 |
Third
Sunday of Lent 2007 |
|
Third
Sunday of Lent 2007 |
Jesus tells a parable in
today’s Gospel about a man who had someone else plant a fig tree in his
vineyard. One might ask, “Why
plant a fig tree in a vineyard?” Vineyards
are for grapes and wine. Wine was such an important commodity in first century
A Mediterranean fig tree
has wonderfully large leaves and tasty fruit – if you like figs, that is.
The large leaves make it a great shade tree.
And as a no-hassle fruit – no peeling, no chopping, no wasted core –
figs would have passed all first century convenience food requirements.
It would have been on par with McDonalds today – or even In and Out.
Just drive up to the tree and there it is – not even any wasted paper
to throw away.
Now Jesus’ parable has
the owner of the vineyard complaining about the lack of fruit on the fig tree.
The owner had the tree planted there and may have wanted a ready snack
and shade whenever he came to view his vines.
The owner waited for the
tree to be mature enough to bear fruit and then gave it three more years after
its maturity. But no fruit! The
owner wasn’t really impatient. How
many times would we return to any food place that didn’t deliver what we
wanted? Would we give anything three
years? But after three years this
patient land owner finally gave up. Cut
it down, he said.
But the gardener replied,
“Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on
it. If it bears fruit next year,
well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” This gardener takes us by
surprise. Three years was quite
generous to wait for a fig, but this gardener now asks for another whole year.
It seems the gardener should have been even less patient with the lack of
fruit as he would have been the one working the vineyard – hungering for a
snack. Yet he asks for a second chance.
And more than a second
chance! The gardener proposes
something unheard of in all of the Bible. Digging
around a fig tree and putting manure on it wasn’t done.
The gardener is proposing an out-of-the-box approach to the problem.
He is suggesting something extravagant and unheard of.
And, at the end of that one year, the gardener’s extravagance suggests
he might come up with another stall plan. Maybe
he’ll want to try a different manure. I’m
learning they are not all the same. Maybe
he’ll suggest giving chicken manure a chance…
We don’t know about
that, but the parable does tell us is that after a year of digging and manuering
– if there is still no fruit – the gardener tells the owner that he
wouldn’t be the one to cut it down. He
explicitly says, “If it doesn’t bear fruit after this care, then ‘you’
can cut it down.” You’ll have to
do it, he says. The gardener will
have no part in it.
The owner of the vineyard
was just one-upped by the gardener. The tables were turned.
The gardener now calls the shots. And
he calls the shots with grace, with second chances and maybe even third – and
with unwillingness to take part in any eventual judgment.
Jesus told this parable
– as he always did when he told stories – to help us glimpse a little more
of who God is and how God acts. God
the gardener is wide with mercy and multiple chances; extravagant with
out-of-the-box solutions; expansive with fresh creations.
Hold back your judgment says our God.
Let me work with the people I have planted in my vineyard.
Let me nourish them, prune them, till their bundled roots so they might
bear fruit.
Professor Richard Jensen
says that our problem isn’t really a fruit problem, it’s a root problem.
It’s what’s underneath the soil, or underneath our masks or hardened
hearts that needs the patience the gardener proposes.
It is the wounds we carry
secretly that need the attention of our Creator.
It is the finding ourselves going in the wrong direction that needs the
call to turn around. It is the
underlying fear distracting our minds that needs the tilling of the gardener.
It is the longing to know ourselves included that thirsts for an end to
isolation. Fruits come naturally
when the roots are untangled and watered and hoed into wholeness.
We need the gardener’s
out-of-the-box approach because our approaches haven’t worked.
If the fig tree could have fixed itself it would have.
But it wouldn’t have had a clue how to make itself fruitful. We too
don’t have a clue sometimes about how to remedy situations, or redeem losses,
or transform brokenness, or right wrongs. Our
minds are often not broad enough to imagine life-giving ways through situations
that confront us.
That was the case for the
ancient people exiled away from their home and into the foreign country of
“Everyone
who thirsts, come to the waters. You
who have no money, come, delight yourselves in rich foods.”
The poet speaks an out-of-the-box word to a people who cannot find hope
on their own. Hope is there, it just
looks different than they had expected. Like
the gardener in Jesus’ parable, the poet of Isaiah 55 gives us a life
transforming glimpse of God.
“For
my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.” God’s
ways are higher than ours; broader; more expansive; less restrictive and
limited. We see in tunnel vision all
the time. To be human is to have
limited perspective. Even those of
us who think we’re pretty broad minded – God is more expansive still.
Have you been to the
When we want to throw in
the towel on a fruitless fig tree or a frustrating part of ourselves or our
neighbor or our world, God holds out wider, not yet heard of, outside-of-the-box
possibilities that we would not want to stand in the way of.
God just might surprise us if we withhold judgment; if we wait with
imaginative hope; if we seek insight into God’s way of seeing.
A challenge for all of us
this week – when you think there is no way out of some hopelessness; or a
family or personal dilemma; or a crisis at work; or a wondering about how we or
our church will be able to be all God calls us to be – remember Isaiah 55.
“For my ways are higher
than your ways, says the Lord, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
I’m going to challenge myself this week to remember that God has a
wider view; a more expansive love; a more creative way than I have yet imagined
and be ready and watchful for that wide way to emerge.
The table of the Lord was
Jesus’ wider response to the betrayals and abandonments of his life.
In the face of rejection and hatred, he created a banquet.
It’s as if he said, “You can count me out, but my higher way will
create a table that brings you back in.”
And here it is. A table of grace, of second chances, of third chances, of a multitude! Come, all who yearn for wider grace; broader hope, deeper trust. Come, with whatever tunnel vision is hardening your heart. Here is food that gets at the root. Here is friendship that results in fruitfulness. God’s ways are higher. Thank God for that! God’s ways are higher!
Amen.
+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson,
to the glory of God
Faith