6And he told them this parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, 7he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. [So] cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ 8He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; 9it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’”
OT: Isa 5:1–7; Jer 8:13
NT: Matt 21:19; Mark 11:13–14, 20; John 5:14; 8:24; 9:2–3
Catechism: punishments of sin, 1472–73; repentance, 1430–31
Lectionary: Third Sunday Lent (Year C)
[13:1–3]
Some people in the crowd now tell Jesus about the Galileans who had gone up to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices but were killed by Pilate. This incident is not recorded elsewhere but is consistent with other descriptions of Pilate’s brutality.22 The interlocutors’ intention was probably to elicit Jesus’ opinion about the Roman occupation. Jesus rather uses the interruption, like the two previous ones (12:13, 41), to develop his teaching further. He first clarifies that those who suffered this fate were not greater sinners than the rest, as was commonly thought of people who experienced misfortune (Job 4:7–9; John 9:2). Jesus instead broadens the perspective by calling everyone to settle accounts with God (Luke 12:58): repent or else you will all perish, not just in this life but in the next (see 12:5). Rather than being afraid of someone like Pilate, who can only “kill the body” (12:4), they should fear God.
[13:4–5]
Jesus reiterates the message by providing another example from current events, involving eighteen people who were killed by a falling tower at Siloam, near the “Pool of Siloam” in Jerusalem (John 9:7). Like the Galileans, these were not guilty (literally, “debtors”) to a greater degree than everyone else. Hence, everyone must repent or else perish. Jesus’ words serve as a summons to repentance and readiness for people of every age, who do not know when their “life will be demanded” of them (Luke 12:20), whether because of accident, human malice, or other reason.
These two examples—Romans killing Jews and falling buildings in Jerusalem—take on a particular vividness in the context of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and its temple by the Romans (AD 70). The people and leaders are therefore urged to repent; otherwise they will literally perish as they (those in the examples) did.23 Jesus first spoke about “repentance” at Levi’s banquet (5:32), but ever since he began the journey to Jerusalem, he insists on the need to “repent” (10:13; 11:32) and will continue to do so (15:7, 10; 16:30).
[13:6–9]
Jesus illustrates the urgency of his message of repentance with the parable of the fig tree that produces no fruit. The ethical application of the parable for the modern reader is clear: God patiently waits to see if a person will repent and bear fruit in the future (see Rom 2:4–5; 2 Pet 3:9–10, 15). If not, however, the owner will cut the tree down: one’s individual “life will be demanded” of a person (Luke 12:20), or the day of judgment will arrive with Christ’s second coming. The parable’s message recalls John the Baptist’s words about the fruits of repentance: “Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (3:9).
However, in the context of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and in view of the biblical background, the parable first of all refers to Israel.24 The tree is planted in an orchard—that is, a “vineyard” (NRSV and other versions), a common image for Israel in the Old Testament (see Isa 5:1–7, which also mentions a tower and inhabitants of Jerusalem, as Jesus just did in Luke 13:4). The owner may represent God, but since the gardener addresses him as sir (kyrios), he may also represent Jesus the “Lord” (kyrios, 12:41–42; 13:15). The three years may even refer to the length of Jesus’ public ministry (see the sidebar, “The Duration of Jesus’ Public Ministry,” p. 261).25 Identifying Jesus with the one who comes in search of fruit on a fig tree also correlates with the tradition of Jesus actually doing such a thing (Matt 21:19; Mark 11:13), at the time that he cleansed the temple. Luke is undoubtedly familiar with this tradition but instead includes the similar parable to teach the same lesson about the impending judgment on Jerusalem and its temple.26 Here, the gardener’s intervention to leave it for this year also so that he can fertilize it offers hope that there is one last chance for repentance, but clearly time is running out.
Figure 12. Fig tree. [© Baker Publishing Group]
Reflection and Application (13:1–5)
Wake-up call. Tragedies that occur, whether far away or close to home, can alert us to turn away from sin and destructive behaviors. One of God’s purposes in permitting them is to call us to repentance. “Suffering must serve for conversion.”27
Jesus Frees a Crippled Woman on the Sabbath (13:10–17)
10He was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. 11And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. 12When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.” 13He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God. 14But the leader of the synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath, said to the crowd in reply, “There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.” 15The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites! Does not each one of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering? 16This daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now, ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day from this bondage?” 17When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated; and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.
OT: Exod 20:8–11; Deut 5:12–15; Isa 40:2; 42:7; 45:16
NT: Luke 5:20; 6:7; 14:3, 5; 19:9
Catechism: sabbath healing, 582
A miracle story that also involves a controversy now illustrates the contrast between Jesus and Israel’s religious leaders, whose hypocrisy has been criticized in the preceding discourse (12:1). The crowd can decide for themselves which of the two to follow.
