Life Between The Trees: The Fig Tree - Luke 13:6-9
How
many of you use coupons? Anita and I do,
though I’m not as faithful at keeping up with them and and shopping store to
store to get all the deals that help you get $200 worth of groceries for $12. You know what the most frustrating thing
about not keeping up with it coupons like we’re supposed to is? It is standing in line after gathering those
items that you would normally only purchase one of, having everything rung up
and bagged, pulling the coupons out of the book, and handing them over to the
cashier, watching her scan them, and then look at it, and say, “sorry sir, this
coupon expired last week.”
There
are also all those saved emails. I
receive emails all the time that offer good deals on places we like to shop or
places we like to eat. I’ll save the
email figuring we will go soon. As daily
emails come in and the saved emails get pushed down, they become forgotten,
like Anita’s free birthday ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. We thought about it Friday, and when I pulled
it up yesterday it had already expired.
Time
runs out. We cut the coupons, we save
the emails, we have an opportunity to save, we know they have an expiration
date, and then we don’t pay attention.
This
becomes part of our “Life Between The Trees.”
Before we get going too, I have to see if we’ve made progress. How many tree huggers are there to be found
at St. Paul’s this morning? We found
free will with the dual trees of Eden…we’ve explored the olive tree’s hope of
God’s sustaining and rescuing grace…we’ve experienced the assurance that
nothing voids the promises of God at the top of the cedar tree…under the Oaks
we have heard the call to radical hospitality…the palm tree calls us to trust
in God for the victory…and the broom tree assures us that God comes alongside
those struggling with depression…
Today
we have made the transition from some of the trees in the Old Testament to explore
a few of the trees of the New Testament.
We begin by standing before the fig tree as we hear the parable of
Jesus. Hear the parable again:
“A man had a fig tree
planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So
he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for
fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be
wasting the soil?’ He 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.’”
So
what does this parable have to do with couponing and remembering emails deals? It’s all about the opportunity and the expiration
dates. The opportunity is the savings
that the coupons and the emails afford. Those
expiration dates on the coupons and the emails are reminders that at some point
it will be too late to make use of those deals.
Jesus tells us this parable let us know that we have an opportunity and
to warn us that there is also an expiration date.
There
is an opportunity. The farmer came back
and found the fig tree barren. He was
ready to have it cut down. In his
opinion there had been time for the tree to start producing fruit. He was ready to be done with that tree. The gardener asks for another year. He asks for the opportunity to clean up the
ground and fertilize the soil. The
farmer grants his request. The farmer
has mercy for the tree and grants it one last opportunity to bear fruit after
the gardener heavily invests himself in caring for and encouraging the tree.
There
is an expiration date. Jesus leaves no
question as to that…there will be a point at which it is too late. The farmer will sit in judgment—He will come
back and a year and if the tree is bearing fruit, then all is well and good, if
the tree is not bearing fruit then the axe won’t just be laid to the tree, the axe
will be swinging to cut it down.
Opportunity
and expiration date…mercy and judgment.
Some of us want to breathe a sigh of relief. We are under the impression that we don’t
have to worry about judgment. Judgment
is for those folks who don’t have a relationship with Jesus. It is for those folks who have turned their
back on His love and forgiveness. We are
here because we have given our lives to Christ, we have escaped judgment. We have the get out of jail for free card and
skip the judgment throne and move straight into the banquet. Don’t get me wrong, there will be judgment on
whether or not we will accept the love of Christ and embrace Him as Savior and
Lord. That is a given.
This
is something different. The story of the
fig tree is not about judgement on non-believers. This is about God’s judgment on
believers—God’s judgment on God’s own people.
Consider it, my brothers and sisters, the fig tree is a tree that the
farmer has planted—it is one that the farmer has brought to life. What tree has God planted, what people has
God formed…first the people of Israel and then the Church. This is the story of God coming to examine
His people to see if they are bearing fruit…to see if we are bearing fruit. This story would have called to mind the
preaching of John the Baptizer to those who had heard him:
Bear fruits worthy of
repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our
ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children
to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree
therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”[i]
In
Jesus’ parable, the time has come to cut down the tree…God has come to examine
His people and has found His people barren…no fruit spring forth from its
branches. Yet, at the request of the
gardener, an opportunity is given, mercy is shown—time is given in order to see
if the tree will begin to bear fruit.
Salvation
comes as a free gift from God, there is nothing we do to earn it. God pours His grace into our lives and frees
us from sin. God loves us and accepts us
where we are, but then calls us to grow into His likeness, and then continually
pours His grace into our lives to give us the strength to do so. We are called, in the strength of God to live
different lives. Lives that bear fruit.
It
means that God is looking to see if we, as individuals, and as His Church, have
left the dead barren lives marked by death behind us. Have we left behind us what Paul would call
the “works of the flesh”: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry,
sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions,
envy, drunkenness, carousing,” and things of that sort?[ii] These
things infect our lives and our church in much the same way fig rust, blights,
and nematodes infect and can leave the fig tree barren.
God,
through Christ and the Holy Spirit, has given us the opportunity to live lives
that have left those “works of the flesh” behind. He has dug around and fertilized our soil,
filling us with His grace—grace that we find in worship, in small group studies,
in the reading of Scripture, in Christian fellowship, in service to those
around us.
God
has offered us this grace…He has given us opportunity. Will we make a u-turn with our lives and live
completely different? Will we turn from
the diseases of this world, as individuals and as a church, that leave us
barren and rotting and soak in the nutrients God puts in our soil that we may
live truly fruitful lives. Paul offers
an image of what the fruit looks like that God’s tree should bear. Living, healthy, fruitful trees are marked by
“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness,
and self-control.”[iii]
When these things pour out of us, we know that we are truly bearing the fruit
of God—fruit that is not for ourselves, but fruit that those around us feed off
of and come to know our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is through bearing fruit that we fulfill
the commission of Christ to go into the world to make disciples—and it is
through more and more disciples of Christ bearing this fruit that we will see
the world transformed.
My
brothers and sisters we have been given an opportunity…we have been shown
mercy…we have been nourished by grace…we don’t know the expiration date, only
that there is one…may we be found to be fruit bearing trees.
In
the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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