"525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year? In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you
measure a year in the life?.... 525,600 minutes! 525,000 journeys to plan. 525,600 minutes - how can you measure the life of a woman or man?"  So begins one of the hit songs from the 1996 musical Rent.

Not a bad question.  In fact, a question quite in line with our morning's gospel reading.  How do you measure a life, a year?  What about you?  If you were told that you had one year to live, what would you do?  How would you spend your time?  What would you change about the way you live now?

Our Lenten journey began with Jesus in the wilderness.  Today, our gospel text begins by taking us to an even more challenging place:  two disasters that result in the loss of human life.  Once again this week, we are faced with lots to decipher in only a few verses.

As he is on his way to Jerusalem, some people in the crowd approach Jesus with a news report.  It could just as easily have been the headlines from recent weeks:  a jet in Indonesia slides off the runway, and many are killed.  A tornado in Alabama slams into a school.  A suicide bomber attacks a market in Baghdad.  With our 24/7 accessibility to world wide news, we are often numb to the violence and death which confronts us.  We keep things at arms length.  That is, until it strikes too close to home, as it did a little over a week ago for the students of Bluffton University.  Then we are faced once again with the ageless question, "why?" 

Then, as now, people try to make sense of senseless events.  So some people rush to tell Jesus in order to get his understanding about a particularly gruesome attack on some Jews from Galilee.  They were making their sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem when they were killed by Roman forces.  On top of the human horror and tragedy of the event, the Temple itself is made unclean by the murderous actions of the Roman government.  This was more appalling than you can imagine.  One commentator suggests that it is as if occupying forces were to invade a church on Easter morning and kill all those who were gathered for worship.

Notice what Jesus does - and doesn't say.  He doesn't answer the "why" question - at least not directly.  Rather, Jesus questions their motives in bringing him this information.  In Jesus' day, it was commonly assumed that there was a connection between sin and human suffering.  Jesus knew that folks were quick to judge others when a tragedy struck.  Surely their action, their sin was the cause! 

Perhaps you are thinking, "well of course we know better - we know that just because people die that it isn't a result of their sin!"   Yet you may remember that some notable religious figures in our country were quick to call Hurricane Katrina God's judgment upon the sin of those who died.   In a less extreme example, when my mother died of lung cancer, the first question was usually, "did she smoke?"  If we can find a reason why it happened to her, then we perhaps we can feel safe, as though it can't happen to us. Yet while there are unquestionably consequences related to behaviors, we've all known folks who dodged the odds.  So why does one smoker die and another live to be 95?

In fact, Jesus rejects the connection between sin and tragedy. Sensing an attitude of self-righteousness, he cuts them off at the pass.  "You think this awful event occurred because they were more sinful than everyone else?  Think again!  It doesn't work that way.  Just because people suffer a horrible death does not mean that they are worse sinners than other folks."

But Jesus doesn't stop there.  He turns it back around to them.  "Take a look at yourselves!  Get your lives in order and quit worrying about everyone else."  Jesus emphasizes his point by speaking about another disaster.  A tower in Jerusalem had fallen and killed eighteen people.  This wasn't caused by the murderous action of the government - in fact, no one knows what happened.  18 unfortunate folks were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Just in case they didn't understand his point, Jesus underscores it, "Do you think they were somehow more sinful than everyone else in Jerusalem?  Of course not!!!"

When tragedy strikes, Jesus is quite clear.  Quit trying to blame the victims or distance yourself from the event, figuring that they some how deserved what happened to them.  Those in the crowd wanted an interpretation of the events that would focus on the faults of those who died.   Instead, Jesus turns that expectation around and makes the events stories about each person who is listening to him.  The "crop report" to which they should be paying attention is their own.

Rather than commenting on the sins of others, Jesus directs their attention back on their own lives, their own fallibility. Jesus challenges them - and us --to use these disastrous events as opportunities to take a long hard look at the lives we live.  We're all in the same boat.   Every one of us needs to look at the ways in which we separate ourselves from God and from each other.  Life is precious - we never know how many days or hours we may have.

