And Jesus told them a parable: “There once was a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard, and when he came in search of fruit on it but found none, he said to the gardener, ‘For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?’ He said to him in reply, ‘Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.’” (Luke 13.6-9)
Although short in content, the parable that we hear Jesus tell the crowds for our reflection on this Third Sunday of Lent carries a wallop, containing many of the Lucan themes in a matter of a few verses. There is little doubt as to why it is selected as a reading for the season of Lent, a time set aside each year for us to do soul work, meaning we clean house of the rubbish that has gathered in our souls over time, an accumulation of junk that hinders our following in the footsteps of the Galilean preacher and prophet called Jesus.
Central to the Lenten experience is the call to conversion, initiated by the smearing of ashes on our foreheads as the challenge of these spoken words seeps into our souls, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.” Our trek through these forty days, therefore, is meant to be a redirection of our lives, or, put another way, getting back on track, recommitting our lives to the teachings of Jesus.
Even a hurried glance at the parable today tells a similar story, revealing the same call for change. Using the example of a barren fig tree, Jesus tells of the exasperated vineyard owner who demands that his gardener cut down the useless tree. “Why should it exhaust the soil?” he asks his worker, a damning statement of the uselessness of the tree if there ever was one.
Of course, it is much the same that Luke has John the Baptist say at the start of this gospel when the crowds come to him at the Jordan River, interested in hearing what the prophet from the desert has to say. He tells them, “Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire” (3.9). His message is best summarized in his salvo, “Produce good fruits as evidence of your repentance.”
Repentance. It is at the heart of Luke’s vision, the change of heart always front and center throughout these pages, found in the prodigal son who comes to his senses and returns to his father’s house, seen in the wealthy man Zacchaeus who promises Jesus that he will give half of his possessions to the poor, and heard in the thief on the cross who tells his partner in crime that “we have been condemned justly, but this man Jesus has done nothing criminal.”
Utilizing the symbol of the vineyard as the people of Israel that the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures often used, Jesus borrows the same image in his brief story, the vineyard owner castigating the barren fig tree for its failure to do what it is supposed to do much the same as the people of Israel failed to live up to their commitment to the Lord their God.
As we heard, the gardener pleads on behalf of the tree, begging for mercy on the part of the vineyard owner, assuring him that there is still hope for the tree. “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it. It may bear fruit in the future. If not, you can cut it down.” Again, we find here another central theme in Luke’s gospel, the mercy of God always shown in the ways and words of Jesus, the chosen one of God.
In fact, Luke’s text is often called “the Gospel of mercy” because the theme is so pivotal to the text as a whole, the mercy of God tying the book together from beginning to end, Jesus extending that same mercy to the sick, to the sinner, and to the forsaken. Hence, we find him healing the ten lepers of their disease; he praises the sinful woman whose tears wash his feet; he expels the demons who have taken a hold of the Gerasene man.
And here it is again in this short parable, the gardener begging for mercy on behalf of the fig tree that has proved useless up to this point. His cry echoes the cry of the father who begged Jesus to heal his son of the seizures that throw him into fits, the plea of the crippled woman who reaches to touch the cloak of Jesus in the hope for a cure, the shout of the blind man outside Jericho who begs Jesus to restore his sight. To each one, Jesus shows mercy because it is the way of the Most High God.
However, the parable also makes clear that God’s mercy, while generous and forgiving, cannot be thought of as a get out of jail free card. Even the gardener understands as much, saying to the vineyard owner, “Perhaps it may bear fruit in the future, if not you can cut it down.” In other words, there must be a change for the better on the part of the fig tree just as there must be a change for the better on our parts if we expect not to suffer the consequences of our failure to produce good fruit.
In fact, the parable is immediately preceded by two calls by Jesus for repentance, the story of the fig tree becoming the conclusion of that call. Apparently, some people had asked Jesus to explain why some Galileans had been killed by Pilate. Rather than become embroiled in the controversy, Jesus answers them, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.”