[13:10–11]
Jesus moves to a familiar setting, teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath (4:15–16, 31–33; 6:6). However, a woman is there who is crippled by a spirit.28 Like the woman afflicted with hemorrhages for twelve years (8:43), this woman has suffered for a long time—eighteen years.29
[13:12–13]
Jesus directly addresses her—Woman—and adds: you are set free (see the related verb in 13:15–16). The verb is passive, implying that God is the one who has acted. Jesus then laid his hands on her in a gesture often used for healing (4:40). God is working through Jesus in a way similar to the earlier healing of the paralyzed man (i.e., the direct address and passive verb): “Man, your sins are forgiven you” (5:20 RSV). The woman is cured at once, or “immediately,” as was the man (5:25) and others healed by Jesus (8:44, 47, 55). She stood up straight, or rather “she was made straight” (RSV), the passive form again suggesting that God is the one acting through Jesus. Recognizing this, the woman glorified God, as the man also did (5:25).
[13:14]
However, the leader of the synagogue objects to the work that was done. To him, this is a clear violation of the sabbath precept that limits work to the other six days (Exod 20:8–11; Deut 5:12–15). Directing his comments to the crowd, he instructs them to come on any day other than the sabbath in order to be cured. He thinks that God is on his side, but the irony is that God is the one who has “worked” to heal the woman.
[13:15–16]
In response, Jesus, who is the Lord even “of the sabbath” (Luke 6:5), gives the sabbath its authoritative interpretation. As before, he reasons from the lesser to the greater by discussing animals and human beings (see 12:6–7, 24). The sabbath precept against work also forbids work that one does with animals such as an “ox or donkey
” (Deut 5:14; see Exod 20:10). Nonetheless, everyone on the sabbath would untie (or “set free”) his ox or his ass from the manger and lead it out for watering.30 How much more then ought31 the woman to be set free on the sabbath! Because of their double standard, Jesus calls his opponents hypocrites (Luke 12:1). By focusing on the external observance of the sabbath, they miss its inner, twofold meaning.
First, the sabbath was a reminder about creation: “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth . . . but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the LORD has blessed the sabbath day and made it holy” (Exod 20:11). Through this sabbath healing, Jesus gives a glimpse of the new creation (with its new “Paradise,” Luke 23:43). Earlier, he rescued the paralyzed “Man” (5:20 RSV), Adam, from his sins, and now he heals the crippled “Woman” (13:12), Eve, oppressed by Satan.32
Second, the sabbath recalled Israel’s exodus: “Remember that you too were once slaves in the land of Egypt, and the LORD, your God, brought you out from there. . . . That is why the LORD, your God, has commanded you to observe the sabbath day” (Deut 5:15). The sabbath healing of the woman who was bound signals that Jesus’ mission is to lead Israel in a new exodus (Luke 9:31) from the bondage not of Pharaoh but of Satan. Jesus is thus fulfilling his mission, announced on a sabbath (4:16), of bringing “liberty to captives” (4:18–19). Moreover, Jesus calls the woman a daughter of Abraham—as later he will call Zacchaeus a “son of Abraham” (19:9 NRSV)—since she too is a member of God’s chosen people, Israel, set free to worship him (see 1:73–74).
[13:17]
As a result, the leader of the synagogue and all Jesus’ adversaries are humiliated. This phrase alludes to a verse from Isaiah: “All who oppose him shall be ashamed and disgraced” (Isa 45:16 LXX, NETS). This is said about opposition to “the God of Israel, the savior” (Isa 45:15). The echo thus suggests that “Jesus is the God of Israel, the Savior . . . whom these opponents have failed to know.”33
For their part, the whole crowd sides with Jesus rather than with the hypocritical leaders. They therefore rejoiced at Jesus’ deeds (see Luke 19:37).
Kingdom Parables: Mustard Seed and Yeast (13:18–21)
18Then he said, “What is the kingdom of God like? To what can I compare it? 19It is like a mustard seed that a person took and planted in the garden. When it was fully grown, it became a large bush and ‘the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.’”
20Again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed [in] with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.”
OT: Ezek 17:22–24
NT: Luke 12:1; 17:6. // Matt 13:31–33; Mark 4:30–32
Catechism: prayer as leaven, 2660; leaven that makes society rise, 2832
[13:18–19]
Still in the synagogue and drawing a lesson from the miracle, Jesus then (or “therefore,” NRSV) recounts two parables of the kingdom of God. The arrival of “the kingdom of God” was earlier announced by Jesus in connection with his driving out demons (11:20). This is precisely what has happened here with the woman set free from the bondage of Satan.
The first parable involves a person (or “man” [NIV], to pair with the “woman” in v. 21) who sows a mustard seed. The plant grows so much that “the birds of the sky dwelt in its branches.” This phrase refers to several Old Testament passages (e.g., Ezek 17:23; 31:6) that describe earthly kingdoms as mighty trees. These are cut down and replaced by “a tender shoot” (Ezek 17:22) that then becomes a majestic tree: “I bring low the high tree, / lift high the lowly tree” (Ezek 17:24). This is the great reversal announced in Mary’s Magnificat: God has “lifted up the lowly” (Luke 1:52). God’s kingdom is revealed in apparently insignificant people like the woman, healed from Satan’s bondage. Moreover, as the kingdom becomes fully grown, many will make their home there, like the growing crowds who are following Jesus now and those who will be added later, both from the Jews (Acts 6:7) and from the Gentiles (Acts 11:24).
