Unfruitful Figs

Harrowing story - murder, desecration, tragedy, punctuated by the refrain - repent or perish!

Just what we are looking for on a Sunday morning!

But if we dig a little deeper, there is a lot going on here.

This is a story in three movements, directed by Jesus, who is leading us through the trial of self-awareness, and into life.

Well, they were Gallileans, what do you expect?

The first movement actually begins off camera, so to speak. Jesus has just been talking about taking your problems to the authorities for justice and some people pipe up and tell him about some of his fellow Gallileans who had been murdered while at worship by the Roman authorities. Their blood spilled with the blood of their sacrifices.

And just off to the side, you can almost hear the person saying, “Well, what do you expect from Gallileans?”

We’ve all been there - some throwaway comment about a person or group of people, that maybe we didn’t mean, or maybe we did. It only stands to reason, after all. We don’t mean anything by it.

We can keep up that pretence when it’s someone far off, but if you’ve ever been in that uncomfortable situation when the person being written off is you, or someone that you love, then, Well, it’s not quite so innocent or meaningless, is it? And I’m going to go ahead and assume that if you’re a woman, or a person of colour, or someone with a different gender identity or sexuality, then you have been in that situation.

Jesus calls out our prejudice.

Who do we hold in contempt?

Who do we judge harshly?

Who do we thoughtlessly criticise? Dehumanise?

Unless you repent, you too will all perish.

Ooof.

Sinks like a stone, doesn’t it?

What if we re-phrase those words a little? - we need to change our way of treating each other, because this way leads only to death.

It’s all part of God’s plan

When I went through national assessment, as part of the interview process they would give a group of us a series of true-life challenging pastoral scenarios and ask us to figure out together the best way to respond.

The one I remember the most clearly was this: a young woman in your congregation has just lost her husband tragically, suddenly to cancer. While you’re greeting people at the end of the service the following Sunday, you overhear another woman attempting to comfort her by telling her, “Don’t worry, it’s all part of God’s plan, this will be for the best.”

How devastating! Isn’t she sufferng enough?

“It’s all part of God’s plan” is just one of the ways that we attempt to tidy away the messiness, injustice, and suffering in the world so that we can pretend that it doesn’t apply to us.

Closely related is the belief that suffering or misfortune or tragedy is the direct result of personal sinfulness or spiritual lack.

Jesus zooms out from the casual victimsiation of individuals, and addresses the tragic suffering in the world, and our response to it.

Jesus calls us out on blaming God and blaming the victims for tragedy.

When tragedy strikes, it is not because the victims have done something wrong. When a building collapses, it is not the fault of those who are taken from us.

When terrible things happen, it is not because God is taking spiteful revenge on those who have bruised his ego.

Unless you repent, you too will all perish.

What if we re-phrase those words a little? - we need to change our way of seeing the world, because this way leads only to death.

Unfruitful figs

At this point Jesus takes a sharp turn. In the first movement, Jesus calls out our judgement of others. In the second movement, Jesus zooms out to unseat our misjudgement of God’s justice. In the third movement he zooms in again. Because, clearly, the hearers and the readers of this word are the unfruitful fig tree.

It’s us.

It’s you and me.

We are the unfruitful figs.

It’s all too easy to read this parable, and to heap burning coals upon our own heads. “I should be more fruitful. I’m not worth the soil that I’m planted in. I should be cut down and replaced.”

I know that I feel like that all too often. Maybe you do too. I think that we all do, from time to time.

But that just doesn’t sit right with what Jesus has just been saying.

Let’s look at this parable more closely. There are two characters - the owner of the vineyard, and the gardener.

The owner of the vineyard is angry, vengeful, judgemental.

The gardener is patient, gentle, generous.

It’s all too easy to read the owner as God, but which of these two cahracters seems more like Jesus to you?

What if the message of this parable is not vengeance and harsh justice, but a message of courageous hope?

The song that John H sang just before is a song of hope against hope. It comes from teh very end of the book of Habbakuk. Just when the message of hte prohpet is most bleak - the nation of Israel will be destroyed by the invaders God leaves us with a message of hope. The barren fig tree will bear fruit once more.

What if that message of hope is meant for our lives too?

When all judgement says that we’re too far gone, that we should be cut down and replaced, we can be made new. Made fertile and fruitful once more. All of our most harsh judgements of ourselves cannot tell the whole truth, because God the gardener has his hands in the soil of our lives, enriching and nourishing us as we turn to him.

The final message of the parable is this:

We need to change our way of seeing ourselves, because God’s way leads to life.

Amen.