READING: Luke 13. 1 – 9

Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”

SERMON

A man moved to a new house and had a pear tree in his orchard that was over one hundred years old. The fruit on the tree in the first year that he lived there was small, and while abundant, it was not worth a whole lot.

The second spring he asked an old gardener who knew just about all there is to know about fruit trees, what he should do to make the tree produce the kind of fruit he expected from it. The old gardener said that the tree was far too large and quite clearly very old and that it had not seen a pruning hook for many years. The old gardener was asked if the tree should be taken down and a new tree planted in other words a better tree.

The old gardener loaded up his wheel barrow with various types of pruning clippers, went and examined the tree. He pruned and he trimmed and he trimmed and he pruned and he worked on the tree for over several hours on two different days. It was hard work for he was very old, but he said that his labour should be worthwhile, even though the tree was older than he was.

He was convinced that the tree would produce fruit – good fruit and he tended to the tree as carefully as he could to make sure that it would. That autumn the pears on the old tree were larger than they were the year before, even more plentiful, and far less blighted and marred.

The following three years the old gardener pruned the tree, the lower half anyway, with excellent results, but since the old gardener was too much at risk to use a ladder, and because the top of the tree was very high, a certain amount of neglect accumulated over those three years.

By the end of those years the results of the neglect were self-evident. The fruit – even on the lower branches – had once again became less plentiful – smaller – and less pleasing, and the old gardener once again was questioned about taking the old tree out, or at the very least cutting the top fifteen feet of it off so that it would become manageable.

The connection with today’s parable of the Fig Tree is self-evident especially to those of you who are gardeners, to those of you who go looking for fruit in its first season.

Jesus told a parable about a man who owned a vineyard. In that vineyard was a fig tree–a fig tree that had no fruit on it. “Cut it down,” the owner said to his vine-dresser. “For three years I have been looking for fruit on this tree and have found none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?”

Time and time again we can find in scripture that God has shown his impatience with people who do not take advantage of the opportunities he has given them. Time and again God has judged his people and found them wanting. Take for example the people of Israel in the Wilderness who had seen God’s goodness and the opportunity to praise and to trust God – but they grumbled and complained instead and they were struck down.

They had been given all that they needed to have by God, they had been given freedom from slavery, but rather than placing their trust in God, they worshipped the golden calf and the success it was supposed to bring and a great many of them died in a single day. They drank of the same spiritual drink and ate of the same spiritual drink that we eat of through Christ, but they did not enter the promised land.

These things occurred as examples to us, that we might not desire evil as they did; that we might not become people whose only desire is to sit down to eat and drink and to rise up to play.

What is it that you are passionate about? What is it you are giving your life to accomplish? What fruit are you bearing? The owner of the vineyard doesn’t ask anything extraordinary out of the fig tree. He isn’t asking the fig tree to become a mighty oak. He asks only that it accomplishes what fig trees ought to accomplish.

You and I have differing gifts. Some of us have nice singing voices. Some have high IQ’s. Some are artists. Some are good with numbers, others are good with people, some are good at arranging things. The thing is that all of us have some natural ability. The secret is to find our natural abilities, recognise them and give them all we’ve got.

That’s what a genius is. When we say that someone is a genius, all we are saying is that they gave maximum effort in the area of their lives where they have natural ability. That’s it nothing else or less they give maximum effort to their skills. That’s the secret of being fruitful – find what we’re naturally good at and give it our best.

A person who can’t carry a tune will never sing with highly rated choir no matter how hard they work. On the other hand, there are many performers who as young people had quite ordinary voices, but through hard work–thousands and thousands of hours of practice – have become accomplished singers. It was not that they had extraordinary talent to begin with. It was that they took what they had and used it to the utmost of their ability.

Enrico Caruso a great opera singer was once told by a music teacher, “You can’t sing. You have no voice at all. “Yet he became of the best-loved singers of his time”.

Then we have Beethoven’s music teacher who said about him, “As a composer he is hopeless.”

What about Walt Disney who was once fired by a newspaper editor because he was thought to have no “good ideas.” Tell that to the millions of people thrilled by Walt’s movies.

Each of these famous people proved to have a certain genius – but was it instinctive or did it grow out of their dedication to developing what they had been given?

The point I am trying to put across is that God does not ask us to become what we are not. The fig tree was only required to produce figs. It wasn’t being asked to grow bananas or pineapples just figs. Nothing more.

You and I are asked only to accomplish what our God given gifts allow. He is not asking that we produce more fruit than everyone else – or better fruit than that which our brothers and sisters in Christ produce – but he does expect us to produce the fruit that we are able to produce.

And each one of us able to bear fruit – each one of us is gifted by God with the ability to produce what the scriptures call “the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the fruit that is described in the fifth chapter of the letter to the Galatians as consisting of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”

The question is, is it that important to us? Are we willing to give it our best?

Are we willing to love our enemies? To forgive those who have hurt us? To bring hope to those who despair? To encourage those who are faltering? To share the good news of Jesus with those who are looking for new life? To sacrifice our possessions and our time for those who are in greater need than us?

To judge others by the standard that we would be judged by? To render unto God the praise that He deserves? To show others that we believe fully in a living and loving God, a God who lives and acts in and through us, a God who seeks to heal others and make the world a better place for all?

Of the barren fig tree the owner of the vineyard said to his vine-dresser, “Cut it down; why should it use up ground?” And the vine-dresser answered: “Give it another year, sir. Let me put fertilizer around it and if it bears fruit, well and good; but, if not, you can cut it down.”

There’s still time. Wouldn’t this be a good time and a good place to ask ourselves whether we are bearing the fruit that Christ means for us to bear – in our jobs, in our homes, in our communities, in serving him?

We’re not asked to be something we are not. All Christ is asking of us is that we be the best that we can be. All that he is asking is that we, with his help, bear the fruit that we are meant to bear. He understands that we have barren years. And he pleas before the Father for us – he pleas for one more year.

May each of us use that time in the way that he intends for us to use it, to use it in growing in the way we should go and bearing the fruit we are meant to bear. Amen

PRAYERS

We give you thanks, O God, for the growth that we see in the world around us. For how you arrange things so that life produces life and everything has its place, its purpose, and its season. Prune and clip us as you desire. Bring our hearts and minds into the place where they should be. Help us value what you value and do what you want us to do…

Lord in your Mercy, hear our prayer…

Thank you God for the love that we see in the world around us. For the mercy and the grace that we experience from your hand. For the chances you grant to us to begin anew. For the people you have sent to us and those who love and care for us. Help us grow in faith, O Lord, and to produce the fruit of goodness, and so be a blessing to you and your world…

Lord in your Mercy, hear our prayer

You expect us, O Lord, to be a forgiving and loving people, a people who care for the afflicted and the oppressed, a church that seeks the lost and works to bring hope to those who despair. You ask us to speak truth with compassion, to give to those who are in need, to pray for those who our enemies, and to bless those who are strangers to us. Show us God the work you have for us to do this day – the acts we should perform, the people we should see or call, and the prayers that we should say…

Lord in your Mercy hear our prayer…

Speak to us Lord even as we speak to you. Take the burdens of our hearts from us and put in their place your peace and your guiding word. Hear our prayers for those whom we hold before you now in our hearts and upon our lips… (take a moment of silence to offer to God someone you know who is struggling at this time or a particular situation)

Lord in your Mercy Hear Our Prayer….

We thank you God – in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Saviour. Amen

And so we bind all these prayers together in the words that Jesus taught his disciples;

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, For ever and ever. Amen

Revd Kevin Charles
Associated Priest
St Wilfrid’s and St Thomas’