The son of a minister once said that he had heard his father preach in many places over 20 years but he had only ever heard one sermon. “You are a miserable sinner and you’re going to hell unless you turn to God.”

Sometimes I worry that’s the sermon Caroline hears through a difficult text like this past Sunday’s gospel, Luke 13: 1-9. It starts by talking about how worshipers at the Temple in Jerusalem had been slaughtered and then tells of other Jews who died when a tower fell on them. Jesus asks, do you think this happened because they were worse sinners than you? He then tells the parable of the fig tree which bears no fruit. The owner comes and tells the gardener to cut the fig tree down. The gardener pleas, “Sir, let alone for one more year until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.”

At lunch, after church, I asked Caroline where God was in this story.  She immediately responded, “God is the gardener, the one who saved the tree and is going to care for it so it can bear fruit.” “What’s our job in all this?” I asked her. “To be manure and help fertilize, spread the Word, so that everyone bears fruit,” she said.

Just when I think that “The Law” has overshadowed “The Gospel” – out of the mouth of children, even my sometimes prodigal Caroline, flows the “Good News.” We are saved by grace, not by works. We are blessed to be a blessing to others right here, right now – to keep fertilizing, even as we too have been fertilized and to turn to others in our faith community when we are not bearing fruit. What may appear to be manure to some, is Abundant Life for all. As Annie recently reminded me, there are several definitions for prodigal. One means a lavish giver – like the Prodigal Father – our Father in Heaven.

Read Romans 5:1-8, and remember that God loves you lavishly, extravagantly, and unconditionally!

Mike