In the first world war, the Allied forces called the Germans “Huns” in an effort to tie them to the barbarian Attilla the Hun who had terrorized most of the Roman Empire during the 5th Century. After the “Huns” invaded Belgium, stories began to circulate about how these soldiers were cutting the hands off of children, and worse, how these men were so callous that they would throw babies in the air, and impale them on their bayonets. And these weren’t the only stories. Many more stories of their viciousness made it into the ears of common folk. And people were enraged. And they were motivated to fight in the war. Because this evil could not be allowed to survive.
Towards the end of the war, some of the Germans dissented against the war, and worked toward signing a peace deal, and in June of 1919, Germany and the Allied Nations signed the Treaty of Versailles. But only a little over a year later, people began to hear that there were soldiers, and civilians, who had stabbed the German people in the back, by giving in to peace. Germany would never have lost the war, it was claimed, because they were the stronger force, and it was only because of these backstabbing deserters, these sneaky cowards that Germany signed a peace treaty. These people, the conspiracy claimed, were governed by an international cabal of people who had infiltrated the government at all levels, including the military, to quietly manipulate the wheel of power, and they needed to be removed by all means necessary. And people were enraged. And they were motivated to fight. They felt the need to eradicate these people who had stabbed Germany in the back. Because these evil, barbaric Jews could not be allowed to survive.
This is part of what we see happening in today’s Gospel. Apparently, Pilate, the Roman Governor, had his men enter into the temple, where they killed a number of Galileans who were making sacrifices to God. Their blood mingled with the blood of the sacrificed animals, thereby defiling the temple. Pilate had committed this horrific act, and the Judean people were outraged at this barbarism. They wanted to fight, and they wanted to see justice done.
In the Gospel leading up to the passage we read today, Jesus has been telling the people that they should not fear death – or those people who can kill the body. Instead, they ought to be people who profess and declare the glory of God. Instead of being afraid, they should trust in the Holy Spirit to be their defense even in the face of danger.
He has told them to guard their hearts and minds against greed, because a person’s life does not consist in the amassing of an abundance of possessions. Instead, he says, make sure to store up wealth in heaven. That is, put your mind toward God, so that you have abundant life, rather than an abundance of things in your life.
He tells them not to worry about food, or what they will wear, because life is about more than these things. He compares them to the birds, and says, none of these creatures worries about anything. Be like them, because you are more precious to God than a sparrow. Do not worry, because worry is directing your mind, your thoughts, upon the things of this world. But God knows what you need, and will provide for you. Instead of worrying about the things the world worries about, put your mind on things in heaven, because your treasure is where your thoughts and your heart are.
He tells them a story about slaves who know what their master has asked of them, but who still refuse to do it, and instead, follow their own desires, and follow their own ideas about what can be done while they wait for their master’s return. And Jesus tells them that the slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself would receive a severe beating. In other words, the master let you know what he wanted, but you had your own thoughts, your own ideas about what is right, and by seeking your own desires, you blew it.
And all of these things that Jesus shared with them began with the warning to watch out for the “yeast” of the Pharisees. He was talking about their hypocrisy. The Pharisees would tell the people one thing, but do another. They would tell the people how to think, and then do the opposite of what they had told these people – not because they were unaware of what the master – what God – wanted of them – but because they had their own ideas and thoughts about what they could do with a population that was conditioned to think according to what they said.
And it is in this context – with this background of stories in which Jesus is telling them that they should turn their minds and hearts toward God – that the people bring up the slaughter in the temple. The slaughter of Galileans that mingled their blood with the blood of sacrifices. Almost as if they want to say, “How can we not worry when people are being barbaric and evil?”
And Jesus responds to this story by simply saying, “Oh, you think you’re better than Pilate? You think you’re better than those men that were killed?” And then he goes on, and asks them about another current event, the 18 men who died when a tower collapsed on them. “Do you think those men were any more sinful than anyone else?” You see, the people had been conditioned to think that being sinful – that is, not living up to what the Pharisees had told them – would bring them death, and they looked at those who died and assumed, “Well, they probably deserved it.”
But Jesus says to them, essentially, “I tell you these men weren’t more sinful than anyone else. And what’s more, you’re no better than these men. They did not get struck down because they deserved it. Sometimes bad things just happen to good people. And you all need to repent too, because your thinking has made you focused on your own life a little too much. Your thinking has pushed you into worrying about yourself, rather than doing what your master has asked of you. And let me tell you, if you don’t repent, you’ll die too.”
Several years ago, I was on the phone with a friend, talking about current events. Most of the conversion could be summed up with a visual image of us shaking our fists in the air while making an angry face. Finally, we came to a lull in the conversation, and I said, “Wow! That was good. I’m so glad we got a chance to express our righteous anger, and feel intellectually and morally superior to everyone else.” Then we had a good laugh at our own expense, and continued on with personal life updates.
