Last Sunday we explored the parable of the Rich Fool; Jesus teaching there that preoccupation with the storing up of material wealth, together with the belief that our lives are entirely our own, is ‘foolish’. Yes, that was the word he used, ‘foolish’; a word used throughout the bible for describing the very opposite of the wisdom that comes from God, a wisdom that is often contrasted in the bible with ‘the wisdom of the world’, a wisdom that does not take into account God, is not informed by his laws or his love. In the case of the rich fool we discovered that his foolishness was essentially this, that his preoccupation with building up his wealth had destroyed the two things in life that matter more than anything else in the world - our relationship with him and with our fellow human beings. Sadly, I have come across so many people – I’m sure you have too - for whom this teaching of Jesus has fallen, and still falls, on deaf ears.
This morning we explore two more incidents – one a parable – in which we find Jesus teaching about two very significant, indeed essential, steps for the Christian, for the man or woman who would take Jesus seriously and, realising their need of him, decide that they want to follow him, make him part of or, rather, welcome him into their lives.,
These two episodes have been put together by Luke in his gospel. I agree it’s not perhaps immediately obvious why. But I hope to show you that he has put them there, one immediately after the other, because they teach us about two consecutive steps you and I must take towards maturity; maturity not just of understanding the Christian life but in putting that understanding into practice.
We don’t have time to explore fully both this morning; but we shall do in the
Wednesday evening study group, which is repeated on Tuesday afternoons in the Ladies Study Group – both here in church. These two groups give us much more time not only to explore Jesus’ teaching but to listen to and talk with others about how and why and in what ways Jesus’ teaching is still so relevant to us and to healthy lives today.
But let me just say, very briefly, that the first five verses – we’ll explore more on
Wednesday - offer some difficult, unpopular and unsatisfying for many (I would call such people ‘foolish’ according to the biblical definition of wisdom; let’s call a spade a spade!) but, yes, unpopular and unsatisfying for many people, teaching about suffering.
Jesus states here firmly, and in a very matter-of-fact way, that suffering is not necessarily directly related to particular acts of sinfulness and is very often simply purely accidental – that’s just the way the world is: but both kinds of cases (man-made and natural suffering) should serve to lead us, he says, to consider, unlike the rich fool, not only the fragility of human existence but that the whole thrust and purpose of our lives should be towards serving God and neighbour rather than ourselves. And therefore we all of us need to repent.
Whatever life throws at us or others, however ghastly, we all of us need to repent of any sinfulness in our own lives and turn to God and his service. I know this sounds tough, harsh, as the principle point Jesus makes about the problem of suffering in the world.
(Remember, here he is responding to their questions; we know already of his compassion, his practical responses to particular cases of suffering, a compassion he sets as an example for us to follow.) But such repentance is actually ‘the beginning of wisdom’ on this whole subject. Why? Well, because we need to get ourselves in the right perspective before we can comment with any real ‘wisdom’ on the subject.
Repentance is always the first significant and vital step to understanding the world and the way it is, to becoming a Christian, and then to growth in maturity in the Christian life.
And it is a daily requirement lest we become, like the rich fool of last Sunday’s parable, either too full of ourselves and our own worldly wisdom or too full of insatiable desires that there is little or no room left in our lives for God and for the service to which he calls us. They are five admittedly tricky verses, and we can explore the whole subject of suffering more on Wednesday evening at 8pm.
But what follows after repentance? Where do we go from there? Is it enough to say sorry and then just carry on as though nothing has changed? No. And this is why Jesus introduces this parable immediately here in V6. ‘Then he told this parable.’ As if to say,
‘For where you are now, I’ve told you all you need to know about suffering; now here’s your next essential piece of godly ‘wisdom.’
We can see that it is about fruitfulness, or rather, the lack of it. But when we examine it closely we shall find that it is not, as at first sight perhaps to some, just about judgement and condemnation: it is actually about mercy and grace, something which would certainly have surprised Jesus’ listeners because he takes an Old Testament picture and then re-works it into a new one.
