Lent 3 C
Grace, mercy and peace to you, dear brothers and sisters, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
I found my heart beginning to turn to baseball this week --- as many of you know I have been a life long fan of the Chicago Cubs. I found my heart turning to baseball this week when I heard on the radio Monday morning that spring training games would begin on Thursday. I found my heart turning to baseball and found echoes of my own heart in our Gospel reading for this week. You know the part? Where the owner of the vineyard is walking through --- surveying his property and his eyes fall upon a fig tree that simply hasn’t lived up to its potential. Next thing we know the owner says enough is enough --- it’s wasting the very soil it’s planted in --- cut it down and start over. But the gardener? Perhaps out of a sense of guilt that he hasn’t done enough to help this fig tree produce? Maybe out of the kind of hope that has Cubs’ fans hearts turning to baseball every year again at this time: regardless of last year’s results. The gardener? He begs for one more year.
We only get this brief snapshot today, of course. Just before this, Jesus has been in the middle of an intellectual discussion on the source and reason for human suffering. What we realize is that Jesus wasn’t about to let this important exchange remain a detached conversation about strangers. As heart wrenching a story as it was that was passed on. As awful as are any stories we pass on to one another on any given day. In most circumstances, we can’t easily trace the origin of those events to the particular sin of any human being. We can’t blame the victim. What we can say for sure is that we can’t ever know what goes on in the hearts of others. What we can say for sure as Jesus did is that no doubt they’re no better and no worse than any of the rest of us. So as always, Jesus brings it home. He won’t be distracted from the real people and their issues and challenges and hopes and hurts which are standing right in front of him. So he answers them quickly and then goes on to push them to get down to matters over which they do have some control. Telling them to not get so caught up in questions about others that they forget to tend to what’s living in their own hearts first. And then he throws out the image of this fig tree which found echoes in my own heart this week.
This fig tree which isn’t doing the most basic things fig trees are meant to do. It’s not producing figs. And the owner who’s had enough and is ready to cut his losses. And the gardener who is not so sure that enough has been done and offers to take it upon himself to try to make the difference. And in the end? You and I, listening in on this story, we’re left hanging. Does he give it one more year or not?
I’ve always liked to believe that the one more year was granted, of course. That the gardener gave it that extra special tending it needed and the next year when the owner came back that tree was healthier than ever and all the world could see it in bushel baskets full of figs. I’ve done it with my favorite baseball team for more than 40 years… giving it one more year… So much so that nothing: not even good years for the team on the south side could persuade me to do more than give them a passing glance of interest, much less change my loyalties; although I understand there are whole support groups for recovering Chicago Cubs Fans out there. But then, I’m just a fan --- I’m not the owner. And I’m just listening in on this story today: I’m not the one depending on the fruitfulness of the vineyard and orchard to feed my family. It’s different if it’s yours, I suppose. And I surely know that from time to time, hard decisions have to be made.
So what are we to do with this with this story of the fig tree and its lack of fruitfulness and its hopeful gardener begging for one more year to do what needed to be done? For it does seem that you and I are the fig tree in this story and Jesus is bringing this truth home to us: pointing out our need to bear fruit. For a fig tree only earns its name by producing figs, right? And in the same way for God’s people don’t you think it’s supposed to show somehow in how we live and what we do, too?
A friend was telling me last week that she’s had a whole lot of people streaming through her office these days with stories of all kinds of human hurt. Their pain is almost palpable. She has spent hours and hours listening and has done all that she can in terms of referring them to help. Now she’s not a therapist. Not a doctor. Not a financial advisor. She’s a pastor… but last week she said she’s been starting to write out prescriptions. A little like a gardener digging around the tree and applying manure. And while, her remedy is not manure, it appears to be every bit as effective. She says she’s telling people to come to worship for the next four Sundays and then come back in and talk to her again. She says she doesn’t know how it works, but it does seem to make all the difference. I’d add to her list of things to do though.
- *I’d suggest spending even just five minutes in prayer every morning and night. Say whatever it is that comes to mind but make sure you balance your complaints and your requests with simple words of thanks.
- *And I would add on the suggestion to seek forgiveness at the end of the day from those they have wronged or to do what they can to little by little let go of hurts that are eating away at them --- and to put it all back into God’s own hands.
- *I might urge someone to try to do a simple unexpected kindness for a friend or stranger over the coming days and see where that puts them when they’re done.
All of these things would bring us into the vicinity of the one who has the shovel full of manure and clouds full of rain and skies full of sunshine. All of these things would bring us closer to bearing the fruit we’ve been created to bear. I don’t know how it works, but it seems to: by God’s own gift and grace it seems to.
One more year or not, we have no way of knowing… only God knows what time there is. But in the meantime? I think God has some of that hopeful gardener in him. The one who wants to give us one more year, for we are, indeed, the fig tree in the story Jesus tells today. Only there is this one big difference: fig trees can’t move about, they can’t run away and hide like people sometimes try to do. So maybe first and last this is what we should do. Maybe we ought to be a little more like that fig tree and at least stay rooted to the ground right here in this place: within reach of the care of the gardener who yearns to give us one more year. Amen.
