As we continue our Lenten journey this day, we find ourselves reading Scriptures all about repentance.

To many people, repentance, sounds like an old-fashioned word – one that has gone somewhat out of favor in today’s society. You’re unlikely to hear it outside a church setting.

While the word may have gone somewhat out of style and common usage, its meaning is very much at the core of our faith life. If we are to follow Jesus, repentance must be a part of our commitment.

So what are we talking about when we say repentance? The Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary defines repentance as "a complete change of orientation involving a judgment on the past and a deliberate redirection for the future’.

In the book, Conversations with God, the author uses the word "remember" to help define repentance. It is to "re-member", to "re-attach" yourself to God. It’s turning back TO God.

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ conversation with those gathered around him presents two situations which give him an opportunity to reflect about repentance.

In the first story, about the deaths of many people, we encounter a long-held, but I think mistaken, interpretation of tragedy. The people are telling Jesus the terrible story of how Pilate killed some Galileans and mixed their blood with the blood of sacrifice. They believe that this cruel death was a punishment for their sins.

Jesus sets the story straight, quickly dismissing the idea that tragedy and sinfulness are related. The Galileans massacred by Pilate are like those killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed. They were not necessarily worse than anyone else.

I often encounter people in crisis because of illness or family or economic circumstance. And the questions "Why me? What have I done that God is punishing me?" are often asked. I find that so sad – and tragic. Jesus came to teach us about a God of love – not a God of retribution and punishment. If you develop cancer or have a heart attack, or lose your job, God is not punishing you. Bad things happen. Period. It’s the nature of the world we live in.

Jesus was saying to the people that day – and his words are meant for our ears today – that God does not send disasters as punishment BUT – and it’s a big BUT – God does expect repentance of all people – grievous sinners as well as the relatively moral folks. We must repent – not because we fear punishment but because we seek a deeper relationship with God. To develop and strengthen that relationship, we must examine what it is in our lives that hinders a deepening of our faith and then remove it – turn away from it – so that nothing stands in the way. We must re-member. We must re-attach ourselves to God.

Looking through these lenses at the situations recounted in this Scripture passage, we could say that the Galileans were more possibly victims of circumstance. They were quite likely caught in a group of citizens rounded up and killed by Pilate as an example to keep others in line. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Tower of Siloam probably collapsed because of poor workmanship and shoddy mortar – not as a punishment to those unfortunate enough to be there when the tower came down.

Neither of these situations was caused by God to punish the victims.

In the second part of our reading, we have Jesus’ parable of the fig tree.

A farmer plants a fig tree in his vineyard and for three years he watches, waiting for it to bear fruit. Finally, he tells his gardener to cut it down. It hasn’t produced any figs. It’s taking up space and wasting the good soil. The gardener pleads for one more chance for the tree. He’ll give it some fertilizer, and till the soil around it. "Give it one more year", he says, "and then if it’s still not producing, cut it down."

On first reading this story one might think that God was the vineyard owner – the one who plants the tree and waits for it to produce – the same one who give us life and waits for us to produce – to live in faith and to do our part in the fulfillment of God’s kingdom here on earth."

Those who believe in a God that punishes would, I think, see this parable that way. The tree has failed – so cut it down. This fits neatly into the sin and punishment theory.

But I think that the gardener is our Christ figure in this story. The gardener is the one who begs for sparing the tree, giving it another chance, another opportunity, before finally giving up. Then if all else fails, the tree will have to die.

Jesus says, "Repent. Turn away from the things which alienate you from God, or you will perish just as others before you have perished."

God has given us life – life in abundance – and in many ways we squander that life. We forget our Creator and the responsibility that comes with this life. We fail to produce. Christ came to nurture us and turn us once more to God –to teach us repentance and if we fail to respond to Christ, we WILL perish.

The death that comes with a lack of repentance is not, I believe, a purely physical death. It is the death of the soul that comes when we turn our back on God. It is the fearful emptiness when Christ is not a part of our life. THAT is much more painful and desolate than anything else.

When you are in crisis, when you are in pain and great fear, if you do not have a conviction of God’s presence with you in that pain and fear, you will never survive. That must be the most awful of feelings.

And so Jesus says "repent" re-member, re-attach yourself to God. And you shall live.

Lorain Giles, a United Church of Christ minister in Yarmouth, Maine, describes repentance as "a willingness to forgive, to reconcile, to build bridges and move on."

That, too, is part of reattaching yourself to God. If you carry resentment and anger towards another, you fill your heart with a poison that leaves no room for God. Letting go of perceived – or real – wrongs and hurts is repentance.

Rev. Giles tells this moving story:

Two brothers lived on adjoining farms. For untold reasons, they had grown over the year to be bitter enemies.

One morning a man with a carpenter’s toolbox knocked on Farmer John’s door. Was there any work he might do for a few days?

"Yes, my brother just bulldozed a creek to separate our property. So I want to go him one better. I want you to build me a fence so high that I won’t have to see my brother’s farm anymore."

The carpenter said he understood the situation and promised that he would do a job that would please farmer John.

Farmer John headed off for a day of ploughing the back forty on the other side of the farm. At sunset, he returned to see what the carpenter had done. The carpenter had just finished his work.

Farmer John’s eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. For where he expected to see a fence, there was a bridge built across the creek. Even more astounding, his brother Tom was striding across the bridge, his hand outstretched in reconciliation, amazed that brother John would build a bridge after all the bitterness and separation.

Farmer John walked across the bridge to meet his brother, and they clasped hands for the first time in years.

The carpenter turned to go.

"Wait!" the brothers said together. "Stay and work some more for us."

The carpenter replied, "I’d love to stay. But I have many more bridges to build."

Where are the ditches in your life? Where have you built walls that divide and separate you from others?

Can you turn them into bridges? Can you follow the carpenter and seek repentance?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may NOT perish, but have eternal life"

In this Lenten season, and for the rest of our lives, may we build bridges.

Amen