Need a Gardener?

Then he 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 around 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].

As you likely know from an earlier post, Jane and I spent most of the past two weeks gathered with some dear Erskine College friends at the beach. If some of your ears were burning, it’s because we were talking about you. Most of our time together was light and gay (I still use that word in its original sense).

Of course, there’s a lot of heavy stuff going on around us these days. There’s the senseless war in Ukraine. Apartment buildings, train depots, and hospitals are being bombed. The little jerk that runs Russia is evil incarnate. On the local front, we’re working our way out of the pandemic. Do we mask? Do we not? One evening, on Edisto Island, as we sat around the large table after dinner, we recalled and lamented the tragic, senseless murders of two Erskine College classmates—and two of their grandchildren—in their Rock Hill home last April. Two at our beach gathering were best friends with the slain couple. They’re still reeling from the loss. It’s enough to make you turn to scripture.

As I read through the Lectionary selections appointed for this upcoming Sunday (the Third Sunday in Lent, RCL, Year C), I was drawn first to one verse from the OT reading.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD [Isaiah 55:8].

I’ve used that verse from time to time as I’ve discussed the wide divergence between the mystery and majesty of God’s “mind” and our own. We encounter many forces that tax, no, overwhelm our ability to comprehend. Yet, I’ll confess that as stark and true as is that Isaiah passage, when it comes to helping our friends deal with the deep and inconsolate grief over the unexplainable loss of dear friends, I’m left thinking, “Meh.”

For a moment, I thought I’d found a particularly appropriate text when I read through this Sunday’s Psalter selection—Psalm 63:1-8.

Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you [Psalm 63:3].

Praise for our all-powerful God is indeed always appropriate. And my heart sailed when I read and remembered the psalmist’s words in verse 8.

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Yet cracks in my faith began to appear as I said to myself, “Did your right hand uphold Robert, Barbara, the two grandchildren, and the two HVAC workers who just happened to be working at their house that day?” In some respects, I was back to Isaiah, confessing: “I do not understand all this heartache, this tragedy, this pain, for your ways, O Lord, are indeed not my ways.”

And then, I turned to the Gospel reading [Luke 13:1-9]. The short passage is easily broken down into two distinct, but related parts. The first part, verses 1 through 5, speaks indirectly of the horrors in both Ukraine and Rock Hill. It seems that Jesus is teaching a group of unnamed people. They mention a deep tragedy for which we have no specific historical reference.

Pontius Pilate had ordered the slaughter of some Galilean worshippers. Then, to emphasize his power and cruelty, Pilot directed that his executioners mix the victims’ blood with that of their sacrifices. Pilot sounds a bit like Putin. I wonder if the first century despot, like the Russian nemesis, was short in stature.

I’ll get to Jesus’ response to the crowd’s unstated question in just a second, but their story of tragedy prompts Jesus to provide them with another example. Apparently, a tower at Siloam fell, killing 18 people [see 13:4]. NT scholars have noted that it isn’t likely coincidental that the tragedies involved both Galileans and Jerusalemites, and that one was the act of human evil, whereas the other was what we might call a natural evil.

At the heart of the crowd’s conversation with Jesus is a question that has been on the lips of humanity almost as long as we have inhabited this Earth. We see it, for example, in John 9:2, when the disciples inquire, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Other biblical examples mentioning this issue include Job and Psalm 37. We desperately want to make sense out of human tragedy. Might there be some sort of correlation between suffering and sin, a correlation that sometimes—not often, but sometimes—seems unmistakable? Stating the question differently, does she prosper because she is good? Does he suffer because he isn’t?

Putting it still differently—“sin talk” makes so many of us uncomfortable—is human suffering merely random or is it connected in some way to divine law? High-browed seminary professors refer to this issue as theodicy. Modern folks write best sellers on the subject, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.”

Although the question is directly on the table before Jesus, He will not answer it in simplistic terms. He will not engage in their tragedy calculus. He will not do so because at one level, the activity is futile. At yet another level, He will avoid their implied question because He sees that the crowd, like so many of us, is trying to divert attention from what Jesus says is the true point: All—not some—are called to live in penitence and trust before God.

And so, to the question posed not by the crowd, but by Jesus—I’m paraphrasing— “Were the Galileans or those in Jerusalem who happened to be too close to the tower worse sinners than you and me?”

“No,” says Jesus resoundingly, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” [13:3, 5]. One’s trust in God, Jesus reminds them/us, is not to be linked to life’s ups and downs. Life within God’s Kingdom is not a game of harboring favors and avoiding losses. Without repentance, it’s all lost anyway. That’s why this passage from Luke is read during Lent. Whether we can avoid tragedy or not, our task is to repent and to do it now, since we don’t know how much time we have left within which we might do it.

I mentioned earlier that there are two parts to this week’s Gospel reading. The second part is a four-verse parable offered by Jesus [13:6-9]. At first blush, the parable seems to be a bit of a non sequitur, when one considers verses 1-5. We’ve learned, however, that Jesus always has a powerful point to make when He turns to his parables.

A landowner had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. For three years he had come to the vineyard, expecting the fig tree to do that which fig trees do—produce figs. On each such occasion, however, he came away disappointed. And so, the landowner turns to his gardener and tells him to cut it down. It’s taking up space and nutrients; and it’s giving nothing back.

And yet, the gardener replies to his master,

Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down [Luke 13:8-9].

Gardens and gardeners have played important roles in our Scripture. The initial, “good” Creation was created and cast by Yahweh as a garden. During the late evening/early morning of His betrayal and arrest, Jesus prays in a garden. On that first Easter morning, when Mary Magdalene finds the tomb empty, she encounters her Lord nearby, but mistakes the risen Lord for a gardener. She recognizes Him only when He speaks to her [John 20:16].

Mary, of course, is correct. Christ is the Gardener. Christ was present before the Creation of the Earth. Christ was the force though which all Creation came into being. And in His short parable, provided to the crowd and written down for us by St. Luke, we see the Gardener at work again.

In my Bible studies I always caution against trying to convert Jesus’ parables into allegories, into cute little stories where everything in the parable can be compared to something in our own world. When we do that, we usually miss the point of the parable. For example, when we read the Parable of the Sower [Matthew 13] and quickly try to identify what sort of soil we might be—thin, shallow, thorny, or rich and good—we miss Jesus’ central point: that Yahweh is completely unlike human sowers, who carefully calculate the method and manner of their seeding. No, instead, Yahweh broadcasts the seed—and Yahweh’s blessings—in every direction, knowing that some of it will wither and fail, but doing so nonetheless because Yahweh is desirous that all might have a chance to grow and prosper, not just those who have the natural advantage.

“Lord, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.”

“My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.”

“If it bears fruit next year, ….”

And so, at the risk of violating my rule, may I posit that in this Lucan parable, when Jesus speaks of a gardener, He’s talking about Himself. He is the sort of gardener that recoils when He sees that something is about to be destroyed, whether that destruction come at the hand of a grazed individual, a Russian tyrant, or through active sin on the part of the “fig tree itself.” The Gardener is intent upon giving the tree one more chance. That, my friends, is the core Lenten message. The Easter that approaches is a time for a second chance (or a third, or even a fourth). I know that I need a Good Gardener.

Do you?