There is a vineyard and the man who owns it. There is a fig tree and the gardener who tends to it. The fig tree was planted three years ago and has yet to bear any fruit at all. The owner wants it gone. Three years is plenty to expect some results. Why should it waste the soil? Why not plant something else in its place, something with the potential to produce fruit? The vineyard owner has been patient enough. Time for results! But the gardener for some reason has a good feeling about the fig tree. Instead of uprooting it, the gardener wants to pay it some special attention, take a different approach to tending it. Give it one more year, the gardener tells the owner. After that, it will have produced something, or it will have not produced anything and we can get rid of it.
Here is a parable at odds with itself. The vineyard owner wants the tree discarded; the gardener believes the tree has life in it yet. The parable has no ending. It’s over a year too early. We’re not told who prevails. We’re not told if the extra year of care for the fig tree pays off or not. The parable leaves this tree in limbo. Maybe it will bear fruit; maybe it won’t.
As Jesus launches this parable in Luke 13, he’s just given a stern call to repentance. So as the parable takes a step out of the world of fiction and into our lives, the vineyard owner is demanding of us the fruit of repentance and holiness. Of course he is. Why wouldn’t he? Repentance is the re-tuning of our hearts with his heart. And at the same time, the gardener is gently extending mercy. Of course he is. Why should we expect anything else? What a cool, beautiful mystery that Jesus seems to be both characters in the parable.
Jesus is demanding everything of us. And for the record, that’s exactly what we want, since the alternative is a Jesus who doesn’t care all that much whether we grow or not. There are consequences for failure to reach Jesus’ high expectations for us. But somehow, the biggest consequence is: mercy.
To belong to Jesus is to live in this tension between Jesus’ unconditional claim upon us, and Jesus’ unquenchable mercy toward us. To belong to Jesus is to constantly hear the gardener say, “one more year.” The adamant, rigid expectation from Jesus that our lives bear the fruit of [love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control] is transforming us into his image. And at the very same time, his infinite mercy is transforming us into his image.
There are some words found in Isaiah 1 that could just as easily be Jesus’ words to us – the words of both the vineyard owner and the gardener to the fig tree. “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes. Cease to do evil, learn to do good. Seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now, let us settle the matter, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be like snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”
We will go on living in this tension between Jesus the vineyard owner and Jesus the gardener, all the while having our hearts put in tune with his, being drawn further and further into his holiness and his mercy. Surely that is how the parable wants to end.
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