On the one hand, Lent can be a season as harsh as the wilderness; a backdrop to examine our life. On the other hand, it can be a time, as are all times, a time infused with mercy and grace; a time to return our hearts to God. A time for confrontation and a time for reconciliation. Don’t give up too quickly on either dimension of God. Do not destroy severity by infusing grace; nor grace by infusing severity. (Craddock). Luke reminds us to receive God’s judgment knowing that it leads to repentance. The delay of judgement is an act of divine patience. To give up on either characteristic of God, we may be tempted to give up on ourselves. The parable of the Barren Fig Tree, by its very nature, is about judgment, crisis, the time of decision. But it is also about the unique way in which judgment is, for now at least, suspended in favor of grace.
God’s mercy is in conversation with God’s judgment. The parable of the barren fig tree is an opportunity to be encouraged not to give up on God and not to give up on yourself. Don’t rush in too hastily with a severe conclusion about your worth to God. We fly off the proverbial handle toward harsh judgment when our view of God is imbalanced.
The parable shows that even the most accurate judgment may be suspended in favor of grace. When you say, “Cut it down! Don’t let it take up space!” you are rushing to a premature decision. Wait until you know something about the fruitfulness its life could experience with care. You may live with the all too certain knowledge that you fall way short of the glory of God. Who among us can stand proud of what we’ve done or failed to do with these gifts which we call our lives? But do we know what the mercy of God can do with us over the course of another day, another year?
It is the vinedresser who is the Christ-figure here. The vinedresser says, “Let it be, Lord, for one year more till I’ve had a chance to dig around it and fertilize it. Then, if it bears fruit after that, it will be all right. If it doesn’t, then you can cut it down.”
Jesus said, “I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 3:17). We live under the rubric of forgiveness. We think, however, that we live by merit and reward. Robert Capon offers this, “We hope to get a pat on the back from a God who either thinks we are good eggs, or if this God knows how rotten we are, considers our repentance to make up for our unsuitability… But this is not the way it works. By the foolishness of God, by the folly of the cross, Jesus takes on our sin…goes outside of the camp for us, is relegated to the dump for us, becomes garbage, compost, fertilizer for us…Jesus didn’t come to see if we are good, but to disturb our own efforts by which we pretend to be good. He doesn’t come to count figs, but to forgive for free, for nothing, on no basis, because like the fig tree we are too far gone to have a basis. We are saved by gratis, by grace. We do nothing, and we deserve nothing; it is all absolutely without qualification. It is one huge, hilarious gift” (Capon, p. 98).
“Let it be for another year!” Instead of sounding like the end, it sounds like the beginning. God is saying yes to our lives. God does not rush to the same harsh conclusion that we are prone to come to. God says, “Amen,” to the work of grace in our lives. Let it be. Leave it. Permit it. Suffer it. Keep on keeping at it, for God knows the plans that God has for you.
Let the spirit of God turn the soil at the base of who you are. Take the spade from the shed and turn some soil as a picture of opening your life to what God wills to do in you. It could be that there’s nothing so wrong, though there is enough wrong with every one of us, but nothing so wrong that if God’s loving son were to engage with us that the result would be far more fruitful and far more productive than anything we could hope to experience on our own.
Let the spirit of God fertilize the very soil of your reside. Let this one who died on the garbage heap of this world’s sin and shame nourish your life. Let this one and his love be spread throughout to give your heart and soul the nutrients it so hungrily craves if it is to survive and have any hope of blossoming. Trust God’s sure judgment. Receive God’s warm grace. Let it be lavished upon you. God can do a good work in you. The fig required the care of the gardener. So, too, your soul requires the care of the Creator.
Hear Isaiah 55. “Everyone, who thirsts, come to the water. You, who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance! Then you will go out with joy and be led forth in peace. The cypress will come up and stand in lasting witness to the glory of the Lord.” Consider the gift of another year as an act of God’s mercy. Let it be a year of forgiveness, and restoration, and second chances. We learn from the Gardener that God’s attitude toward the world involves favor from the start. Unnecessary, spontaneous delight is the very root of God’s relationship with the world. (Capon).
James Russell Lowell, in his poem on Columbus, encourages are trustful expectation upon the mercies of God. In its words. you feel what it must have been like to have had Columbus’ vision and to have faced severe obstacles, first on land and then on sea. He writes of the immense pressure from the crew; pressure to turn back when after all those days out to sea there was yet no sign of land; pressure when the food supply and water supply were diminishing. Lowell must have drawn upon his own moments of doubts and inward conflict in imagining the press of the crew to the point of mutiny to turn back and to head for home.
As an assertion of hope, Columbus has strength to cry out and beg for one more day: “God let me not in their dull ooze be stranded; one poor day! Remember whose and not how short it is! It is God’s Day. It is Columbus’ day. A lavish day! One day, with life and heart, is more than enough time to find a world!” (Earnest Campbell, p. 156).
We pray: “Creator, Sustainer, let there be another day. Another day of grace is more than enough time to find our place on this good earth. In Jesus’ name we pray Amen.
The Story of the Barren Fig Tree. Narrator. Fig Tree. Landowner. Vinedresser.
Consider the story: (The Vinedresser fills the tub with soil. The Fig Tree takes its place behind the tub. The Vinedresser steps away.) A certain owner had a fig tree planted in the vineyard. (The Fig Tree stands tall and outstretched.) And comes to it looking for figs but finds none. (The Fig Tee withers, empty and barren. The Landowner looks and is disappointed that there are none.)
The Landowner says, “Cut it down. Don’t let it take up space!” (With an emphatic chopping motion.). The Vinedresser intervenes, “Let it be for one more year till I’ve had a chance to dig around it and fertilize it. Then, if it bears fruit after that, it will be all right. IF it doesn’t, then you can cut it down.” (The Vinedresser turns the soil. The Tree begins to blossom. The Landowner admires the tree with warm admiration.)
During our moment of commitment or after the service you may wish to turn the soil as a co-laborer in the vineyard, as a way of opening your soul to the work of God’s grace within you. We thank God for the gift of another day!