Cultivating Fruitfulness & Letting Go of Empty Productivity

Cultivating Fruitfulness & Letting Go of Empty Productivity

Luke 13:1-9

          At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did." 

          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.'"

Jesus’ parable calls us to cultivate fruitfulness and let go of empty productivity.  What is the context of Jesus’ parable in light the awful tragedies reported by Jesus. In the one case Pilot killed Galileans publicly and the other Galileans died by accidental death.   Why does Jesus turn on the crowd?  And what is the fruitfulness we are given a chance to grow in light of the tragedies that Jesus notes?  All of this is summed up in a call to fruitfulness.  

The slaughter of the Galileans, not mentioned outside the Gospel of Luke, presumably refers to Galileans who were killed by Pilate while offering sacrifices at the Temple.  Galilee was known as a province under Pilate’s control for fomenting rebellion against Roman occupation of Palestine.   Do you recall the story of Barabbas being released from crucifixion by the crowds when Jesus was condemned to death?  Barabbas was a political prisoner fighting Roman occupation. These Jewish Galileans came out of the Galilee to Jerusalem and were slaughtered by Pilate as they were worshiping in the temple.  It’s sad to say that we have all too often read about or experience similar tragedies and injustice in our world each week. Jesus is asked to comment on the political issues of the moment, the slaughter of the Galileans, but instead of railing against the oppressive injustice of Pilate, he turns the focus back on the crowd demanding repentance from them. True change begins with us.  

You see God does not enact external punishment on “sinners”. Jesus immediate rejection that the Galileans were killed because they were sinners or that this tragedy was God’s punishment God’s wrath seems much more tied to our choice to change our hearts and minds to accept and share God’s grace than external factors.  Awful things happen, but it is worse to deny or reject God’s love and grace.  (Eric Fistler and Rob McCoy, https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/lent3c)

The force of the teaching here is summarized in the twice-repeated conclusion that “unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die”.  The parable emphasizes both God’s patience with the unrepentant and the limits of that patience.  Wesley strongly emphasized the love of God, but he also recognized the limits of divine patience and the reality of judgement.  (From notes, Wesley Study Bible, Common English Bible, 2012.)  What Jesus is calling for is a complete and total change of heart, gut, soul and mind. It’s about being transformed - not about feeling guilty about what one has done. 

In the story, God is the landowner, Christ is the Gardener and we are the fig tree.Remember the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 3:23 “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”.  We have all failed to bear the fruit expected of us and, therefore, are deserving to be cut down.  Christ intercedes on our behalf (like the Gardener) and does everything in his power to help us bear good fruit (care, till, fertilize, etc).  “The manure around our roots is the very blood of the one who pleads for our justification before God, the one through whom we may offer up the fruits of the kingdom to our Creator.” Daniel Deffenbaugh,Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 2: Lent through Eastertide.  We still have a set time to bear fruit – change our hearts and minds – or face imminent wrath.

I would like to take a deep dive into what fruitfulness may mean.   Arthur C. Brooks, Love Your Enemies, (90) uses the term warm-heartedness to describe fruitful living.  Brooks reminds us that warm-heartedness begins with an understanding of human morality.  Brooks reports that unless you are a sociopath you have morality imbedded into your DNA.  Brooks sights study after study. He comes down to five foundations of morals that each person carries.  I am only going to mention the first two today.  Warm hearted living starts with the understanding that all people who ever have been, who already are and who will be born have 1) fairness and 2) care for others imbedded as the foundation of morality.  Unlike so many political operatives today who start by assuming that their opponents have no moral foundation, Christians start by assuming that all persons in the conversation have fairness and care for others as moral foundations. 

