Luke 13:1-9
“You Are Worthy”
March 20, 2022
In 2008 the world was watching as Taliban militants in Pakistan’s Swat region grew more and more powerful and, in their takeover, they banned television, music, women from going shopping, and girls’ education.
The BBC wanted to know how average Pakistanis were faring and so they sought out a schoolgirl to anonymously blog about her life and how the Taliban had affected it.
The first girl they identified agreed, but her parents said no because they thought it was too risky.
The second girl ended up being a seventh grader whose father had founded and run several schools for girls.
This student would hand-write notes that she would then give to a reporter who would scan them and then post them for her.
Soon after that, her school was shut down and more than 100 girls’ schools were blown up.
Ultimately, her identity was revealed, and she began advocating for the education of females and education for girls was reinstated.
Her work then as a teen advocate was getting worldwide attention and that’s when the death threats began.
On October 9, 2012, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face on a bus ride home after taking an exam.
The surgery to save her life also meant removing part of her skull and still her work on behalf of girls’ education continues to this day.
All of this because it was believed by some in 21st century Pakistan what most of the rest of the world felt up until the second half of the 20th century – that the education of girls and women was to squander resources that could better be directed toward men.
Females were not viewed as worthy of such attention and resources.
When we think of fig trees and Jesus, what may come to mind is Mark and Matthew’s take. In those stories, near the end of his life, Jesus was hungry and so he walked over to a green and leafy fig tree and reached for a fig and kept on reaching in this direction and that with no luck.
Jesus then curses the fig tree – the only time he cursed anything – and it withered and died right then and there.
Luke leaves out that story but instead adds this parable.
As he continues on his journey to Jerusalem, Jesus offers the crowd not a story that is about him but rather one he tells the people who still believe that dropping buildings on folks and killing them is a way that God punishes sinners.
He wants them to know that when that tower fell on those folks, they were no worse sinners than anybody else.
Instead, Jesus is calling for repentance or an about face.
The fig tree parable Jesus shares starts out with no figs on the fig tree but then it takes a turn.
First of all, this is a fig tree in a vineyard so it may be throwing shade on potentially productive grape vines and then to add insult to injury – there are no figs.
The vineyard owner has run out of patience after 3 years of waiting for figs – he wants it chopped down now.
But the gardener begs for the fig tree’s life.
In his language, the gardener is asking that the tree be forgiven.
Rather than using this as a fire and brimstone lesson, Jesus lets the parable itself do the teaching by giving us a front row seat on the conversation between the owner of the vineyard and the gardener.
Instead of using earthly logic that would say if it doesn’t produce, get rid of it, the gardener realizes that the hope for the tree could just be a need for more attention. There is a worthiness to the tree even if it hasn’t provided any figs.
The gardener is trusting in something, that after showering attention with water and manure in the coming year, he will still have to hand over control about the tree’s fate. It’s called faith.
And maybe the gardener has seen other potential, like that found in Malala and girls around the world who yearn for an education.
Maybe this tree’s purpose up until now was to provide shade for the workers during the grape harvest.
Perhaps its purpose is not just providing a product but rather to live and thrive.
And it could be that coming so close to death, a young girl across the world or a tree on the verge of being chopped down, is a lesson for us on lives that are lived fully, knowing how fleeting good health or freedom can be.
Our life’s fruit may not look like anyone else’s nor even be what we originally thought it would be, but it is ours to embrace and nurture.
And then there’s grace in this parable, which
Nadia Bolz-Weber explains this way:
“God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings.”
Fortunately for us, we don’t know how the parable ends. We are left hoping that the gardener will give it his all to nurture the tree that is still living.
It is not too late for the tree to come into its own with the help of this gardener.
Luke’s Gospel is filled with a deep emphasis on God’s mercy and vision of the redemption that is always possible with God.
So, there is always hope for us – even on those days when we are not “producing” as the world expects.
We may just bloom differently.
In whatever shape we take, we are worthy of God’s love.
Let us offer up then these words of prayer from Barbara Brown Taylor:
Praise to you Lord Christ, for sunlight and manure, for pruning shears and the solidity of the ax. Praise to you the vineyard owner and to you the gardener – but where is the Holy Spirit in this parable? Taylor is glad we’re asking. She continues her prayer with…Praise to the she-bird sitting on her nest deep in the branches of the fig tree, enjoying the breeze, the view, and all those lovely green leaves. (Always a Guest, 145) Amen.