Fertilizer or an Ax

Luke 13: 1-9; Exodus 3: 1-15

March 10, 2013

In the yard around the house where I grew up, there weren’t that many bushes or trees.  Mostly because my dad was in charge of the yard, he could not be bothered with the mowing around trees, or pruning bushes. In fact, I only remember 3 extraneous trees or bushes on our family’s acre property—we had a boxwood bush in front of the house, a forsythia bush in the side yard by the driveway, and a beautiful blossoming lily of the valley tree in the side yard.  The lily of the valley tree was beautiful– its blooms were purple, and trumpet shaped, and it smelled lovely in the spring.  It wasn’t a shady tree—it was purely ornamental.  And my mom loved it.

My dad was fine with the boxwood bush—it was easy, and it covered up the uneven front porch, but he had it out for the forsythia bush and the lily of the valley tree.  One spring—when mom wasn’t home–my dad had enough of the forsythia—it was too close to the driveway, and he was probably worried that it would scratch his truck—so he ripped it out.  He often threatened to cut down the ornamental tree—he just hated mowing around it—but mom would somehow sense it and stop him.

One year, dad thought the tree was looking funny.  It wasn’t blooming like it should.  He thought the tree was dying.  So, he took out the ax and unceremoniously chopped the tree down.

If I recall correctly, my mom wasn’t home, and my brother and I watched this disaster unfold, knowing that my mom would freak out when she saw what happened.  Dad chopped down this lovely, dying tree, and threw it into the brush pile in the back of the property.

And then mom came home, and my brother and I got out of there as quickly as we could.  Mom was—as we expected—furious and heartbroken and convinced that dad just didn’t want to mow around this tree anymore.  Dad was convinced that the tree was dying and could not be brought back to life.  Each of them believed that compassion was at the heart of their ownmotivations.

Our parable today is like many of the parables Jesus tells—very confusing.  Jesus told the story of the fig tree.  Now, I don’t know much about the vineyards of first century Israel, but I’ve never heard of a fig tree growing in a vineyard.  Vineyards are for grapes.  Nevertheless this odd ball fruit tree was in the middle of the vineyard, and it was struggling.  It was not bearing fruit.

The owner wanted to cut it down.  The owner saw the fig tree taking up space, using up resources that could perhaps be devoted to grapes.  But the gardener pleaded with the vineyard owner for mercy for this failing tree.  “Give it one more year.  I’ll cultivate the ground around it, I’ll put manure on it.  I’ll tend to it.  Give this tree one more year to blossom.”

One more year.  One more opportunity to bear fruit.  One more year for the crap—the fertilizer, placed around the tree by the gardener—to change this tree and to bring it back to life.

This is a story that can address questions of how God works in our lives—from a META perspective.  This story—particularly when we look at the first half of our text from Luke—can cause us to ask questions about why bad things happen to good people, and the role of God in suffering.  Those are important intellectual and theological questions.

But what compels me today—in light of our Lenten theme of “outlandish longing”—is the care of the gardener for this lone fig tree in the vineyard.  “Give it one more year”, the gardener says.  “Give me time to tend to it, to dig around the tree, and cover its roots with fertilizer,” the gardener pleads.  “Give it more time.”

One of the benefits of the Mennonite tradition is its focus on community.  Our language of salvation is not so much about inviting Jesus into our hearts, as we may hear in other traditions.  Our language is about making a choice to follow Jesus.  Our journey is a communal one.  We are not alone when we follow Jesus.  We join our story with the stories of those who have gone before us.  We talk about discipleship in this tradition.

One of the things we lose when we talk about this communal discipleship, this communal journey, is the possibility that God works on individuals, that God nurtures and tends each of us.

But it is true.  God works with each one of us.  Tending and pruning.  Digging around the roots, adding nutrients to our soil, to our soul.

When we lose ourselves in the communal identity we can lose the possibility of a personal, devotional, spiritual tending that takes place when God is at work in us.

God did a lot of pruning and fertilizing of Moses, who before he became the leader of the people of Israel, seemed like a lost cause.  It seemed like perhaps he needed the ax.  Moses, a child of Israelite parents, yet raised as a member of the Egyptian royal family.  Moses, who killed an Egyptian man in a fit of anger, then fled to the desert to hide.  Moses, who was nervous and anxious, prone to stuttering, was stopped in his tracks by God who revealed God’s self to Moses in the form of a burning and talking bush.

It was just Moses and God on the mountain of Horeb that day.  And after years of Moses’ soul being tended in the wilderness, God showed God’s self to Moses, called Moses from the wilderness, told him he was needed, back at the place that he had run from.

And Moses, having been tended and healed in the wilderness, went back to Egypt.  He didn’t go back confidently, he was afraid, and needed the help of his brother Aaron, but he went back.

Moses had been transplanted into the desert vineyard.  There he found people that nurtured and cared for him, and he found  a new role in this desert life.  There he tended to sheep while God tended to his spirit, preparing him to bear fruit.

These stories—the parable of the fig tree, and the story of Moses—speak about the ways that God can work with us.  Moses—who seemed like the kind of screw up that could only be worthy of the solitary work of mountain herding—was called by God to lead the people of Israel.  He was nurtured and cared for in the unlikely vineyard of the mountains of Horeb, and there he was prepared for the work of leading the people of God out of slavery.

I wonder where you feel God is at work in you.  Where is God tending and nurturing you, giving extra space to grow?  I would invite you to meditate on a few questions today about your personal, individual relationship with God.  And, I’ll give you some time here, in the silence to think about them.

What parts of your life are being nurtured and fertilized by God? 

Where is God saying, “Give this more time to bear fruit?”

Is there something that may need the ax? 

For many years, I was angry with my dad for chopping down my mom’s favorite tree.  Truth be told, it was my favorite tree too. I had my own bias as I watched that event unfold that day.  But, having had to let go of a few dying plants in my garden over the years, I’ve come to see that sometimes that act of chopping down is as much an act of compassion as the tending and fertilizing.  There are years when the ax is needed.  There are years when time and fertilizer are needed.  There are years that we bear fruit.  There are years that we barely bloom.

Parables are tricky and confusing things.  But they do invite us to finish the story, to enter into them, and see ourselves in them.

Today, as we examine our outlandish longings, let us open ourselves to be nurtured and tended by God, to allow God to show us those places that need pruning or cutting, that need time.  God, the great gardener, is kind and compassionate, whether God wields fertilizer or an ax.    AMEN.