Isaiah 55:1-3; Luke 13:6-9; March 23, 2025; Third Sunday of Lent
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“Then Jesus told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So, he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” – Luke 13:6-9
We all have that friend or family member, don’t we?
Who just can’t seem to get themselves together, who just can’t seem to get themselves ready in time.
Who is it for you?
Mine just happens to be my wife. Oh, I try to tell her that she should be here in church and defend herself against my stories. These jokes. But she says she has to work or something and make money.
But yeah, I could do our taxes in the time it takes her to shower and put on an outfit. But it’s all good. It’s given me a bushel full of sermon material.
But I think that God must be like that with us. Not the using our loved ones as a joke bit, but the waiting on us part, especially as we try to get ourselves together. To get ourselves ready in time.
As we try to be more… good. More ethical. More punctual, bearing fruit before Jesus comes again.
Do you all remember the movie, Good Will Hunting? The late and great Robin Williams was in it. Matt Damon, Ben Afleck too. Great movie. Won Best Original Screenplay. Though honestly, one could say its origin had roots in our parable today. In the frustration of waiting for a tree, a friend, a loved one to finally bear some fruit.
I’m paraphrasing here, taking some of the more colorful language out of this quote, but one of the most poignant moments happens when Chuckie says this to his brilliant and talented, but somewhat unmotivated friend, Will:
“Look, you’re my best friend, so don’t take this the wrong way, but in 20 years if you’re still living here, coming over to my house, watching the Patriots games, working construction, I’ll f’ing kill you. That’s not a threat, that’s a fact. … for you’ve got something that none of us have… you’re sitting on a lottery ticket but too scared to cash it in… so if you’re still here in 20 years, hanging around here, wasting your time, it’d be an insult to me.”
It’d be an insult to me!
It’d be an insult to God… Yes, my friends, we are too often like Will, the barren fig tree in Jesus’ parable today; with arms and branches, roots and limbs, just hanging around, not really producing anything of value. Not cashing in on the call of our religion, or the gifts of the Spirit that we’ve been given.
It’s true, right?
But, admittedly, bearing fruit, getting it together, just doesn’t come naturally or easily, now, does it? Certainly not within our human frailty and with sin always getting in the way.
And it is frustrating. So frustrating, isn’t it, when you actually try your hardest, but don’t see the results you were expecting or hoping for. When your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak. Rendered barren even when we’d like to be whole.
It is frustrating, indeed.
And worse yet, and more frustrating still, is when we’re called out for it by others. When we’re judged not only by ourselves, but also criticized by our peers, our parents, our spouses, our congregants, who are either thinking or outright saying to us, why waste any more seed on your soil? Cut it down. Cut you down.
Yes, sadly, I think we can all relate to this, right? For at one point or another in our lives, we’ve all been that friend or family member, who others have simply given up on and cut down with their words or actions; or, perhaps even more terribly, we’ve all been that friend or family member who has given up on others and has cut them down instead.
We’ve all been there. Because sin just keeps getting in our darn way.
But the good news today is that Jesus was never a sinner like us. And He just never goes there. I think the only time he cuts anyone down (who didn’t deserve it) is when he calls that poor Syrophoenician woman a dog… but she immediately corrects him, and he immediately relents and blesses her.
The good news then is that Jesus is more our gardener than our landscaper. Our gardener, who tries to dig a moat around us to protect us. Our gardener who prunes and nourishes us with his word and the fertilizer of hope.
And while that is indeed GREAT news today, it would yet be disingenuous of me to just skip over verse 9 in our text… that difficult verse that says while Jesus is indeed working on our behalf, stalling and buying us time, it is imperative that we yet respond in kind.
“If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” – Luke 13:9
In another gospel, in Matthew’s, John the Baptist tells the people that “there is an axe at the tree… and that we must start bearing the fruit of repentance (Matthew 3:8-10).”
“There is an axe at the tree, and we must start bearing the fruit of repentance.”
Acknowledging that Jesus’ public ministry only lasted for three years as well, we can infer that John’s warning reappears in our text here in verse 7: “For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still, I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?”
“Why should it be wasting the soil?”
In other simpler words then, we all better start shaping up before we are shipped out.
For one must wonder, especially today, in this broken, divided, and violent world, if we are all testing the Lord’s patience. Especially as good fruit is left in the fields to rot while our weeds overtake the garden.
“You will know them by their fruit” it says elsewhere in scripture.
“You will know them by their fruit.”
If we are to be called Christians today, should we not then bear some fruit today?
For we’ve been given another chance, on top of another year, after three already and counting… we’ve been grace upon grace, and mercy over mercy… and so, let us not cheapen it, okay?
For it is time, my friends. Time to get it together. To stop hanging around, wasting precious moments, bearing nothing of substance, insulting God and what it means to be called a Christian.
And really, what better season than Lent to empty our cupboards bare of all that does not satisfy?
Filling them with something that is sustaining, with a food source that is life-giving… with the bread of life, whose delights not only satisfy us for this lifetime, but that can sustain us for the rest of all time, into eternity.
Amen
Benediction
Today, my friends, we have an invitation to Abundant Life!
To a place where Isaiah told us there will be waters, and streams of life overflowing.
Where we can buy milk and wine, two of my favorite things, without cost, because – and here’s the kicker — the price was already paid
By Him, the eternal gardener, who paid that price for us on a cross and who grants us entry into that heavenly community
Jesus could have given up on us, and grown tired of waiting, but he has miraculously shown us grace, giving us another chance, and a bit more time, to try to get right again
So, go in peace, my friends, and be of good courage, and of right action, bearing fruit in his name
Trusting in the blessing of Lord God Almighty — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who is waiting on you now, for another year, and prayerfully, forevermore.
Amen
