Lenten Devotion for Sunday, March 7

Today's lessons:

Isaiah 55:1-9

Psalm 63:1-8

1 Corinthians 10:1-13

Luke 13:1-9

Author:

Rev. Janet Hunt

Pastor, Salem Lutheran Church, Sycamore

Theme verses:

Luke 13:6-9

Then Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7So 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?' 8He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"

Meditation:

So how does it end, do you think?

We surely don’t hear in this brief story Jesus lays out for his listeners.

What we do hear is that there’s a fig tree in the vineyard that hasn’t been producing for at least three years --- or at least that’s how long the owner of the vineyard has bothered to check. One wonders why neither he, nor the gardener, hadn’t done anything about it before. I mean, don’t you think you wouldn’t wait three years before doing the obvious --- before digging around it and spreading the fertilizer that might make all the difference? It hardly seems fair that there’s a possibility that it’s the fig tree’s fault that figs haven’t been forthcoming and still, the owner is calling for its destruction.

Still, be that as it may, the fig tree doesn’t really have any say in the matter. It’s destiny lies in the hands and the hearts of the landowner and the gardener.

So how does it end, do you think? Do you suppose the owner relents and gives it one more year? Do you suppose the gardener soon finds himself shoveling manure to salvage this one tree?

It’s kind of interesting, actually. For there were, no doubt, many fig trees in the vineyard: used as they were to hold up the trellises of the grapevines. It seems important to note that the owner is that well acquainted with this one particular fig tree to have remembered its history of producing figs… maybe he was a meticulous note-taker and that’s how he remembered (third tree from the end in the 15th row?). Or maybe he had taken a special interest in this one for reasons we’ll never know…

Still, how does it end, do you think? It’s hard to say, but we do know that in the stories immediately following this one in Luke’s Gospel (the story of the bent over woman, the parable of the mustard seed, the parable of the yeast) hope and healing, renewal and life prevail. So perhaps that’s how this one ends, too. I surely hope so.

Because you see, sometimes I see myself in that fig tree. Sometimes I see our Church in it, too. There have been days, months, years, even when the fruit has been hard to see. And I have always trusted in the goodness of God --- who will keep digging at my roots and who will keep piling on the manure --- all to bring out who and what I’m meant to be. Who and what we’re meant to be together. Surely the fig tree gets one more year, doesn’t it? And surely God’s grace works that way, too…

Prayer:

Holy God, we live in gratitude for ‘one more year. Do what needs to be done to me, to us, that we may bear the fruit that marks us as your own. Amen.