brown thumb. I wouldn’t know when to prune a bush or to fertilize the flowers. I water the lawn when I remember, but too often I forget. So, I can’t comment on Jesus’ parable of the fig tree from a gardener’s perspective. But, it’s the conversation that happens before the parable that catches my eye. It’s human nature to try to figure out why things happen to people. There’s got to be a reason, or, so we think. When Katrina hit, certain preachers, blamed the residents of the region for their moral laxity. The same thing happened on 9-11 – Our nation was reaping what it had sown. For some reason there’s a tendency to think that suffering is God’s punishment for our sins. That’s the message Job’s friends brought him when things went bad. When Jesus heard that Pilate massacred a group of Galileans worshiping peacefully in Jerusalem, he raised the question of why. Were they worse sinners any other Galileans? And, what about t...
Sermons of a Disciples Preacher Ministering in Troy, Michigan