Wait a minute. Was? Surely, it's february still. How is pastor Jim saying that we're talking about the winter like it's in the past tense? Well, true believers, that's been the year that we've had. We've had a quite exceptional winter, to the extent that it sort of never showed up. This entire winter has been a long series of thinking about plowing streets, and instead allowing God to plow them for us every time it snows. Seriously, it snowed yesterday, and the snow is almost all gone already. This must be what winter is like in the United States. Like, you need a scarf and that's it.
This is unusual, you understand. Unusual to the point of being downright strange. We're not used to there being little to no snow, and to there being warm temperatures and the like. It's not what we're used to in the slightest; but here it is anyway. And with this being the way things are, it's worth us having an incredibly brief discussion about winter driving, and about being stuck in ruts. For on our street in Regina Sk, it's on the 'do not plow' list, which is great in this weather, but sort of junky in an average winter, where more plowing is required. Now, what are ruts? Glad you asked. Ruts are the parts worn down into the path, road, whatever you're driving on, that gradually grind the road down into a new path that is difficult to get out of. For you see, the ruts that we make are the paths that we form for ourselves, that other people form along with us, and they make it incredibily difficult to deviate from that course.
On our street, I suppose on our last street, we had ruts in the wintertime. Deep, icy ruts. They were fine if you just wanted to drive in a straight line down the street, but if you wanted to do anything fancy like turn into your driveway, well, it was straight up impossible. The little bitty Honda Fit that we drive proved itself to be incapable of mounting up and over the ruts. So frequently, we would sail clear past the intended destination, and continue down the street, realizing that turning the wheel was doing nothing.
This is what happens with us and sin. This is where we are as sinners, trapped in the patterns that we have made for ourselves over decades. The same paths we go over again and again, those paths are the ones that become ruts over time, and in becoming ruts, inform where we will end up going from now on. This is how things were in the time of Ezekiel, too. Ezekiel was sent as a watchman to the house of Israel, to stand and to warn, to let them know that they were in the process of making for themselves ruts that they would be incapable of getting out of. What were their ruts? Well, they were into iniquity and evil ways. They were deep into taking by robbery, murder, turning their backs on God, and avoiding any of the righteousness of our Father God. And how did this happen? Not all at once, to be sure. Not all at once, but bit by bit, starting with thoughts, moving on to words, and going on to deeds. And like with ruts in the road, which also get formed bit by bit, our spiritual ruts don't get formed all at once, nor do they get formed by just us. We tread that path, and so do all sorts of other people, and as we go along together, it becomes incredibly difficult to get out of those ruts. Thoughts, words, deeds, over a long enough period of time, those ruts will form the destiny of the people of Israel, who will inevitably be unable to get out of those ruts that they had made for themselves. After a long enough time of making ruts for yourself, you will find yourself sailing right past the destination that you want, and towards where everyone else is going.
Going with the flow, going along to get along, following the crowds, that's getting into the ruts, and getting into them hard. Moving from those ruts was essentially impossible for them. No matter what warning that Ezekiel was going to give to them, they were going to end up in the ruts that they'd been following for a long long time. Ezekiel begged and pleaded with them to turn from their ways, to turn from their wickedness, to save their lives by turning out of their ruts, but they were not able to do so. They could not. It was a perpetual problem for them, as it is a perpetual problem for us. You know your life, and you know your patterns, you are well aware of who you are and who you have made yourself into over a long long period of time. If it were as simple as you just deciding to do something different, to decide to go another way, wouldn't you have done so by now?
This is the conundrum as Christians, that we know what the right thing to do is, we are aware of the commandments, the statutes of God, what he would have us do, and yet we continue to drift right by, whether it be in ruts of our own making, or those that have been made by others that we have fallen into. Either way, we end up cursing ourselves, saying 'the good I want to do is what I miss, but the rotten I want to avoid, that's what I keep on doing!' Yes. It's been a problem from the time of Paul until now. Those of us who seriously think on this topic ask ourselves, if we want to be good and righteous, if we want to live for something and to do meaningful things, if we want to be kinder, better people, why do we keep on missing that target?
Well, ultimately, we end up in those ruts, and turning our steering wheels desperately, as Ezekiel asks us to do, to turn from our sin. But those deep ruts compel us, no matter how hard we turn the wheel, to keep on going straight. So if turning our wheels once we're in a rut doesn't do too terribly much, what is the solution?
