Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?
By no means!
It was commonly thought that such tragedies were occasioned by the particular sins of those involved. Jesus rejected that idea, and with it the superiority that one might have felt by having oneself been spared. The people who heard about the victims of these tragedies were learning from them the wrong lesson. They were judging others and inferring from that judgment that they themselves were "standing secure".
But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!
It was not that the victims were necessarily any worse than anyone else, and that was in any case beside the point, for, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" (see Romans 3:23). Yet, clearly Jesus did not mean that all sinners would suffer violence in this life. So in what sense would they perish as did the victims? The risk was that they might find their lives unexpectedly demanded of them (see Luke 12:20) and be unprepared. The only way to be ready for death was to repent and believe the Gospel. So in some sense any death not preceded by conversion was equally tragic to that of the victims. If some of the victims had in fact repented then there deaths would have only seemed a tragedy to the outside observer, which is all the more reason Jesus discouraged judging the state of those others in favor of looking to the state of one's own soul.
For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree
but have found none.
True repentance is more than a tacit acknowledgment of past sins. It includes the firm purpose of amendment, in evidence of which we should actually "Bear fruit in keeping with repentance" (see Matthew 3:8). Yet in three dispensations of nature, law, and grace we still find that a multitude "whose hearts are neither corrected by the law of nature breathed into them, nor instructed by precepts, nor converted by the miracles of His incarnation" (Saint Gregory the Great). As the prime example, even after three years of the public ministry of Jesus the fig tree of Israel remained substantially bare of fruit.
Why should it exhaust the soil?
How about us, we on whom the end of the age has come, we who have the examples of those from the past with whom God was not pleased to chasten us? They had a shadow of baptism, the presence of the Spirit as something only external and separate, and ate a spiritual food and drank a spiritual drink that were good only for bodily health and life. We have been baptized, and the cloud of God's presence now resides in us as spiritual temples. Each week we are invited to feast on the body and blood of the Lord himself. Do we bear fruit for the Kingdom, or are we simply exhausting the soil? And as a consequence, how ready are we, should tragedy strike?
These things happened to them as an example,
and they have been written down as a warning to us,
upon whom the end of the ages has come.
We do not know with certainty what happened to those who have gone before us, save the official roaster of saints. Therefore Jesus advises us to worry less about them and more about those who are still alive and able to decide for or against him. That we are still here is not so much a test, though in some sense it is, as a sign that his mercy is protecting us, giving us the opportunity to become who we ought to be, bearers of the fruits of the Spirit.
He said to him in reply,
‘Sir, leave it for this year also,
and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it;
We don't enjoy being unsettled. We enjoy the fertilizer of humility even less. Yet these are signs of the mercy of the gardener for those of us who are too hardened in our ways and too attached to the pleasures of this world. It might seem to us that we would grow by dining sumptuously, but the gardener knows best. We should remind ourselves of this when we are tempted to "grumble as some of them did". Mercy is the reason why we are still here, held in existence, able to receive care of the gardener. We should recognize him at work, lest we too harden our hearts, remain barren, and be finally taken unawares by the destroyer. This is not what Jesus wants for us! He is pleading for us to his Father, and pleading to us to let him work. May we do so.
Merciful and gracious is the LORD,
slow to anger and abounding in kindness.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
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