When I was installed as pastor at Wicomico Presbyterian Church I received a gift from the Korean congregation next door. They sent me a beautiful orchid plant, which I received with awe and a bit of trepidation. My past experience with orchids had not been that successful. But everyone kept telling me they were pretty simple. Find a good spot for it – light but not too much direct sunlight – and feed it three ice cubes a week.
So I did. And after a time the blossoms all fell off, as they do. But it looked healthy otherwise, and I kept feeding it three ice cubes every Sunday, without fail. And waited for it to bloom again.
I waited five years. 260 Sundays. 780 ice cubes. Which is longer than this vineyard owner did.
This man apparently planted the tree expecting results. He wanted this tree to be productive for him. But the tree has not been productive in the way this man wanted and expected, and he has an attitude about it. In fact, he seems personally offended. He orders his gardener to cut it down, get it out of his sight, out of his vineyard so it shouldn’t waste one more speck of soil.
To the landowner it is a commodity. If it is not producing for him, then it is worthless to him. But the gardener sees things differently, possibly because he is more immersed in the life of the soil and the plants that live there. He has a better understanding of growth, and all that is needed to support growth.
It is, admittedly, a confusing little parable. We don’t know what this fig tree is doing in the vineyard to begin with. We don’t know why the landowner himself planted it when he has a gardener. And you know what else? We are really unsure about who to side with in this parable.
Is the gardener right in his argument? Should the fig tree be given another year’s chance? He is probably a lot more familiar with the plants, the soil conditions, and other variables, so he might have some good reasons for believing that this tree ought to be given another year to prove itself. And, it might occur to you, it’s possible it hasn’t been very well cared for up until now. Whose responsibility was it? the man who planted it in the vineyard? Or the gardener who tends the vineyard?
And then there is the poor little fig tree. Perhaps your sympathies lie there. If this tree is healthy in every way except that it isn’t producing fruit, is it fair to kill it now?
Who is this landowner who orders the tree to be cut down, anyway? Is he justified in his decision? You might argue he is. From what I have read, it seems that you ought to be able to expect some fruit from your fig tree by the third year, if not before. And if a fig tree is for getting figs, then this tree is not living up to its purpose. Is this a fair argument, or is it too simplistic? It’s possible the tree had other purposes. Sometimes a fig tree is planted in a vineyard for the ways that it can help the grapevines stay healthy.
The little story has many facets, and every time I turn it I see other possibilities. Kind of like real life. But today I invite you to consider something that is not even mentioned in the parable: rest.
Last week when the grandkids were at our house Kim took them over to the measuring wall. Maybe you have had one of these in your house, a place where the children can stand against the wall and you mark their height and the date. And periodically, you go back and measure again, to see how much they have grown. I think we have had one of these everywhere we have lived. And we have left many of them behind for the new homeowners to find.
The kids always love it. They feel so proud of themselves when they see how much they have grown. But this time Kim was surprised to see that Lena hadn’t grown at all since the last measure. Lena seemed kind of puzzled by it too. She’s been doing everything right. She eats, she sleeps. What more can a kid do?
I said to her, “Lena, growing is hard work. Sometimes a body needs to take a rest from growing.” That seemed reasonable to her. She was willing to accept a period of rest until her body was ready to start growing again.
No living thing is made to be productive all the time. However, this is a struggle for us because the world demands productivity. We take pride in being able to talk about how busy we are. We might boast about how many hours a week we are working. Our identity and sense of worth gets all tied up in being able to quantify our output. Which is something that can become extremely painful to us when we reach a season of life when we no longer feel like productive, high-contributing citizens.
I read this week about a woman who established what she calls the nap ministry. Kind of like a church, but instead of hard pews there are soft mats and pillows for people to lie down and rest. Then she speaks to them in calm, tender tones and lets them fall asleep if they want to sleep. Her point is that human beings are starved for rest. And the more starved we are the more dysfunctional we become. As Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest,” she embodies this value in her ministry.
Rest is essential because, even though it doesn’t look like it, rest time is productive time too. It gives the body the opportunity to rebuild and repair and reset. For a tree, there is lots of work going on underground during the seasons of rest. Roots grow, searching out nutrients and other plant life down there that can create mutually beneficial relationships.
For a human being, rest can provide the time for a lot of inner soul work – for listening, for seeing all that God is inviting us to take in.
Who is this landowner who would cut down the trees during their season of underground work? Who would cut off you and me from the things that give life?
There is a time for rest, and then there is a time for fruitfulness. Even the early Christian hermits, who withdrew from society to live in the desert, returned eventually. They came back to be a useful part of the community, sharing the fruits of their contemplation. People sought them out for their wisdom.
The truth of the matter is that we need both rest and growth. We need both rest and productivity, fruitfulness.
Although it doesn’t speak to this matter directly, we might infer this from the parable of the fig tree. We don’t find the landowner to be all wrong, nor do we find the gardener to be all wrong. Life consists of both rest and growth.
But who is this landowner anyway?
Of all the characters in this parable – the gardener, the tree and the landowner – I wonder about the landowner. I can identify with the tree, because I have seasons when I am not as productive as I would hope. I disappoint myself at times and surely disappoint people around me. I am like the pathetic little fig tree.
And I appreciate the gardener, who has so much empathy for the tree. The gardener gives care and nurture and really wants to help along the plants of the vineyard to be the best they can be. The gardener is who I would want to emulate.
But what about the landowner? At any time, the landowner could represent different forces in society, but right now I think the landowner is the department of government efficiency, as they maniacally rush around breathing threats, cutting, slashing, and burning random positions and departments. They say to us, “It’s time to let go of your low-productivity government job and find yourself a high-productivity private sector job.”
But I have questions about that. I want to know about these low-productivity jobs.
Are they the ones that help senior citizens get their social security? The ones who make sure the checks go out on time every month, so people have money to buy food and pay rent?
Are they the ones who work on USAID contracts at a maternity clinic in South Sudan who prevent women from bleeding to death in childbirth? A clinic that is now closed.
Are they the ones who provide mental health care to our military veterans who are struggling day to day? The ones who intervene and prevent suicides?
These are some of the casualties when we’re destructive merely for the sake of being destructive. Moving fast. Breaking things.
Of course, anytime you try to pin down the characters in a parable it will be an imperfect comparison – Jesus did not speak about our current situation in this country. Still, the parables are always applicable. They always have light to shed for us, something to say to us. And this parable of the fig tree seems to have a little something to say about the conflict between the self-interested and often destructive values of the world and the life-giving, hopeful, and caring values of God’s realm.
You want to know another thing about this parable? It has no ending. I wonder what happened. Did the landowner relent and let the gardener try another year to help the tree along? Or did he insist that it be cut down that same day? We don’t know. All we have is what we would like to see, what we hope for.
Just like in real life.
It is my hope that the gardener persisted in making his case to the landowner. It is my hope that the gardener provided the care the tree needed – care that any living thing or creature needs to thrive and bear fruit. It is my hope that the landowner discovered mercy and repented.
It is my hope that you and I will find a good balance in our own lives for rest and productivity, that we will all bear fruit and do our bit in making the world a better place – in all the ways that really matter. It is my hope that we will resist the landowners who want to cut everything down in a hurry. It is my hope that we will each be like the gardener, tend the soil we live in, help one another grow and bear fruit.
That orchid I received as a gift – I tended that plant for five years, in hope. And then it bloomed.
It is my hope that we will not lose hope.
Picture: Fig Leafing by Hannah Garrity, A Sanctified Art, LLC.
