Growing Fruit

Common English Bible Chapter 13

13 Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. 2 He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. 4 What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

6 Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ 8 The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. 9 Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’ ”

Introduction

I get nervous around scriptures like this...

Earlier this week the garden club was meeting just outside my office.

Just about any time that I would walk past, someone would very kindly and gently invite me to join them.

And every single time I would laugh and say “No, I don’t want to kill all your plants.”

I have twice killed a cactus.

Which according to one commedian means that I am less nurturing than a desert.

So when Jesus breaks out the agriculture parables, I get nervous...

But all the same, let’s break this one down a little bit and see what we can find.

Bible Breakdown

Pilate is still a bad guy.

This is one of those situations where the lectionary went out of order, so this story happens before everything we read last week.

But still, Pilate is a bad dude!

The story is starting to circulate that while they were offering sacrifices in the temple, Pilate had a handful of Galileans killed.

Jesus is in the Galilea region, so this is like the home team getting slaughtered by the evil empire.

And behind the question folks are asking of Jesus are a few deeper questions:

Did they deserve it?

The widely held view at that point in human history was essentially one of Karma.

If you do good things in the world, then good things will come to you.

If you do bad things in the world, then bad things are coming your way and you’ll get yours.

And truth be told, there are more than a few Bible verses that read exactly this way.

Proverbs 1:31 “They will eat from the fruit of their way, and they’ll be full of their own schemes.” `

Proverbs 14:14 “Rebellious hearts receive satisfaction from their ways; the good receive the due reward for their deeds.”

Psalm 7:16 “The trouble they cause will come back on their own heads; the violence they commit will come down on their own skulls.”

To be honest, I’ve come across more than a few folks who hold to this view point too.

Mostly, we want to believe that if we are putting good out there in the world, that we will get back all the good we offer.

There’s even a version of this that some folks call the Prosperity Gospel.

If you pray the right way, if you have enough faith, and (more often than not) if you give the right amount of offering to the preacher’s ministry, you’ll get a big house or a fancy car or something like that.

But when the home team gets killed by the bad guys, this all kind of goes out the window, doesn’t it?

Do bad things happen to good people?

Is it possible that these Galileans were every bit as upstanding as they thought?

Is it possible that the good guys were victims of Pilate?

Is there any actual justice in the world?

Or is it possible that they weren’t as good as we thought they were?

Or maybe these Galileans had some kind of secret sin going on that we didn’t know about?

I see this a few different ways sometimes among the faithful, when someone we perceive to be really good and wholesome meets an unfortunate end, we start to wonder if maybe they weren’t as good as we thought they were.

That kind of besmirches the name of some really good people after the fact, doesn’t it?

In either case, the focus is on other people.

This is one of the few places that Jesus is outright dismissive of an idea.

You think that they were worse than you?

Nope.

Jesus brings up another example, maybe ripped right from the headlines of his day.

What about those 18 people involved in that terrible construction accident?

Do you think they were more worthy of death than you?

And maybe we could insert our own modern day examples of this?

Are the Russians who die in this war deserving of the end they’re getting?

What about the innocent Ukrainians?

What about when someone we disagree with gets a flat tire?

What about when those we disagree with loses an election?

Do they deserve it?

And Jesus problem with this line of thinking seems to be that everything we are asking revolves around someone else.

Are they getting what they deserve?

Are they getting any justice?

Are they getting the kind of treatment I think is fair?

Our focus in this line of questioning is all about other people.

And so Jesus tells a parable that turns the question around.

What about you?

A Parable

The significance of the fig tree

The fig tree in a vineyard is actually a recurring parable in the scriptures.

The prophets kept telling of a time when Isreal would be a fig tree and grow great fruit for the nations around them.

They are blessed to be a blessing.

But in Jesus telling of the story, this tree has a problem.

It’s not growing fruit!

What kind of fruit?

How would you know if you were growing the right kind of fruit as a follower of Jesus?

Paul gives us a pretty great list in the letter to the Galatians.

Love

We talk about this one so much that it almost feels silly to include it on the list.

But it is almost at the same time one of the hardest ones to wrap our minds around.

I was speaking with someone the last few weeks about what it looks like to pray for Vladimir Putin.

Yeah, we have to love him too, don’t we.

One of the most obvious fruits, but one of the hardest.

Joy

We have talked before about how I dislike Christians who are way too serious all the time.

One of the absolute markers of whether a Christian is growing fruit on this tree is whether or not they can find their way to joy.

Joy in the happiest of times, yes.

But also in the darkest and most difficult.

