“Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”

May I speak in the name of the living God who is our creator, sustainer and redeemer. Amen

As we pass the 5^th anniversary of the first Covid 19 lockdown, it feels apt that one response to our readings might be to ask, ‘Why do bad things happen, and why does God seem so slow to act?’

For in today’s Gospel, Jesus is also confronted with suffering and tragedy. Some Galileans have been slaughtered by Pilate; a tower in Siloam has collapsed, killing eighteen. The crowd has come to Jesus with the same questions we ask today: Why? Why them? Why now? Was it their fault? Was it divine punishment?

Jesus offers neither easy nor glib answers. Rather, somewhat surprisingly he instead offers an uncompromising warning: “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5) and follows his warning by sharing the parable of the barren fig tree.

His words are razor sharp, urgent, and deeply unsettling. Instead of blaming others, Jesus demands that we look at ourselves. The real question isn’t why suffering happens – it’s what we are doing with the time we have left.

There is a great myth that pervades each generation. We want to believe that we are in control, that good people get rewarded and bad people get what they deserve. But Jesus blows this myth apart. The victims of Pilate’s brutality and the fallen tower aren’t singled out for their sins. Actions have consequences, tragedy happens, we live interdependent lives and none of us are immune from the changes and chances of life.

And we are living in deeply unsettling times. The ground which we inhabit no longer feels stable. The post war consensus is falling apart. Once trusted allies are no longer reliable. The values of integrity, honesty and equity are ridiculed as woke, whilst popularism, isolationism and self-interest are lauded. Our society feels broken, ill at ease with itself. Within our contemporary culture, we are witnessing a new arena, a virtual colosseum, for the playing out of these culture wars.

I don’t know if any of us have managed to see the quite extraordinary and deeply challenging and affecting Netflix series Adolescence. I would highly recommend it. It is not an easy watch as it uncompromisingly lays bare how the distortions of social media, relentless online bullying, male rage, and the objectification of women, are shaping young lives in deeply destructive ways.

In one stark narrative, the simmering anger and dehumanisation that begins online escalates into a tragedy: a young boy, poisoned by a culture that glorifies dominance and aggression, is accused of stabbing a young girl.

It reminds us that our digital age, with its isolating echo chambers and relentless pressure to conform to harmful ideals, is just one more arena where sin takes root and flourishes.

This modern horror compels us to ask, just as we have asked over the ages: Why do bad things happen, and why does God seem so slow to act?

We are living at a time when the very tools that connect us also amplify our worst instincts. Social media often rewards cruelty and fuels anger, much like the mental tropes we repeatedly employ when disaster strikes. There is always the risk that we retreat, look outside of ourselves for someone to blame, and in doing so convince ourselves that if we cast the fault on others, we might be safe, that we might somehow shield ourselves from similar fates.

But as the series shows, and today’s Gospel reminds us, this temptation digs deep down into our very souls. When we allow rage, dehumanisation, and objectification to go unchecked, we risk a present and future where tragedy is not an anomaly but a symptom of a society which has turned away from empathy and compassion.

In responding to the suffering and tragedy all around us Jesus warns: Stop looking at others. Start looking at our own lives. Christian discipleship starts with us. It starts with how we relate to one another.

St. Augustine puts it bluntly: “God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.” Suffering isn’t a divine scorecard – it’s a wake-up call. None of us have endless time. The question isn’t ‘Why do bad things happen?’, but ‘Are we are truly living as God calls us to live?’

Well, Lent is a season of repentance, where we seek to be attentive to God’s call on us.  Too often, we reduce repentance to a feeling of guilt or the words of a ritual. But biblical repentance – metanoia – means a complete reorientation of our hearts and minds towards God.

John Calvin – not someone I regularly quote – puts it this way: “Repentance is an inward matter, which has its seat in the heart and soul, but afterward yields its fruits in a change of life.”

C.S. Lewis, reflecting on repentance, wrote: “Fallen humanity is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.” True repentance is not a minor course correction – it is totally surrendering our ways to God’s ways.

The parable of the barren fig tree is call for urgency. Yes, the fig tree has been given time, but the window for fruitfulness is not indefinite. God is patient, but the focus of his patience is to lead us into action.

Isaiah in our first reading further draws us into the urgency of this call: “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”.

Our world is full of fig trees that bear no fruit. We see them all around us. We see them in all political systems that perpetuate injustice, violence and oppression, in churches that turn inward instead of outward, in our own lives when we delay doing what we know to be just and right. We assume we have endless time, but Jesus is telling us otherwise.

The barren fig tree in Jesus’s parable stands as a symbol for all that is unfulfilled, all those wasted opportunities to act in love, justice, and righteousness.

But this parable is not just about warning – it is also about hope. The gardener pleads for more time: “Sir, leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilise it”. Here is the grace of God at work in both word and deed. God does not give up on us. He nurtures, tends, and calls us to growth.

“Everyone who is thirsty, come to the waters” says Isaiah. God’s call is not one of condemnation but of invitation. He does not want us to remain barren; he longs for us to flourish. But flourishing requires a response.

Karl Barth once wrote, “God’s grace is not exhausted in merely forgiving sin, but is the power which transforms us and makes us new.” The delay of judgment in Jesus’ parable of the barren fig tree is not an invitation to complacency but a gift of time for transformation.

So, why does God seem slow to act? Perhaps the better question is, why are we so slow to respond? We wait for justice, we wait for peace, we wait for renewal – but all the time God is waiting for us to respond, to act.

Jesus’ words are clear: the time for repentance is now. The time to turn back is now. The time to bear fruit is now. Not out of fear, but because to live in step with God is to live in the fullness of God’s grace.

So, may this Lent be the time when we finally stop prevaricating and respond positively to God’s call. May we turn to God, not just in sorrow, but also confident in the hope and redeeming grace of God. And by doing so, may we, through God’s mercy, finally become the fig trees that produce the good fruit that God specifically created us to bear. Amen.