He pulls out another example, this one concerning eighteen people who had been killed by a tower that fell upon them, telling the same crowd of listeners, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish as they did.” He leaves little doubt that “the ax lies at the root of the trees” for any one of them who does not produce good fruit.
Yes, the mercy of God will buy them some time–perhaps a year the same as the fig tree was given–but even God’s patience with the likes of the fig tree can be exhausted. In this way, the parable becomes a warning story, reminding the listener that the mercy of God is counterbalanced by the judgment of God. His mercy allows us time to change our ways, but at some point his judgment will be rendered upon us.
So, there is an implicit warning to us that we must use our time well and not wastefully. Time is not a limitless quantity, at least not for us humans. While we may be granted some time to get our house in order, time runs out for all of us. And if we have not turned our lives around, then we will learn, much the same as the fig tree, that we have not taken the warning seriously enough, resulting in the ax being laid at the root of the tree.
Some scholars suggest that Luke intends the time that remains to respond as a reference to Jesus’ movement towards Jerusalem. When he tells the parable, he is on his way there. Already several chapters earlier, Luke tells us that “when the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he turned his face towards Jerusalem” (9.51). Once he is in Jerusalem, suffering death on the cross, the time for the people to respond to his words will be done. If they have failed to heed his message, then they will find themselves judged by God in the same way as the vineyard owner has judged the fruitlessness of the fig tree.
As I said, the bluntness of the judgment rendered by the vineyard owner cannot be overlooked. “Why should it exhaust the soil,” he asked the gardener. It has failed to meet its purpose and it has wasted the soil in which it has been planted. It is a brutal assessment of the barren tree and it is an even more brutal assessment of our lives should we fail to produce good fruit.
The point is clear. At Jesus’ transfiguration, the voice from the cloud stated that Jesus was the “chosen Son,” and it also issued a corresponding command, “Listen to him.” If we wish to follow in the footsteps of the chosen Son, then we have to listen to him, meaning our days are directed by his words and by his ways. Our purpose is clearly defined. We carry on the mission and the ministry of the chosen Son.
That mission and ministry are the same as Jesus pointed to in his inaugural address to the people in the synagogue in Nazareth. “He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
As his followers, we take up the mantle and those words become our marching orders, directing our way in the world, guiding our footsteps so that they align with the one who walked before us, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, welcoming the sinner. The measure of our fruitfulness as his followers will be determined by our faithfulness to those markers.
If we fail to help the poor, give aid to the suffering, and provide shelter to the foreigner, then we have no fruit to show for our time upon the earth and the judgment rendered to the fig tree will be rendered to us, “Cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?” Through our failure to produce good fruit, we have made impotent our purpose and we have fallen far short of the duty that is ours as followers of the chosen Son.
A decade or more ago, I had the opportunity to stand at the bedside of an elderly woman who was nearing the end of her journey. She had lived nine-and-a-half decades upon the earth and she knew–and I knew–that her time was short. Like most other people who know their time has run out, she looked back over her life, judging for herself how well she had spent her years.
Looking at me with solemn eyes, she voiced a single regret. She said to me, “I wish I had done more good with my life.” I wish I had done more good with my life. It was not that she wasn’t a good person. She was. But she understood in that moment that she could have and should have done more good in the time that had been allotted to her. While I could have offered her platitudes and protestations of her self-judgment, I did not. I tend to believe that deathbed confessions should be honored for their honesty because, in the end, their intended listener is the Most High God.
In fact, truth be told, we all could say the same thing that she said. We all could say we should have done more good with our lives. The difference, of course, is that we still have some time left to change our ways, the sands in the hourglass not yet emptied as of today. Like the fig tree, we have been given a reprieve, a chance to make good on our promise to follow in the ways of Jesus.
How long we have left is an open question. The fig tree was given a year more to show it could bear fruit in the future. Perhaps we will be given as much or more. Perhaps not. Regardless, the point in the parable is clear. The time to repent, to change course, is not in the future. It is in the present moment because it is the only moment we can be certain of. It is just as clear that on the other side of the present moment is the judgment of God whose mercy has allowed us today, but has not promised us tomorrow.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 