Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
March 23, 2025, Third Sunday in Lent
Scripture Readings: Isaiah 55:1-9 and
Luke 13:1-9
So – the parable of the fig tree. Every three
years, this story pops up again during the season of Lent, and every three
years, I have to wrestle with what Jesus was trying to teach the crowd when he
told this story.
On the surface, it sounds like a harsh story.
I confess that I love trees, and it hurts my heart to see a tree cut
down, even when I know that the tree is diseased or a danger. So it makes me sad to think of an otherwise
healthy fig tree being cut down simply because it wasn’t producing any
figs. What about the shade that it might
offer to a weary traveler? What about
the birds who might make a nest in its branches? What about the beauty that the fig tree added
to the landscape? Like I said, it hurts my
heart to think of that innocent tree being cut down because of one specific
thing that it isn’t doing.
But when I think about it, there are so many people in the world who are
suffering, who seem to be punished, for something that they have no control
over.
I think of people living on small low-lying islands in the Pacific Ocean who
are watching rising sea levels eat away at their land, year after year after
year. Are they being punished for the simple fact of being born on the land on
which they were born?
I think of families living in Zambia where prolonged droughts due to climate
change are limiting their ability grow enough food to feed their families for
the year. Are they being punished for
being tied to the land where they live, due to global economic forces?
There are so many examples I could think of from this year alone, on our own
continent. Public Service employees in
the US being fired without cause simply because they accepted a career in
public service. Transgender folx being
denied their full humanity as well as access to life-saving medication, simply
because they were born in a body that didn’t match who they know that they are. Ordinary people in both Canada and the US
facing escalating costs of living because our leaders are engaging in a dispute
over a literal line in the sand.
I actually think that the pattern of the fig tree is one that we see repeated over
and over and over again in the world, where people (as well as non-human parts
of creation) seem to be punished for something that they didn’t choose.
Swinging back to the story we heard from the Gospel of Luke, if we look at the
lead-in to the parable, Jesus is reflecting on a couple of these arbitrary
tragedies in his world. Some ordinary
people were in the temple offering their worship to God, when soldiers came in
and slaughtered them, so that their blood was mixed with the blood of the
sacrifice. Killed for being in the wrong
place at the wrong time. And the story
of a tower that collapsed, killing 18 people – again, the only thing that they
did wrong was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they lost their
lives over it.
Arbitrary suffering is not something that is new in the world.
So is there any good news in the parable that Jesus tells, this story of the
fig tree?
I think that there is. The good news
that I see in this parable is the fact that the tree is not cut down right
away. Instead, the gardener is given a
chance to nurture the tree – to weed the ground around it, to fertilize it, to
give it every possible chance to flourish and produce fruit.
If we read the parable and see God as the landowner in the story, then it
paints a picture of a harsh and judgemental God – cut down that tree and burn
the wood because it isn’t producing any fruit.
But it puts a very different spin on the story if we see God as the
gardener. The gardener sees the tree,
and sees its potential, and mourns the fact that it hasn’t been able to live
into its potential, and longs for an opportunity to tend and nourish that
tree. It’s a bit like Jesus, over in
John’s gospel, saying, “I have come that they may have life, and have it
abundantly.”
So if there is a glimmer of good news in the parable, does that mean that there
is good news for us too? I wouldn’t be
standing up here if I didn’t believe that there is always some good news.
If you relate to the fig tree right now, then the good news is there on the
surface. God weeps at oppression and at
suffering, and God is longing for you to flourish. God is extending to you that invitation from
Isaiah (the invitation that the choir sang just a few minutes ago): “Hear, everyone who thirsts, come to the
waters; and you that have no money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price!”
And for those of us who aren’t acutely suffering right now, I still think that
there is good news in this passage, and this is how I see this parable
connecting with our Call to the church of Daring Justice.
If we have God, in Jesus, as the gardener, pleading with the forces who want to
destroy the tree to give it another chance, and then taking the time to nurture
the tree; then we, as the Body of Christ, are called to do the same. We are called to notice the places in the
world that aren’t flourishing, and then we are called to do whatever is in our
power to support and enable them to flourish.
Because all of God’s children are precious, and God wants everyone to
flourish. It doesn’t matter where
someone was born, or under what circumstance, or into what body, God wants
everybody to flourish, and God calls the church, like the gardener in today’s
parable, to be agents of this flourishing.
I might even push this one step further, and say that God longs for all of
creation to flourish – from humans to fig trees to rivers to trees to squirrels
to moose to turkeys. When we think about
flourishing, what daring steps can we take so that not only humans but all of
creation can flourish and be the thing that God created them to be?
Is it hard? Yes. Is it risky?
Yes. The call to the church isn’t
to do only the easy parts of justice, it is a call to daring justice. We are called to dare to stand up against the
things that we know are wrong. We are
called to speak truth to power. Even
when the primary narrative of the world is “me first,” we are called to
remember that we are to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.
And so my hope, as I wrestle with this parable this year, is that you can see
yourself in both the fig tree and the gardener.
When you are suffering, know that God is with you, longing for you to
flourish. And also that you are a
gardener in God’s garden, called to bring flourishing to creation – both the
human and non-human parts of creations.
And know that when you are a gardener in God’s garden, you are the body
of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is with you and within you.
And may it be so. Amen.
“Fig Tree in Assos”
by Kadir COSKUN on flickr
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