Sermon - March 7, 2010

Third Sunday of Lent – Year C
Luke 13:1-9

A Little Care and A Lot of Patience


One of the family stories often retold around my home was of the ferns my mother purchased at the Wacamaw Pottery Barn. We were all there, the five of us and my brother-in-law Doug. We had gotten separated and were milling about the place when my sister and brother came up on tables and tables filled with these little bitty ferns, tiny things. They were trying to sell those twigs protruding out of the earth for nineteen cents. “Who in their right mind would pay good money for such a sorry looking plant?” my sister asked.

It wasn’t five minutes before we rendezvoused with mother, to discover that she had four in her basket.

Wait, the story gets better. Mother brought them home and planted them. She watered them and nurtured them and with her natural green thumb those tiny twigs became beautiful hanging baskets. I am sure that it was intentional that she would be out there watering them when my sister came for a visit, just so she could say, “Probably the best nineteen cents I have ever spent in my life.”

That which looked so pitiful was indeed capable of being loved and cared for and nurtured into something that was absolutely amazing.

The owner of the vineyard was inclined to give up. He had waited three years for the fig tree to produce. His instructions to the gardener were to cut it down and remove it from the vineyard. The gardener, with compassion and a natural ability provide nurture, asks for one more year and the opportunity to transform the tree into something amazing.

This was a message eagerly embraced by the early Church. The early Church looked more like a scraggly little fern than a flourishing hanging basket. It was to this Church, and of this Church that Luke writes his Gospel. Let’s not forget that Luke’s Gospel is finalized some sixty years after Jesus’ death. These were difficult times for the followers of Jesus; they had many opportunities to lose heart. As Luke was trying to decide which of Jesus’ sayings to include and which to leave out, it may have been the circumstances of day-to-day living which influenced the selection of this story. He knew that the early Church could see itself in the fig tree, planted securely in the vineyard, yet unable to meet the hopes of their master.

Jesus speaks of events which are unknown to us. There are no other references in the Bible to the death of the Galileans or the eighteen who die in Siloam. This history is hard to reclaim. We do have better knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the life of those who would have been among the first to read Luke’s offering. They were a weak and struggling bunch. There were many eager to cut them down and cast them out of the garden.

We know of Paul’s persecution of the early Christians. When he converted, he no longer carried out the persecutions, but there were many others ready to step in his place. Jesus’ followers were hunted down and destroyed both by the leaders of the Jewish Sanhedrin and by the officials of Rome.

The cry, “Why O Lord,” is natural. It was certainly to have been ringing from the mouths of all those who found themselves doing their best to follow Jesus, only to find their own blood mingling with their sacrifices. If Jesus is our savior, if Jesus is the one who has come to protect us, then why are we being beaten down and destroyed? Many may have had the inclination to give it up and to throw in the towel. Enough is enough.

It is at such a time that Jesus’ words of encouragement would have meant so much to his followers. It is at such a time that it would have been important to remember that we not only have an owner who has planted us, but a gentle care-giver who will see to it that we have the opportunity to rebound and produce fruit.

One has to be careful not to allegorize a parable. Parables are parables, stories told in order to make one, simple point. Never-the-less, there are ways in which the parable can encourage us to think of a wider context. It is a vineyard into which the fig tree is planted. Amid the vines, something new is introduced. I am not enough of a gardener to know the effect that one plant would have had on another. Were there negative side effects to a fig tree among the grape vines? I don’t know – and I didn’t raise the question early enough in the week to contact my agricultural extension agent.

What we do know is that infrastructure for growing grapes differs from that needed by fig trees. It may take a while for the owner, and his gardener, to figure out exactly what is needed. It may take a while, perhaps even as long as it has taken to get this whole thing off the ground.

If, by the time Luke wrote his Gospel, three years was already the accepted duration of Jesus’ earthly ministry, then perhaps it is reasonable to suggest that it would take multiple years for his followers to begin find their footing and get about the business of bearing fruit. The early Church, beset by so many and sometimes prone to be seen as ineffective might hear in this story the encouragement to be patient; they might receive he assurance that the one who planted and the one who gently guides are ready to give more time, and attention, in order to see us flourish.

Many among us may not live to see the wonderful future to which Jesus pointed. Some among us will give up and begin to turn away. But if we are patient, if we allow the gardener to continue to nurture us and provide for us we might find that we are indeed capable of producing the fruits Christ is hoping for.

It is actually around the start of the third century that this rag-tag band of followers finally blossoms into a flourishing community of faith.

The Church of our day may seem to bear few similarities to that early Church - may seem so. But there are places and ways in which we remain the same. We may be bearing some fruit, but certainly there is opportunity for a more abundant harvest. Where it might not be so difficult to relate is if we turn the conversation to focus on our individual lives. Again, in no way meaning to minimize the faithful offering of any of the saints of God, the purpose of the Lenten season is to continue to increase our service to Christ. We are that fig tree, planted in the world, in order to bear fruit worthy of our calling.

Bearing that fruit can be tough. Meeting the hopes of the one who planted us can seem daunting. But the ever present and always vigilant gardener will be there to help us and to aid us. In the end, the tree can only produce when it is cared for. We too can only do the good God hopes for us when we are fed.

To allegorize this parable one more time – it helps if we see the two actors as Son and Holy Spirit, rather than as Father and Son. It is Christ who has planted us here; it is the Holy Spirit who will guide us into production. The Son makes God known to us; it is the Spirit that leads us into sanctification. Learn all you can from the words and teachings of Jesus; allow the Spirit to mould your thinking and guide your response.

Amen.