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Fig trees are supposed to provide figs, to produce the fruit that God made them to produce in the first place. And we, too, have been put on this earth to produce the results for which God gave us life in the first place to produce. A little lesson in Palestinian horticulture: fig trees over there produce crops of figs three times each year. These trees are given every chance to produce; they receive a gardener’s care. Their owners have a right to expect them to produce, not to simply wave their pretty leaves in the air. When the master found this fig tree to be yielding nothing, he had every right, if not the duty, to eliminate that fig tree. All it was doing was soaking up water, minerals and other precious resources needed by the other trees to produce their fruit. This tree was good for nothing.
The response of the owner here in this parable was extra tenderness, extra-ordinary care, and a range of “second chances.” The owner allowed three seasons, nine chances, to be productive, before it was to be cut down. That fig tree was given no room in which to complain that it wasn’t given a chance to produce.
What, then, about us? God has planted us in the midst of His love and grace. Our families and our friends have given us love, our schools have given us education, and our Church has given us God’s holy presence, love, and graces. God has offered us His tender, loving care in abundance. How have we responded? How will we respond? Will we just wave our pretty leaves in the air or will we feed the world’s hungry, care for the outcast, and be about the tasks of bringing order out of the injustices and chaos in the world around us?
God wants us to finish the story for ourselves; the parable of the fig tree had no real ending. It just sort of stopped and we don’t know what eventually happened to that fig tree. The same is true for you and me. God has given us life and launched us out into our world with a script to follow along with a director, Jesus, to guide us. But how our individual life stories are eventually written depends entirely on how we respond to what God has given us. A merciful God has spared us all, many times over, up to this present moment.
