The lesson of the fig tree
Luke 13:1-9 At that time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2He answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? 3I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too. 4Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.” 6He told them this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it, but he did not find any. 7So he said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?’ 8But the gardener replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. 9If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down.’”
The psalmist declares, “Surely his salvation is near for those who fear him, so that glory may dwell in our land” (Psalm 85:9). Amen.
The man bought land in Judah. He thought it would be great for a fig tree orchard. All the trees were planted the right depth and right spacing from each other. The trees received regular fertilizer, watering, and pruning. After three years, the trees began bearing figs.
The trees were producing an abundant crop. Well worth the wait. Except for one tree. It looked good. It looked healthy. It just wasn’t bearing any figs. The owner had invested three years in this tree waiting for it to bear fruit! And nothing!
The owner tells his gardener to cut it down, dig up its roots, throw it in the fire, and start over. Hopefully, another tree will start bearing fruit in its place. “He said to the gardener, ‘Look, for three years now I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and I have found none. Cut it down. Why even let it use up the soil?’” (Luke 13:7).
The gardener calmly asks the owner for another year. The owner has already invested three years in it. The gardener will personally oversee the fruit production of this tree. If it doesn’t bear fruit the following year, then it can be thrown into the fire. “The gardener replied to [the owner], ‘Sir, leave it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. If it produces fruit next year, fine. But if not, then cut it down” (Luke 13:8-9). The owner likes the passion of the gardener and agrees to be patient for one more year.
Jesus is teaching us an important lesson with the parable of the fig tree. He’s teaching about God and his kingdom. God is the owner of the vineyard. You are the fig tree.
You can understand the owner’s frustration. Over three years, there is a lot of time, effort, fertilizer, rain, etc., that has gone into this tree for it to do nothing.
Three years is perhaps an illusion to the three years of Jesus’ ministry. He’s been looking for fruits of repentance from the Jews. God’s judgment to dig them up to make room for more trees to bear fruit – the Gentiles.
God is the owner of all of us. He has waited for fruits of faith from his people for a long time. God is patient beyond description. To Jesus’ first hearers and you his current hearers, this patience is shockingly generous. No normal orchard owner would wait so long for fruit. But God puts away his wrath and turns away from his anger as we sang in Psalm 85 (v2-3).
Like the owner who waited all those years for his tree to bear fruit, so God is generous and patient with you. He desires for you to bear the fruits of your faith. These fruits can be in the form of worship attendance, Bible study participation, and financial support of your church’s
ministries. This fruit can be in the form of being a light in the spiritual darkness of your workplace. It can be seasoning your speech with salt among the spicy language of our culture. It can be raising your children and grandchildren in the Christian faith in our church, school, and high school. It can be encouragement to a friend who is feeling down or giving up your Saturday to help someone move or going regularly to check on your elderly neighbor.
Look at your life. Assess your actions. Ponder your priorities. Are you bearing good, healthy fruit for the Lord? Or is your fruit puny, meager, and wormy? Or is it nonexistent?
God is incredibly gracious and merciful. He is also incredibly patient. Thank the Lord he is! Though God is incredibly patient, he is not eternally patient. God’s Word is clear. God’s time of grace will come to an end. His patience will run out. Then judgment is coming. If there is no fruit … then there is fire.
Jesus is the gardener. He comes with a word of extended patience. He puts himself between the owner and the judgment the unfruitful tree deserves. He serves as its mediator and caretaker. He acts to redeem the fruitless tree. He says to his Father, “Leave it alone. Let it be. I’ll take care of it. It’s now my responsibility.”
Jesus promises personal care for you. He doesn’t want to give up on you. You are his priority. Redemption does not come from you or your fruit. Your redemption comes from Jesus Christ. Redemption – buying back for a purpose – is God’s work in Christ. He saves the tree. He saves you.
You are saved for a purpose. You are redeemed to bear fruit. The tree is not given a pass. The unfruitful tree is not told to stand there and be beautiful. It’s not told that God will just gather fruit from others. Fruit is still purpose both of the tree and of God’s work to save the tree. Redemption will either result in fruit or judgment.
The lesson of the fig tree is God’s generosity. We are not moved to repentance by fear but rather compelled by God’s grace and his Holy Spirit. Yet there is a limit to that grace. Today is the day of salvation … but the day is coming when salvation will be replaced with judgment.
