Hooey Happens

Smells like hooey to me!

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

Lent 3, Year C – 28 February 2016

Text: Luke 13:1-9

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – final stanza

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

“Into each life some rain must fall…” writes Longfellow, realizing that everyone faces difficult times, sad times, slow times, times when the light is barely making it through the clouds.

Today’s gospel lesson starts off with some people asking Jesus why bad things have happened to good people. We don’t know the details, and the actual history of these events has been lost to us. But what we can gather from what Luke tells us is that first, some Galileans have been killed brutally by Pilate, and second, some other people have died after a tower fell on them. These incidents apparently are the current events of the day, and the people talking to Jesus want to know from him if these horrible things have happened because of the sins of those who died.

These are ancient questions: Who can we blame for these horrible events? Whose sin is to blame? And yet, Jesus seems offended at the very idea of casting blame, and he reminds his listeners that they are all sinners, and they are all in need of repentance.

And then he tells a story with some hooey in it:

There’s a fig tree in a vineyard that’s been there for three years, but for three straight years, it’s borne no fruit. Not one blessed fig has grown on this thing. The landowner tells the gardener to cut it down so that something fruitful can be put in its place. 

And right when you think the fig tree is about to meet its end, the gardener speaks up, asking for one more year. The gardener knows that he can take even better care of the fig tree, adding some hooey to the soil around its base, so that the tree will grow better and become fruitful.

This parable is, on one hand, a basic gardening lesson: make the soil as good as possible, and the plant will grow the best it possibly can.

On the other hand, this parable also reminds us of a universal life truth: that sometimes, hooey happens. Or, to go back to Longfellow, “into each life some rain must fall.” Now, sometimes, things do happen as a result of someone else’s sinfulness, or someone’s intention to cause harm. That’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about here are difficult situations that arise as a part of a course of events.

I’m reminded of a question my Mom used to ask herself whenever she was facing a difficult situation: “What might God be trying to teach me in this?” The beauty of this question is that it helps us see that even when we are in the thick of things, we can still be open to God and what God is teaching us. This question also takes the focus off of blaming others for the challenges we face, and it helps us rightfully focus upon the greater lessons to be learned.

When I was on internship, a retired pastor and his wife in the congregation invited Steve and me over for lunch after church one Sunday. He had goats, and the goats had baby goats, and he wanted to take a picture of me holding a baby goat in my clerics, just for fun. So, over we went to their home – and we went outside to meet the goats and get our picture taken. And then the retired pastor asked me to walk over to another part of the yard, so I followed him over to the feed trough for the goats.

“Walk around it,” the pastor said, “In a circle.” So, I walked in a circle around the trough.

When I finished, I looked expectantly at the pastor, as if to ask him what had been the purpose of that little exercise.

“Sometimes, in ministry, you’re gonna have to walk through hooey,” he said, “And I wanted you to have some experience literally walking through hooey. Now, whenever you face a time when you have to walk through some hooey, you can do it, knowing you’ve done it before.”

Of course he was right – there is hooey to walk through in ministry, just as there is hooey to walk through in every line of work or every grade of school. In our everyday lives, in our relationships, and even in our walks with God, we face challenges that sometimes seem beyond us. In every difficulty, in every situation, that question lies before us: “What might God be trying to teach me in this?”

Sometimes, God might be trying to teach us humility. St. Augustine believed that the manure in the parable is a symbol of humility. In this view, it’s the manure that keeps us humble and the manure that keeps us from thinking too highly of ourselves, so that we can see our own need for repentance.

It is through repentance that – instead of casting blame on others - we see the sin in our own hearts and in our own lives. It is through repentance that we then find grace and strength from God to turn away from sin and receive forgiveness.

As I’ve thought about this parable more and more this week, I’ve decided that the manure around the base of the fig tree can certainly represent the challenges that arise in our lives, or it can represent humility, as Augustine said. But more than that, I think the manure can represent anything in our lives that causes our faith to grow, whether those are difficulties, or changes, or risks we take, or even positive outcomes. What might God be trying to teach me in this difficulty, or this risk, or in this great new thing that is opening up in my life?

Once we start to ask this question of ourselves, again and again we see the hand of God at work in our lives. Again and again, we see that even though hooey happens, Jesus is the patient gardener, working the soil around our roots with great care and in great love. Thanks be to God for that – and for the manure, for the strength to repent and the grace to be forgiven.

Amen.