Year C / Lent / Week 3 / Sunday
Readings: Exodus 3.1-8a, 13-15 / Psalm 102.1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8 and 11 (R/v 8a) / 1 Corinthians 10.1-6, 10-12 / Luke 13.1-9
“…leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it” (Luke 13.8)
What a comforting image of second chances Jesus gives his disciples and us in the parable of the fig tree. It is about giving time for change to happen. Time for extra care to bring about this change. Yes, one more time for the tree’ to realise its potential to bear fruit.
This is what the gardener in the parable can see. The orchard owner cannot. The gardener does because he cares for the fig tree; he sees the life still there and wants to give it every chance. The owner cannot because he focuses only on the produce: no figs, no good, cut it down.
Jesus’s parable is really about you and me. About our life and how we live. About how we realise our potential. About how we let our Christian faith come alive in us for God and for others. About how sin does waste away the life within us and prevents us from flourishing and bearing fruit. And yes, about God's care to save us.
This parable must encourage us onward this Lent. It invites us to ‘pause,’ ‘see’ and ‘return.’ For Pope Francis these three words can remind us that Lent is God’s time “to remedy the dissonant chords of our Christian life.”*
We pause in order to look and contemplate the state of our lives. We see the real face of Jesus who reveals God’s mercy. We return without fear to God to experience His healing and reconciling tenderness.
Wise are those who hear Jesus’s words and act on them. Foolish are they who ignore or rebuff Jesus. How will each of us respond?
For many of us, a tree full of fruit, an abundant harvest, a net full of fish and new wine aplenty are signs of fruitfulness. They express God’s favour. Barrenness is the opposite of fruitfulness. It is not good; it says there is no life left. It promises nothing but continued sterility and empty.
We know what barrenness looks and feels like. It stares us in face when we honestly pause and recognise that we are stuck and sinful and seemingly unfruitful. It confronts us when family and friends make sinful choices and live sinful lifestyles. Barren lives scare us. If barrenness is all we give back to God on judgment day, I believe we fear hearing God judge us with those words the orchard owner said,“ Cut it down.”
God’s mercy will however outdo our fears. Jesus says, “leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it.” Doesn’t he do this for us every time we sin? Jesus does because he is the Gardner of our lives. He understands we need time to turn around from bad habits and sinful ways. He knows we need space to convert from selfish self-centeredness to selfless self-sacrifice for others. He does not give up on us to grow up, become better and be fruitful. This is why He awaits our turning back to His grace.
Some of us may say, “Jesus’s patience and compassion gives me even more time to live my life the way I want and for the end I crave. When all is done, I will repent and come back to God.” Such a person might pray, “Please God, make me good, but not just yet” like St Augustine did. This is however his famously insincere prayer.
Today, Jesus demands we stop bluffing ourselves. The reprieve for one more year is how Jesus points us to the urgency of repentance and a change of heart. Yes, “Now is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6.2). We have this time of Lent to change, and there is no time to lose.
We can change because God is with us. In faith, we believe this. He willingly enters into our chaotic, messy and sinful lives. This is how we experience God’s mercy. In the person of Jesus who bothers to join us in the rubble of our sinfulness, littered with our failings and faults. Entering into our lives to give us enough time to change. Entering with extra care to help us to repent and convert.
Indeed, this how God’s mercy has always worked. Listen again to God speaking with Moses: “I have witnessed the affliction of my people. I have heard their cry; and I know well what they are suffering. Therefore, I have come down to rescue them.” To rescue his own is the love God has for us. St Paul teaches how God’s warnings to Israelites not to stray from Him are really God’s reminder that He will come in Jesus to give us to new life. At the Ascension, we hear Jesus’ promise that he will be with us to the end. Such is the steadfast love of the Lord; it never ceases and his mercies never have come to an end (Lamentations 3.22).
It should not surprise us that God always gives second chances, and a lot more. The hard work we must do in Lent, and also every day, is to keep on repenting for conversion. We are used to hard work. Growing up takes hard work. Getting ahead in life takes hard work. Deepening our relationship with God and others takes hard work. All this promises much good. Our Lenten efforts to change promise the same – the goodness of our lives flourishing in Jesus and bearing fruit.
Is this the goodness you want?
* Pope Francis, Homily at Ash Wednesday Mass, 2018
Preached at St Ignatius Church, Singapore
Photo:finedininglovers.com
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