Peace

This could be a difficult one to think about when we’re on the precipice of World War III almost every day...

But again, Jesus wants us to make this about us.

Can you say you are a source of peace in your workplace?

Can you say you are a source of peace in your family?

Can you say that you are a source of peace in the words that you offer in your own internal dialogue?

Patience

This is usually the point in this list when everyone starts laughing.

Our minds will wander back to the last week when we were stuck in traffic...

Come to think of it, I sent a text to Sarah during rush hour just this past week and said “I find myself becoming indescriminately angry at traffic lights.”

We lack patience.

We lack contentment for what we have, for what God has given us right here in this moment.

Kindness

I really hope I’m wrong, but a cursory glance at the news will tell us that our culture is giving up on Kindness.

Can you imagine are we’re starting to move in to midterm political season a candidates ad campaign that simply and profoundly revolved around being kind toward their opponent?

The prevailing wisdom is that this person would be clobbered.

I’m still naive enough to believe that it would be so radically different, and so out of the ordinary, that this person would win in a landslide.

Generosity

I have long said that I can tell exactly how seriously someone takes the words of Jesus not by how many times they’re in church, or how many prayers they say, or what bumper stickers they have,

But by how much they tip their waiters.

Most pastors would turn this in to an opprotunity to ask folks to give more to the church, and

I’m certainly not going to stop you...

But this is so much bigger than what you drop in the offering plate.

It’s about how generous you are with your time, your talents, your resources, your abilities.

Not just with the church, but with the whole world.

Faithfulness

When the going gets tough, do the tough still get going?

Are you faithful to stay true to God when things aren’t going your way?

Are you a fair weather fan among your friends and family?

Can we trust your word? When you promise something, do you stay faithful to what you’ve promised?

Can your spouse trust you to be faithful and true?

Again, this is bigger than just whether or not you go to church, which is how so many people treat this fruit of the spirit.

This is about whether you are faithful in all manner of life.

Gentleness

Again, this one is going to swim against the tide of culture a bit.

You aren’t going to win a whole lot of points for being the gentle one at the office.

You win when you project strength and aggression, right?

Right?

Jesus says no.

Jesus says that it’s the one that has a gentle demeanor who is growing fruit.

Is that us?

Self-Control

Again, not one that we in our world have made a habit of.

In fact I took this picture this week at Giant Eagle because I just couldn’t stop laughing...

It takes a certain amount of self-control to work through all that chocolate to get to anything even resembling a salad.

These are the kinds of fruit that Jesus says are lacking among his people.

And you know, how many of these did I start with a warning about how counter cultural they were for us today?

If you look around the world, even within the walls of the church, you might struggle to find any fruit on the vine, wouldn’t you?

God’s Unending Patience

I think Jesus is showing us what it sounds like when God is arguing with himself.

Let’s just cut the tree down.

It’s taking up too much good soil.

Something better could grow here.

And truth be told, there are many in our modern world that are thinking the same thoughts about the church right now.

We’ve passed our relevance.

Sell our buildings and give them to shopping malls or community centers.

Get them out of here and let something else come in.

But the gardener, the one who actually takes care of the plant, starts pushing back against the owner of the property.

Give me another year with it.

Let me massage it a bit.

Let me work with it.

I can turn this thing around.

And the master shows his patience.

Holy Crap

A friend of mine had an interesting suggestion for a title for this week’s sermon, and if I had read her post before sending Paula my bulletin info I would have gone with it.

She was going to call this sermon “Holy Crap.”

Well…she didn’t use the word “Crap,” but still...

The way the gardener is going to get the tree to grow the kind of fruit it’s called to grow?

Fertilizer.

And there…that’s when the parable connects a little bit, doesn’t it?

Do bad things happen to good people, or does a little bit of holy crap help us grow in our joy?

Do we really have to sit in that traffic jam because of karma, or does a little bit of holy crap help us grow in our patience?

Do we really have to live in to a cycle of agression and hate and anger, or does a little bit of holy crap help us to grow in our kindness?

Maybe all that bad stuff that happens to us has very little to do with how good or bad we are.

Maybe it’s the way the gardener is patiently shaping us.

Maybe it’s the way the gardener is patiently helping to cure us.

Maybe it’s the way the gardener is trying to spring fruit from the ground.

That’s not always what it is...

Sometimes tragedy is just tragedy.

And in those moments, God joins us, walks with us, and mourns with us.

But even there, even in the midst of our most unspeakable darkness,

Jesus Christ is the one who unwaveringly chooses to bring life from the darkest of deaths.

May we grow the fruit that the gardener is asking from us.