When Jeff and I first got married, the front yard
had several azalea bushes. Notice I
said, had. We got married in November,
so when spring came around, I was looking forward to the azalea blooms. As the neighborhood exploded in color, and
other yards were filled with reds and purples our plants did nothing. Not one of them. So, we went to the local nursery and asked
what we needed to do. Its been so long
ago, I can’t remember what we bought, maybe holly tone – but we did everything we
were told to do to feed and nurture these bushes. As spring came around the following year,
once again I anxiously awaited to see what these plants would do, and once again
the neighborhood exploded in color and our azaleas did nothing. What a disappointment.
Jesus
is sharing a parable with his followers about a fig tree that is barren. For three years this tree has not produced
fruit and the owner is fed up. He is
ready to have it torn down immediately, but the gardener asks for one more
year, a year of intentional care, a year of adding nutrients into the soil, a year
focused specifically on giving this tree everything it needs to bare fruit, and
then, if in a year, it does not bare fruit, then it can be cut down.
As
a parable, we can view the fig tree as God’s people. Just as a fig tree is created to produce
figs, the people of God are also created for a purpose – to produce sacred
behavior. On the bulletin cover I used
the fruits of the Spirit, sacred behaviors that we are called to produce
through our living. So what happens when
God’s people stop living out the purpose God has for them? Do we believe God comes in, like the owner of
that tree, and cuts us down? No, we lean
always into the grace of the gardener that seeks to provide the nutrients and
care that the tree needs in order to produce.
Again,
looking at this parable, if we, God’s people are the fig tree, the tree is
still alive, it is just not producing fruit.
It is taking in water and sunlight, it is taking in nutrients, but for
whatever reason, all of that is being used inwardly on the tree. We too can take in life, we can take in our daily
bread, we can take in the blessings around us, we can take in so much and just
keep it for ourselves. We can focus
inwardly, nurturing our own soul or healing our own wounds, and there are
seasons in our own lives that we just don’t have the energy to give anything
back. There are natural ebbs and flows
in life, ups and downs, and this tree was given three years before the threat
came to cut it down.
I
see this tree as not just barren but also spiritually dead. It is stuck.
It cannot do anything more on its own.
This tree is now dependent on the gardener, it is now in need of grace,
it is now in need of an outside force to ensure its survival. The times when we are in our low places, the
valleys of our lives, we don’t want to get stuck there, we need to eventually get
ourselves moving again. Sometimes we may
feel that we just can’t move forward, that we are out of energy, and it is
here, in these places that we need to remember the gardener has come to care
for us.
Is
the true meaning of this parable that the fig tree is not producing figs? Is it a parable of fear? That if we don’t get our act together and
start doing something productive God no longer needs us? Or is this a parable of grace? A parable that proclaims we can’t do it on
our own, that left to ourselves we will get stagnant, but with the love of the
gardener, with the spiritual nutrients that we all hunger and thirst for, our
soil will be tilled and life can once again be born within us? The gospel of Luke is a gospel of grace. We have the parable of the prodigal son which
illustrates God’s love going out to us even when we have turned our backs on
God. God is always there to welcome us
home. And God is always here to till
the soil of our lives to feed our souls despite our best efforts to be
independent and do things on our own.
When
balancing our lives, no matter what season of life we are in, we always need
God’s grace, as was shared last week: Grace
is what God does for us that we could not do for ourselves. We might feel we are really good at tilling
our own soil. But it is just natural in
life to get caught into routines, into patterns of behavior that can keep us in
a holding pattern rather than moving us forward. And then something might happen and we
receive inspiration or new idea or new found energy. Do we ever stop and reflect on that and perhaps
name it for what it is: grace?
Or
when we are producing fruit, when we are living out God’s purpose for our
lives, do we ever stop and pay attention and name it for what it is? Grace.
Galatians lists the fruits of the Spirit as: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But these are not inward gifts. You can isolate yourself from the rest of the
world and live in peace but if you are not sharing peace out within the world,
you are like the fig tree taking in water and sunlight only for inward
needs.
Fruit
grows on the outside of the tree, we don’t have to cut the tree open to find
it. What we produce for God also needs
to be on the outside, not just outside of our own beings, but outside of the
church. We can cut the church open and
find a lot of really great people, but we are called to go into the world with
our fruit. And this is not works righteousness,
a belief that we have to do good things in order to be saved. It is perhaps grace righteousness – because of
the tilling of our soil, because the gardener loves us and provides for us, we
go out as healthy spiritual beings sharing God’s love, God’s joy, God’s peace,
God’s patience – if we struggle with our own ability at patience just think
about how much more so is God patient with us.
With God’s kindness, with God’s generosity, with God’s faithfulness,
with God’s gentleness and with God’s self-control which might just be the gift
of grace.
Are
there barren fig trees in our own communities?
Are there issues or concerns right here in the greater Roxbury township
that we are aware of? And do we come in
judging that perhaps that person is in that situation because of their own bad
choices? Are we like the owner, only
seeing the barrenness? Or do we see the
barren fig tree as a place for potential life, as an issue that perhaps as the
body of Christ we can go and till the soil and provide spiritual water and food
that might just transform that barren place into a place that bares fruit?
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