Sunday, March 24, 2019
Old Testament: Exodus 3: 1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 10: 1-13
Gospel: Luke 13: 1-9
Today’s Gospel reading from Luke recounts the parable of the barren fig tree, in which the owner of a vineyard makes his annual visit to check out the crops and threatens to chop down a fig tree because he has failed to find fruit on it for three years.
Maybe the owner was not an observant Jew, or he would have known that under Jewish law a fruit tree was not to be harvested in its first three years after planting (Leviticus 19: 23-25):
“23 When you enter the land and plant any kind of fruit tree, regard its fruit as forbidden.[b] For three years you are to consider it forbidden[c]; it must not be eaten. 24 In the fourth year all its fruit will be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way your harvest will be increased. I am the Lord your God.”
The gardener (Jesus?) is aware of this law and protects the tree from immediate destruction, ensuring that the fourth year and subsequent harvests would be bountiful. The gardener promises to add manure and dig around the roots during the next year. A careful horticulturalist would also have removed any budding fruit in the first three years to prevent premature harvesting, so that the tree would establish strong growth.
Jesus tells this story right after a group of people has told him about Pilate’s frightful atrocities towards some Galileans. Jesus reminds them that those who suffered are no better (or worse) than they themselves, and that if they repent they may avoid a similar permanent destruction.
This parable reflects on us as created life in God’s garden, dedicated to God but not quite ripe for the picking. To experience life in its fullness, we need to rededicate ourselves to God and allow our Gardener, Jesus, to feed and tend us. How good it is that Jesus protects us from destruction until we are fully developed for God’s purposes!
Martha Jane Patton
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