Now, I tell you about this story, because that’s what Jesus was getting at with the people who brought up the killings in the temple. Outside of this passage in the bible, there is no record of this event in history. Not even Josephus, the Jewish Historian, mentions it. This leads us to believe that this story was most likely a rumor that was circulating wildly in order to make the people outraged, to feel oppressed, and to motivate them to act. They had been conditioned to think that some people deserved the evil that befell them, and conditioned to think the worst of those people that they already hated.
These people wanted Jesus to get on their side, to slam the Roman government with a statement of God’s wrath, so that they could feel morally and ethically superior.
You see, that’s what most of these stories are intended to do: to provoke people to anger, to move people to action, and to short-circuit the mechanism to stop, and to think if what they are doing is what the master wants them to do – or even just the best course of action at that given moment. Why? Because when people are outraged, they are easily manipulated.
You remember the babies impaled on bayonets? The children without hands? Lies. Pure fabrications. There was no such cruelty to children during the invasion of Belgium. What’s even more troubling is the real truth. After the war, it was discovered that the children that had gotten their hands chopped off were African children in the Congo. And these children had their hands cut off by the Belgian colonizers. The Belgians had taken a story of their own brutal history in the world, and successfully re-interpreted this story in order to cast themselves as the victims.
The theory of a cabal of government rubes stabbing Germany in the back was also a big lie. In fact, The Big Lie. The German government had ended the war, primarily because the economy was struggling, and they were running out of soldiers. Rather than admitting defeat, they recast history to cast themselves as the victims of someone else’s barbaric, evil intentions. In this case, the Jewish people, who were their neighbors, their coworkers, and even their friends.
The people spreading these lies did this because they knew that people were conditioned to outrage when you tell them that they have been victimized. That someone else has committed an outrageous act of barbaric evil. It doesn’t matter if it is true, as long as it makes you feel. Feel angry. Feel frightened. In the end, millions died, under the cover of moral outrage.
And the people said to Jesus, “Pilate murdered some people who were just in the temple to sacrifice sheep! How barbaric!” The unwritten question, of course, is “And what are you going to do about it?”
And Jesus said, “Unless you also repent, you will surely die as they did.”
That’s not the answer they were looking for.
But it makes clear that the battle between good and evil begins in the very center of our minds, and in our hearts, and in our soul. Evil often flourishes because it finds fertile soil in which to grow.
So what exactly is repentance?
Well, as mentioned before, we know that Jesus was telling the people to quit worrying, to quit being greedy, to not fear death, but instead to watch out for hypocrisy and to align their hearts and minds with the mind of God. And then, after telling people to repent, Jesus tells them a parable about a fig tree that is bearing no fruit. We tend to think of repentance merely as changing our behavior. But repentance is so much more than just changing our actions.
The Apostle Paul said that we should take every thought captive, and put it under Christ’s authority. That is, every thought we have needs to be put under scrutiny to see if it matches the work of Jesus in the world, and if it doesn’t, to adjust our thoughts to match the life of Christ so that our lives begin to bear fruit.
Every week we hear that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
If we ever catch ourselves reacting out of hatred, out of despair, out of a desire to sow discord and chaos, out of impatience, out of malice, out of selfishness, out of treachery, out of viciousness or with a lack of restraint, then we should take a look, and see if our thoughts have been hijacked. Those thoughts need to be re-aligned with Christ’s work, and brought under the control of Christ.
And how exactly do we do that?
The story of the fig tree gives us a guide. You see, as the land-owner comes back to inspect the crop of trees, he finds this fig tree that is three years old and has not borne any fruit yet. And he tells the gardener to chop it down because it is a waste of soil. But the gardener turns to the land-owner and says, “Hang on. Just give it a bit more time, let me put some manure on the roots, and if it still doesn’t produce any fruit, then you can get rid of it.
Now, to be clear, in this parable the land-owner is God, the gardener is Jesus, and we are the tree. And Jesus wants the land-owner to have mercy on us, so that Jesus can dig up the soil around us and cover us in manure. Sounds pleasant, doesn’t it? But this is done so that we might become fruitful.
St. Augustine said that the symbolism of this manure was humility, and a willingness to destroy our own selfish way of thinking. To allow our minds to shift into thinking according to God’s self-sacrificing desire for mercy. To replace our own selfishness with a righteousness that produces fruit worthy of the gift of our repentance.
If we are able to endure the manure, to endure Christ’s patient application of humility in our lives, then our lives will become those that are not tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness and deceitful scheming. And our lives will become fruitful. Our lives will be transformed from a desolate, barren fig tree, into lives that brim with joy, peace, and love, and that proclaim the glory of God in all that we do.
This is the hope of our repentance, and the hope of our call as believers.
And it is the way in which people who do not know joy, or peace, or love, find their way into the Garden of God, and into the hands of a patient gardener, who wants to show them the beauty of manure.
All we have to do is take the hit, and let Jesus deal with the manure.
[This sermon was delivered at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Wickenburg, AZ on March 23, 2025.]