Let’s see what it all means and then think about how it applies to us today.
The symbolism is straightforward Old Testament with which his listeners were familiar:
the vineyard is Israel; the owner and the gardener are the attributes of God, justice and mercy, debating with each other. But there is also a fig tree introduced – indeed it is the centre of attention! It represents those who ought to know and to do better. In this particular case Jesus has his guns on the religious leadership of Israel but his message to them does have a wider remit, and is to those who, having come into the vineyard and taken their place there, are not fulfilling their calling. Certainly, failure to bear fruit was an Old Testament symbol for the idolatrous days in which the prophets lived, whilst in Jesus’ teaching, bearing fruit is the very purpose of becoming a Christian i.e. to continue his mission of reconciling the world to God by our presentation and living of his ‘gospel’ message ourselves.
Now very interestingly, Jesus takes an OT passage with which his listeners would have been very familiar, Isaiah chapter 5, and changes and adds some things to make the vitally important points you and I need to appreciate and then to act upon.
1. In Isaiah chapter 5, the vineyard owner sees the unfruitfulness and tears down the whole place, walls ‘n all. Here, whilst there is a strong message of righteous anger, judgement is postponed (mercy) and a time allowed for repentance and then fruitfulness (the work of God’s grace in our lives).
2. The fig tree is unfruitful and is bleeding strength from the soil; it’s not just a waste of space. (To be quite blunt, this is one of the reasons why churches today are not being fruitful and in many cases declining, not surprisingly, in number! Oases of peace from the world they may be, but there is always the temptation to inactivity resting under the shade of our own barren fig tree. Church health and church growth are factors of fruitfulness: heresy and church decline are equally factors of unfruitfulness. In these respects the reports and numbers tell a very clear story, despite the many social and theological excuses put forward for decline.)
3. The owner, though justifiably angry, acts to preserve the health of the vineyard; he has the health of the whole vineyard at heart. The leadership, represented by the fig tree, have a responsibility. Those today who have a leadership role in a church have a responsibility not to allow those who are wasting space to sap the strength of the church. The role of every church is to bear fruit. If a church, or things about it, or people in it, are preventing that church from bearing fruit, then things need to change. Here in the parable there is a crisis of particular leadership. What will the owner do?
4. The problem is simply stated v7. He has waited patiently (seven years if we know our gardening) long beyond the expected, natural appointed time for fruit-bearing. It is his concern for good soil in his vineyard that prompts him to ‘dig out’ the barren tree. Some translations say ‘cut down’. No, ‘dug out’ because trunk and roots still take up space – no room for the unfruitful!
5.v8. With their Old Testament background understanding, listeners would have expected such drastic action: but no, the debating attributes of God in the persons of the owner and the gardener decide that the fig tree is to be offered a period of grace AND special attention from the gardener. This is very revealing and, for his listeners, surprising. (It sounds funny, doesn’t it, speaking of ‘forgiving’ a fig tree? But in Aramaic, ‘forgive’ is very close in sound to the word for ‘dig out.’ Our western translators missed a trick there. Jesus didn’t; he wanted his listeners to remember it more easily!) But what we must all realise here is that fruit cannot come from within the resources of the tree itself! It needs the gardener and manure, just as you and I need Jesus and his grace if anything genuinely fruitful is ever to be grown in our own lives and the life of our church.
To conclude then, each one of us needs to reflect on both these pieces of teaching and to ask ourselves what it means for us as individuals and for us as a church to be ‘fruitful’ for Jesus in this day and age? I suspect the exercise will not be painless. Note though, this parable once again Jesus leaves open-ended; we are not told the outcome.
In doing so Jesus challenges each one of us to make our own response to the parable.
What we do know is that the fig tree needs to produce fruit. We know too that God is willing to provide the necessary manure, time, and commitment to help it to grow. But how will we respond to God’s working, to his ‘manuring’, in our lives? That is the question.
