The Fig Tree Without Fruit

"One day, some people told JESUS what had occurred in the temple: Pilate had had Galileans killed, and their blood mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.  JESUS asked them, 'Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this?  No, I tell you.  But unless you change your ways, you will all perish, as they did.

And those eighteen persons in Siloah, who were crushed when the tower fell, do you think they were more guilty than all the others in Jerusalem?  I tell you: no.  But unless you change your ways, you will all perish, as they did.'

And JESUS continued, 'A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it, but found none.  Then he said to the gardener, 'Look here, for three years now I have been looking for figs on this tree, and I have found none.  Cut it down, why should it continue to deplete the soil?'  The gardener replied, 'Leave it one more year, so that I may dig around it and add some fertilizer; perhaps it will bear fruit from now on.  But if it doesn't, you can cut it down.'" - Luke 13:1-9 

(People told JESUS... about an uprising of Galileans in the temple court and the immediate intervention of the Roman guard stationed at a nearby fortress.  They profaned the holy grounds strictly reserved for the Jews and shed blood in the Holy Place.

Those relating the story expect that JESUS will answer in a way expressing HIS national and religious indignation over the killing of HIS compatriots and the offense against GOD.  JESUS does not choose to focus on these issues: as usual HE shows that people are more absorbed in human rather than divine causes and HE calls their attention to what counts: those Galilean patriots were violent men, just like the Roman soldiers who killed them.  Right then, GOD was calling everyone to a conversion on which their survival depended.  In such a violent atmosphere there was no way out for the dominated Jewish people except through faith, because faith works through the spirit of forgiveness.)

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