The lesson in Jesus’ parable is repentance. The lesson in the stories preceding the parable is also about repentance. “There were some who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. He answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered these things? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse sinners than all the people living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all perish too.’” (Luke 13:1-5).
The mixing of the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices was a heinous crime. Pilate violated all holiness codes by sending his Roman troops into the temple to slaughter Galilean Jews while they were slaughtering their lambs for the Passover Seder. During this holy feast the blood of these Jews was mixed with the blood of the lambs.
Jesus then discusses the accident at the tower of Siloam. Eighteen people died when the tower fell on them. Jesus says this was a sign from God, just like the previous incident was also a sign. Jesus says that these tragedies were not signs of God’s judgment on specific people for specific sins. But they were signs of God’s judgment on all people that they are sinners living in a sinful world. God hates sin. He hates the sinners who commit the sin.
Jesus says that these signs are not calls for speculation, but signs for contrition and repentance, for faith and fruits of faith. When the Jews saw this massacre and this tragedy, they should have immediately come to God with repentant hearts begging for forgiveness.
There are accidents and tragedies that happen constantly in our world and in our lives. Some bad things are relatively small. Skinned knees. Traffic jams. Broken appliances. Other bad things are much bigger. Divorce. Disease. Death. Sometimes these bad things happen as a direct result of our own bad decisions. A man gets into his car after spending all day at the bar. He pulls onto a busy road, runs a red light, and slams into another car, injuring a young mom and her newborn baby. A bad thing happened to him because of his own bad decisions.
But sometimes bad things happen not because of our own bad decisions. A young mom gets in the car and straps her newborn baby into the car seat to get some groceries from the store. She drives the same route that she’s driven hundreds of times before. As she crosses a familiar intersection, a car runs through a red light, slamming into her with metal screeching and glass shattering. The drunken man’s driving was not her fault. A bad thing happened to them because of someone else’s bad decisions.
When we see massacres and tragedies, our natural reaction is to think that those people must have done something awful to get God so angry at them. When we endure suffering or accidents, our natural reaction is to wonder what we must have done to get God so furious with us. Jesus says this thinking and wondering is wrong. We should not speculate. We should repent.
We must view massacres and accidents from the perspective of the cross. It is here the suffering Christian meets the suffering Christ. God does not repay an individual’s sin with individual punishment. God put all our individual punishments onto his Son. But we remain sinners living in a sinful, fallen world. So, we need to keep repenting. That’s the lesson of these tragic stories. That’s the lesson of the parable of the fig tree.
This call to repentance seems strange because we normally think of repentance as something we do when we’ve done something wrong. But Jesus is talking about repentance more broadly. Don’t just repent when you’ve messed up. Repent when any bad thing happens. Repent when any good thing happens. The entire life of the Christian is to be one of repentance. Repent of being a sinner living in a sinful world.
That brings us back to Jesus’ story of the fig tree. Jesus continues his call to repentance by telling a story of mercy and patience in the light of coming judgment. The fig tree deserved to be cut down and destroyed. It had not been right for years. But the gardener asked for mercy. He nurtured and cared for this tree, patiently cultivating it so that it might bear fruit. That’s how Jesus responds to those who repent. Judgment is coming. That much is certain. If there is no fruit … then there is fire. But those who repent will receive mercy.
It doesn’t matter your age. God is patient with you. But his patience can wear out. God is incredibly patient, but he is not eternally patient. Be in God’s Word. Cherish your Baptism. Receive the Lord’s Supper. Fulfill your vocation in your home, church, school, and workplace. Support the ministry of your church and church body. Be light and salt in the world. Jesus puts his personal effort into you. He says to his Father, “Leave him alone. Let her be. I’ll take care of them. They are now my responsibility.” The Gardener of Jesus Christ is digging around you, fertilizing and nurturing you with his Word and Sacraments. All so you can bear the fruits of faith.
By God’s grace, our God is patient with us. He gives us this time of grace on earth to repent. We repent so we may bear fruit in the prosperous and sunny seasons, when everything is going well.
We repent so we bear fruit even in the difficult dry seasons, as we struggle through accidents and tragedies. That’s the lesson of the fig tree. Amen.
The psalmist declares, “The Lord will indeed give good things, and our land will yield its harvest” (Psalm 85:12). Amen.