In the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius explains our imbedded morality as the nature of social duty.  he says, [we] are “created [us] for a reason, for some duty, in the same way[s] that the function of a fig tree is to do a fig tree’s work.”  Our primary function, he thought, is to be “rational.  To discover our secondary functions, we need only apply our reasoning ability.  What we will discover is that we were designed to live among other people and interact with them in a manner that is mutually advantageous.”  Musonius Rufus writes in Lectures, “Human nature is very much like that of bees.  A bee is not able to live alone:  it perishes in isolation.” Marcus says, “Fellowship is the purpose behind our creation. To fulfill my social duty – to do my duty to my kind-I must feel a concern for all mankind.  I must remember that we humans were created for one another, that we were born,” says Marcus, “to work together the way our hands and eyelids do. In all I do, I must have as my goal “service and harmony of all.”  More precisely, “I am bound to do good to my fellow creatures and bear with them.” (The Guide to the Good Life, William B. Irvine, p. 129.)

We know that we are born blessed with a duty to serve and have harmony for all. The devil is in the details of our living and we fail.  We choose to break our God-given nature and duty.  We seek out reasons to divide.  We seek excuses not to serve.  We reduce our fellow humans to objects that we can use, abuse, throw away and terminate.  We see the objectification of humanity in the growing pornographic industry, in the growing human trafficking industry, in the warehousing of people.  We see the objectification of humanity in our eye roles and blame games.  It is not a new problem.  It is a problem we need to stop.  The Christian Coptic hermits who lived out their faith and life in the deserts of Ethiopia in the four century knew this, “Love means an interior and spiritual identification with one’s brother, so that he is not regarded as an “object” to “which” one “does good.” The fact is that good done to another as to an object is of little or no spiritual value. Love takes one’s neighbour as one’s other self, and loves him with all the immense humility and discretion and reserve and reverence without which no one can presume to enter into the sanctuary of another’s subjectivity.” (Merton, Thomas. The Wisdom of the Desert (New Directions) (p. 18). New Directions. Kindle Edition.)  Even a hermit in a cell in the desert can objectify a person for spiritual gain.  

Fruitfulness is allowing God to care for ourselves and others through us.  A fig tree is nourished and provides nourishment for others.  It may not even know that it does it.  God’s grace is a gift which is not earned.  God’s grace can only be fully accepted when we change our hearts and lives toward God and neighbor.  Eternal life is living in full relationship with God, self and neighbor. Christ shows us how to live in that fullness of life.  By following Christ’s way we have a chance and a choice to accept God and other centeredness and life or self-centeredness and death.  The “wrath” of God is as much one of our own choosing as it is God’s when we collapse inward upon our self and on our selfish coercion of others.  

When we submit to God and allow Jesus to bring nurture and nourishment to our interior we live out of a warm heart.  We have a wholehearted life. BrenéBrown describes the interior of this heart, “Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.  It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No Matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn’t change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.”

(BrenéBrown, The Gifts of Imperfection, 1.)

Rev. Todd Pick and Rev. Jennifer Pick,( https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship/lent-2019-worship-planning-series/march-24-third-sunday-in-lent-year-c/third-sunday-in-lent-2019-year-c-preaching-notes), know what this looks like in a simple way externally. “As faithful folk, we know how to fuel the body and how to make love the central ingredient in almost any dish. When we lack words, we bring food. When we wish to dispense comfort and care, it often comes in the form of casseroles and hot dishes, all seasoned with the spirit of love and garnished with a sprig of hope.”  

There are many who testify to the “before and after’ in their lives.  God’s grace chased them until their lives blossomed with peace, justice, hope, caring and humility.  In Jesus’ story of the fig tree, the gardener offers to put fertilizer around the barren tree.  Growth comes because the gardener works at it.  Wesley believed that God finds ways to nurture and mature us into the fullness of love.  These means of grace – Scripture, prayer, worship , fasting, Lord’s Supper, holy conferencing and acts of mercy – become ways by which God nourishes us toward fruitful living; full love of God and full love of neighbor. (From notes, Wesley Study Bible, Common English Bible, 2012. 1309.)