Jesus makes his point by telling a parable - one found only in the gospel of Luke.  A man planted a fig tree in his vineyard - which was supposed to be good for the grapes. Fig trees are large, picturesque trees, with muscular, twisting branches.  Their fruit was, and is, highly prized. 

The owner gave the tree time to mature, and even more time than that - an additional three years.  When he comes to check it out, he discovers that there are no figs!  It's just taking up space. Given the precious value of land, the tree is no longer a good investment. So he instructs the gardener to cut it down.

We should note that the tree should have produced figs the first year.  The owner has given it three, and has nothing to show for it except a tree that is so large that nothing can grow beneath its canopy.  Sure it will provide shade -and that's a good thing. But let's be clear.  He planted the fig tree in order to have figs.  That's what a fig tree is supposed to do - and this one isn't.  Please note:  it isn't being asked to produce bananas!  The fig tree's "sin", if you will, is not of doing something bad, but of doing nothing - just taking up space.  It is perfectly reasonable for the owner to have the tree cut down, so he can plant something that will produce.

The gardener intervenes.  "Sir, just give it one more year.  I'll give it some extra help.  I'll work the soil, fertilize it and love it.  If by next year it is still fruitless, go ahead and cut it down."   A window of opportunity to produce the fruit it was created to produce. Just one more year.  525, 600 minutes.  How do you measure a year?

Clearly, as Jesus tells this parable, it is not just for the original listeners, but for all who follow him.  We too are given a window of opportunity, we are being nurtured to produce the fruit for which we were created.

How is your "crop report?" Are we bearing fruit for God's kingdom? Or are we wasting the soil and just taking up space?  What is the fruit we are supposed to be bearing? How do you measure a year?  An advertisement from this week's copy of Time gives some answers - try these out:  "Do these while you're alive:  Fly across the Atlantic in a private jet.  Stay in a five-star hotel and upgrade your room. Get a spa treatment that requires a team.  See a Broadway play, front row-center."  Get the idea?

The answer to the question, "how do you measure a year?" from Rent points us in the right direction:  "measure in love."  We can look at this passage or every tragedy that comes before us as threats or as an opportunities to grow into the people that God has created us to be.

What would you do if you were only given a year to live?  I once knew a physician who faced that situation - perhaps you've known others, as well.  Diagnosed with a particularly aggressive and incurable form of cancer, he elected to forego the treatment that would have taken both his time and energy.  Instead, he took each of his adult children on an individual trip. He made sure that they knew of his love and respect for each of them. He spent time with his grandkids.  He spent time with those most important to him, and left a formidable legacy to those who knew him.  He laughed, he cried, and finally succumbed to the disease.  But he did not waste one minute.  He lived each day, each moment, as if it was his last.

Barbara Lundblad has said, "His (Jesus') passion is marked for us by great urgency--don't wait! Look at your life and dare to ask the hard questions: Am I stingy in my love for others? Am I withholding forgiveness for old wrongs? Do I refuse to believe that I can be forgiven, carrying from year to year a growing burden of guilt? Am I so busy making a living that I've forgotten to make a life? Jesus digs at us with questions like these. Jesus digs at our hearts in the outstretched hand of every homeless beggar on the streets, of every child not fed. "What have you done?" Jesus asks, and "What have you left undone?" Such questions, like the parable of the fig tree, move us toward repentance, a word that means to turn around, to believe things can be different, to trust that the one who calls us to turn around will be there even when we fail." ("Could this be the year for figs?"  March 18, 2001, found on Day One).

What's our crop report as a congregation?  Are we bearing fruit?  Presbyterian pastor and author, Frederick Buechner summarizes the challenge well,: "We must be careful of our lives, for Christ's sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously.  There is always this temptation to believe that we have all the time in the world, whereas the truth of it is that we do not.  We have only a life, and the choice of how we are going to live it must be our own choice." (Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace.)

Did you notice that we aren't told what happens to the fig tree?  The answer is up to us.  How will you measure this year?