Give It Another Year, OSLC, Lent 3C, March 23, 2025

Grace and peace to you from our Merciful God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus, who is our Christ. Amen.

When will he ever get it together? I just don’t know about that boy – Fifteen years old, and I’m fairly sure he’s just destined to amount to nothing.

Well, it’s a good thing David and Frances had three sons first. Because their daughter just has her head in the clouds. Of all things, she wants to be a dancer. I hope one of these days, she wises up and does something productive.

It’s too bad about Joe. He used to be so full of energy and was the first one to any of our projects. I haven’t seen him in months.

Maybe you’ve said something like that: about a family member, a neighbor’s child, or someone else you know. Perhaps you were the person who overheard something like that said about someone you know, or even yourself.

Those are the stories I thought about when I was reading today’s gospel. It’s a parable about a landowner talking to his gardener about a tree he planted in the vineyard. Maybe his grapes were wonderful, but he occasionally had a taste for a Fig Newton. Or perhaps the gardener talked him into planting the fig tree. Because, well, who puts all their land in grapevines?

And so, he came out the first year – no figs. But not to worry – the tree has barely gotten settled. The second year, still no figs. Hmmm. And now it’s the third year – there certainly should be figs by now, shouldn’t there? If all the tree is going to do is leaf out, we could plant more grapevines in that spot. Land and water are precious commodities.

But he hired the gardener for a reason. And the gardener knew a few things about growing trees. Not every fig variety bears fruit in the first three years. Some take four or five years. So, the gardener backs off the landowner. Here, he says, I’ll loosen the soil from around the tree, take a soil sample, and see if it needs more phosphorus or potassium. Give it another year.

Even without a shake-up, the gardener knew the tree was likely to bear figs in year four. But he didn’t want the landowner to cut down the tree prematurely.

While this is a classic parable, it doesn’t have the classic parable ending, with Jesus telling the disciples who’s who. Most people look at the landowner as God, the gardener as Jesus, and the tree, as well, us. But I’m not sure that explanation holds up. Basically, you then have Jesus, who is God, trying to convince God to be merciful. And I don’t think Jesus ever had to convince God about mercy.

Think on that a little while. Is there another way to interpret that parable?

Honestly, I wonder if we are ALL the roles in the parable. Sometimes, we are the tree, that doesn’t bear fruit. Too early in our walk with the Lord to be productive members of the community, or unable for whatever reason in this season of our lives. Sometimes we are the landowner, judging whether trees should be uprooted. “Why aren’t these people bearing good fruit like the rest of the congregation?”

And sometimes, those precious times, when we are the gardener. Just wait a year. I’ll be the cultivator, the fertilizer, the mentor, the coach. I’ll make sure the new members find their places in congregational life. I’ll check on those members who I haven’t seen in a while and welcome them back. I’ll bring communion to people and harvest their fruit of stories and memories, critical to our life together.

I think we’d all love to see the entire body of Christ bearing fruit equally, but I don’t think that’s a realistic thought.

• It's been five years this week since the pandemic, and everywhere you look, there’s another article saying how Covid changed how people lived. It got pretty comfortable to watch services online. Going out was risky for several years, and people detached. While many people jumped back as soon as they could, some are still sitting out. Maybe we need to dig around some roots and fertilize some trees.
• Our Savior’s had no regular pastor for three and a half years. While supply pastors and lay people did an admirable job of keeping worship going, other things fell by the wayside. Perhaps the activities that kept some people attached at Our Savior’s haven’t returned. More digging, more fertilizing. If there’s a bible study or program that Our Savior’s used to do that you are missing, let’s talk.
• In the past weeks, it’s been so refreshing to hear the church choir fire up. Some, however, are lamenting that it no longer has dozens of members. Maybe, along with our digging and fertilizing, we need to reset our expectations. I’ll enjoy a handful of figs just as well as I would a bushel basket! By the way, Chuck would welcome new and returning choir members any time!

The beginning of the story talks about two tragedies, the details of which have been lost to us. The Judean governor Pilate went to where some Galilean people were making sacrifices and killed them, then mixed their blood with the animal sacrifices. A horrific act. A tower fell over, people died. Jesus used the examples to ask his disciples if they believed those who perished deserved their fate. Throughout the ages, people have tried to explain tragic circumstances by saying the gods were angry with that person, and the belief caught on with Christians, too.

There’s a story about a blind man in John, and his disciples asked which of his parents sinned that he was born blind. Jesus said neither of his parents sinned. Blindness, towers falling on people, disease, natural disasters – I don’t believe God trades evil for evil. I believe God is a merciful God, beside us when bad things happen.

And I believe the Good News that Christians like us need to share is replacing people’s images of a God who is ready to pounce on us, with that of a God who walks with us, a God who took on flesh, and whose life, death on a cross, and resurrection, is filled with mercy for all people.

In today’s first lesson from Isaiah, we read those generous, magical words, “…let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Like the landowner, we are ready to put a human calendar and human impatience to the tree that was healthy and leafy, but not ready for the harvest. God has an eternity view of people and trees and creation in general. That doesn’t mean we throw up our hands and turn our backs on creation or people. Far from it. Nor am I suggesting that God will never call people or congregations to account if they never bear good fruit. The gardener said, “Give it one more year.”

In our congregations and communities, we are well-advised to take a page from God’s gardening handbook. Dig around the roots and nurture growing things well – People as well as trees. And err on the side of mercy: Give it another year, and with God’s grace, let’s see what the harvest brings.

Amen.