The World of the Gospel
From the Holy Gospel According to Luke (13:1-9)
Some people who were present told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply,
"Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did! Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did!"
And he told them this parable: "There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, 'For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. (So) cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?'
He said to him in reply, 'Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.'"
Fruits of Repentance
The Israelites believed that calamities were punishment for sins. Eliphaz the Temanite asserted that Job was stricken with leprosy because his iniquities were manifold (Jb 22:5). When Jesus is asked by his disciples, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" (Jn 9:1-12), he cautions them against making hasty conclusions. In today's Gospel, the admonition is repeated. The Galileans massacred by Pilate and the eighteen people who were killed when a tower fell at Siloam are not worse sinners than others. Death does not make a distinction between the good and the bad. It may come to anyone at any moment. But while Jesus does not judge those who fell victim to man's cruelty or unexpected calamity, he uses these two incidents to make a call for repentance. He tells the living that procrastinating about their conversion may earn for them a worse fate: judgment in God's hands.
Jesus further emphasizes his message with the parable of the fig tree which is used as a symbol of Israel(Jer 8:13; Hos 9:10). God is the owner of the vineyard (Is 5:7); Jesus is the vine-dresser who proposes the possible measures but admits that these are final. The message is clear: Israel, who has been barren, is given a final opportunity to repent and produce fruits of conversion.
Taken with kind permission from The World of The Gospel column in Sambuhay, ST PAULS, 7708B St. Paul Road, SAV, Makati City, Philippines; Tel.: (632) 895-9703; Fax: (632) 895-7328; E-mail: publishing@stpauls.ph; Website: http://www.stpauls.ph.
About the author:
Fr. GIL ALINSANGAN hails from Iloilo, Philippines and is a member of the SOCIETY OF ST. PAUL, a religious congregation of priests and brothers devoted to the apostolate of communications media. He was ordained priest in 1980. In 1989, he obtained his Licentiate in Sacred Scriptures (SSL) from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.
The author is the editor of the missalette Sambuhay and of the biblical-liturgical diary 365 Days with the Lord. He also teaches New Testament exegesis at San Carlos Seminary Graduate School of Theology and Don Bosco Center of Studies. He is in the executive board of the Episcopal Commission for the Biblical Apostolate (ECBA) and the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines (CBAP). He has authored two books: In Peaceful Stillness, published in 2001 and The Gospel of the Cross, published in 2004.