BIBLICAL BACKGROUND
Pairing of Men and Women in Luke
Luke frequently pairs passages involving male and female characters. For example, the angel appears to Zechariah and Mary (1:11–20, 26–38); Simeon and Anna encounter Jesus in the temple (2:25–38); Jesus rebukes the demon possessing a man and the fever afflicting Peter’s mother-in-law (4:33–39); he heals the centurion’s dying slave and raises the widow’s dead son (7:2–15); and Simon of Cyrene and the women of Jerusalem meet Jesus on his way to Calvary (23:26–31). Such pairings also occur in Jesus’ teaching—for example, the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (4:26–27); the queen of the south and the men of Nineveh (11:31–32); the man who plants a mustard seed and the woman who mixes leaven (13:18–21); and the man who finds the lost sheep and the woman the lost coin (15:4–10). A passage can sometimes be paired with more than one passage; for example, the raising of the widow’s son also relates to the raising of Jairus’s daughter (8:49–56). Thus, paired passages need not be adjacent—for example, the twelve apostles (6:13–16) and the women disciples (8:2–3).
The pairings are not simply a stylistic feature but have a theological purpose.a They show that, amid human diversity, God’s salvation in Jesus overcomes division: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendant” (Gal 3:28–29 [emphasis added]). Indeed, the crippled woman healed on a sabbath is a “daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16 [emphasis added]) and Zacchaeus is a “son of Abraham” (19:9 NRSV [emphasis added]). The pairings also show how Jesus brings fulfillment to Old Testament prophecies involving God’s sons and daughters (e.g., Isa 43:6; 49:22; 60:4), as Peter explains on the day of Pentecost: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, . . . / even on my male servants and female servants / in those days I will pour out my Spirit” (Acts 2:17–18 ESV, citing Joel 3:1–2).b Moreover, “just as the fall was both theirs, so redemption was both theirs.”c Jesus thus brings healing to both “Man” (Luke 5:20 RSV) and “Woman” (13:12).
a. Allen Black, “‘Your Sons and Your Daughters Will Prophesy . . .’: Pairings of Men and Women in Luke-Acts,” in Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. Patrick Gray and Gail R. O’Day (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 193–206.
b. Joel 2:28–29 RSV.
c. Bonaventure, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 4.80, ed. and trans. Robert J. Karris, 3 vols. (St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute, 2001–4), 1:358 (translation adapted).
The mustard seed is sown not “in a field” or “in the ground” (Matt 13:31; Mark 4:31), but in the garden. The word “garden” may be an allusion to the garden of Eden (see John 18:1; 19:41), which is described in one of the passages just mentioned from Ezekiel (Ezek 31:8–9; also 36:35). That is why the seed grows into a “tree” (NRSV and other versions, whereas the NABRE translates bush). When fully established in the new creation, the kingdom of God becomes like the tree of life!34
[13:20–21]
In the second parable, a woman takes yeast or “leaven” (RSV), so that the whole unit (Luke 12:1–13:21) is framed by contrasting references to the “leaven” of the Pharisees (12:1) and the “leaven” of the kingdom. The Pharisees’ leaven represented their hidden (adjective kryptos, 12:2) hypocrisy, soon to be exposed. Similarly, the kingdom of God is hidden at first, like leaven mixed [in] or “hidden in” (verb enkryptō) the flour, but its all-pervading effect is soon manifested. The three measures of flour is a large amount that can feed more than a hundred people. Therefore, from inconspicuous beginnings, the kingdom of God grows to embrace even the whole world.
1. This adverb could also be read as part of Jesus’ statement: “First of all, beware . . .”
2. In Matthew, the Pharisees’ corrupting influence is specified as their “teaching” (Matt 16:12).
3. François Bovon, Luke, trans. Christine M. Thomas, Do
nald S. Deer, and James Crouch, 3 vols., Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002–13), 2:178.
4. See 1 Enoch 27:1–3; 54:1–6.
5. John Henry Newman, “Profession without Practice,” in Parochial and Plain Sermons (repr., San Francisco: Ignatius, 1997), 89–91.
6. This idea and some others in this chapter are indebted to Tim Gray, private communication.
7. Anderson, Charity, 65.
8. Ps 111:10; see Job 28:28; Prov 1:7; 9:10; 15:33; Sir 1:14–27.
9. Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 775, trans. William F. Trotter (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1958; repr., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 230.
10. Anderson, Charity, 33, 113.
11. Bovon, Luke, 2:231: “The allusion to the Passover is undeniable.” It is thus helpful to recall Jesus’ warning to guard against the Pharisees’ “leaven” (12:1), like the command to Israel to remove “leaven” for the Passover (Exod 12:15).
12. Dale C. Allison Jr., The Intertextual Jesus: Scripture in Q (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), 59–62.
13. In Luke 17:7–8, a master instead comes to be served, but there Jesus is teaching his apostles (17:5) a lesson on servant leadership.
14. Translating “owner” distinguishes this master of the house (oikodespotēs) from the “master” (kyrios) in verses 36–38, who represents Jesus.
The Gospel of Luke Page 34