Jesus talks about this in the New Testament, in the Gospel reading, where he tells us about the parable of the landowner, and the vinedresser, where the landowner says to his employee, 'look, this fig tree has given us no fruit. Cut it down and throw it away. Why should it take up the ground like that?' Great question? Why bother watering and nurturing a tree that is unproductive? Of course, the tree doesn't go out of its way to be fruitless, as one of the main purposes of the tree itself is to bear fruit. But if the tree has stalled out, has had a bad season or two, and has gotten infertile over time, it can't just snap out of it. We forget pretty quickly that all the plants that we use now have been tamed by us, molded and shaped, to produce what we want them to. Have you ever had wild strawberries? Or wild blueberries? they're quite different from the varieties that we have cultivated for ourselves over centuries, getting the most out of them that we can. And these plants, they require maintenance from us if they're going to do the thing that we want them to do. In other words, the tree, the fig tree that is growing in the parable that is not producing anything on its own, so it has to be worked on. The owner of the vineyard is right to say that it should cut it down if it is producing no fruit on its own, but the vinedresser, the gardener, says 'wait. Hold on. Let me dig around it, fertilize it, take care of it, then if by next year it has done nothing, then you can cut it down.'
The patience of Christ can be seen. Not only the patience of Christ, but also his realization that this is his job to do. He is here to work on us, to bring us out of the state that we were in and towards where he would have us be. The vinedresser is the one who works on the spent trees, those that have not borne fruit for a long time, those like you and me, who are not performing to the level that we need to perform. And if it were up to us to just grit our teeth, try harder, to do better, and get it together, then there would be no future for us. But Christ is well aware that that is his job, his work. He is the one who will do the work, to dig, to fertilize, to ensure that he can do whatever he can to coax fruit out of the plant. He knows that the axe is at the root of the tree, of that there can be no doubt. It may very well be our desire to wish that it wasn't the case, to hope and to dream that it would not be this way. It may be our fervent desire to wish with all our hearts that there was no axe at the root of the trees, that everything is fine and that there is nothing to worry about, but it just isn't true. We know deep down that we aren't producing the fruit we should, and that there is no need for God to continue to give us resources of time and space where we continue to produce nothing. Knowing all that, then why do we not follow the advice of Ezekiel, and turn away from our evil?
Well, the question in and of itself is wrong, really. It comes down to not what we turn away from, but what we turn towards. The promise that Jesus gives in the Gospels is that if we chase out an evil spirit and leave the space swept and garnished, then all that happens is that the evil spirit returns with seven worse than itself. This is the eventual end ot this discussion, unless we replace that evil spirit, those bad habits, those ruts, with something worthwhile and good. Unless we replace them with something that we need, that will keep us on the right track. Unless we replace them with Christ.
In Lent, we have the opportunity to turn our eyes towards Jesus, to focus on him and what he brings to us. We have the opportunity and the ability to focus more on the Lord of the Bible, and on his words and deeds. He is the author and pefecter of our faith, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is the one who, though he was tempted sorely, did not give in, who lived a perfect life on our behalf, and finally died to set us free. And his words that echo throughout history are still heard by us today, whispered through the pages of the scriptures 'follow me.' Follow him where? Follow him all the way to the cross, and see the source of your salvation. Follow him to the cross, and see his life poured out for you. It is there that you can see the work of watering and fertilizing that Christ does, through the water and the blood poured out for you. Follow me, says Jesus, follow me where I lead. Fix your eyes on me, and go where I go. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Around this time of year, we usually ask ourselves if it's worth our while to shovel driveways anymore. Even if there is snow now, there's a good chance that it will be gone shortly, since God clears my driveway far more effectively than I can. All I can do is to move the snow around, but when it melts, it is gone. In this image is found the escape from our ruts. If we want to, we can try to push through them, to smash through the buildup of snow and ice. We can dig and scrape just to get by. Or, we can follow the one who, as he does every spring, sets us free from the ruts and ice. We can follow in the way of the plow, promising to clear our way. We can follow Christ, fixing our eyes on him, and growing in him.
This is what is promised in Lent, not that we obsess over our misdeeds, but that we repent, that we turn from our sinfulness, and turn towards Christ. He will tell you where he wants you to go, and that is to the cross, where in Christ, you are made into a new creation. Behold, he tells you, I make all things new. And all things includes us. As winter turns to spring, we think about turning to Christ, and we remember that for all those times that we have failed to turn to him, where we have turned to ourselves and turned our backs on him, when we think about the axe at the root of the tree, we remember that though we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. That ever-patient gardener is there, being faithful to that barren tree, and whispering to it 'Grow. Produce fruit. Find your growth in me.'
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