Margie Quinn
The Owner of the Vineyard has planted a fig tree. Every so often, he comes around to see if the tree has any fruit on it. He’s checked on it many times, and has been disappointed many times. “How come this thing won’t produce fruit for me?” he asks.
He finds the Gardener, the guy working the vineyard, who is actually spending the most time with this tree, and complains. “For three years I’ve come looking for fruit on this dang tree and I haven’t found any. Go ahead and cut it down! It’s just sitting here wasting soil.”
Sitting here wasting soil. I don’t know about you, but that’s how I feel these days. I’m on email lists for countless petitions that need signing, organizations that need funding, community events that need attending. There is a palpable sense of expectation that I, that we, should be doing something, doing more. But in the midst of so much need, in the face of so much suffering, I find myself unable to engage in meaningful ways, avoiding the headlines, retreating into the comfort of ignorance, until I feel like I’m just sitting here. I’m not able to produce enough compassion at the rate it is expected of me. I’m wasting soil.
Maybe you feel that way, too. Your bodies are wearing down, preventing you from moving in the ways that you used to, preventing you from going at the pace you’d like to. “I used to be thinner in frame, sharper in mind, and I can’t figure out how to get back to that person,” you may lament. Wasting soil.
You aren’t making the best grades at school, aren’t excelling enough at the sports you play.
You see your colleagues getting promotions at work when you feel ashamed that you can’t produce enough results, earn enough money or work hard enough to get that raise. Wasting soil.
Church, what I’m hearing these days is a lot of shame about our inability to produce fruit at the speed or volume that others expect. We aren’t a good enough activist, or academic or athlete or colleague or parent or partner or Christian. In our lowest moments, we may feel that we are a waste of space and a waste of time and a waste of soil.
The owner certainly thinks so. He checks in on the tree time and time again, waiting for it to bear fruit when he wants it to. Yet it remains bare, unable to give him what he wants when he wants it.
In my own life, I subconsciously assume that God is the owner in this story, disappointed time and time again by a tree that is unable to produce enough. God is ashamed of my lack of action or compassion or productivity. This “Owner God” in my life expects immediate results from me, to have something to show for my hard work. This “Owner God” whispers to me that rest is selfish, that I shouldn’t take a nap or take a sick day. This “Owner God” instills a sense of fear in me, a fear of what He will find the next time He comes around when I still haven’t done enough for Him. And I rarely think that I have done enough for Him.
Work harder, move faster, be more productive. You should have responded to that email weeks ago. Why didn’t you exercise today? That pastor has been down at the capitol every day, fighting for human rights, where have you been?
That’s where this story ends, right? “And the tree felt the pressure from the owner, and with a lot of great effort and concentration and diligence, grew a bunch of figs for the owner to consume.” Right?
But this is the gospel, which literally means “good news.” This is the freeing word for all of us this morning: Our God does not own us, doesn’t have any interest in it. Our God doesn’t operate at a distance, only coming in every once and a while to ask for our progress report before leaving again, disappointed by what He finds. That’s not how our God works.
So, upon seeing the owner’s disappointment, the gardener says, “Give it one more year. Let me dig around it and put manure on it. Let me tend to it. If it bears fruit next year, then woohoo but if not, you can cut it down.”
Let me tend to it, dig around it, put manure on it. Our God, like the gardener, loves playing in the dirt. Remember in the beginning of creation? She has Her hands in the dirt. Our God created humankind out of dirt, adamah, and called it good. She didn’t sit off at a distance, checking on Adam and Eve every once in a while. No, She walked around the garden, instructing them to till the earth and keep it, without any sense of urgency.
Our God understands that soil is never wasted, never stagnant, never useless. Soil is not a “thing” but a web of relationships and processes where so many elements and creatures come together to create diverse conditions in which life may flourish. As Hans Jenny, one of the greatest soil scientists of the 20th century, professed at the end of a long and distinguished career, it is almost impossible to give a precise definition of soil because of the grandness and mystery of what it is. Down below, this fig tree isn’t just gathering strength, it’s building relationships.
Our God lives into this mystery, tending to a network of life that is beneath us, yes, but also within us, believing that no act of care or compassion or small gesture could be fruitless. She doesn’t expect immediate results from us, though we hear those whispers or even shouts around us these days.
Church, you may think that your efforts in this world, in this country lately, are a waste of soil.
But our “Gardener God” invites you to think differently this morning. Our Gardener God calls out to us with a patience and encouragement that only She can offer and reminds us:
Though you may never see the fruits of your labor or pluck a fig, tend the soil.
Though that petition you signed online yesterday may never make a dent in the legislation, tend the soil.
Though your kindness toward an enemy may never be reciprocated, tend the soil.
Though the person living on the street may use your money in ways you don’t agree with, tend the soil.
Though you may never get a “thank you” for fighting racism, sexism, homophobia, tend the soil.
Though your parents may never listen when you try to educate them on social issues, tend the soil.
Though it is annoying to recycle all of the church bulletins every week, tend the soil.
Though your donation of $5 a month seems inconsequential, tend the soil.
Though you may never witness the justice and mercy we work toward as a church, tend the soil.
We don’t turn the manure and care for the tree because we expect it to produce figs for our consumption. We do it to bear witness anyway, to stand with our arms out to this world and profess a different way of being, a different kind of hope that doesn’t place itself in instant gratification or immediate results but places itself in a Loving, Living, Moving God who shows up not as an bitter owner but as a persistent gardener, seeing us for all of who we are, whether we believe ourselves to be a waste of soil, unable to produce, or not, and loves us anyway. Deals with our crap, literally turning it over and over with a grace only God could have, trusting our growth, believing in a future where figs blossom.
When Mary goes looking for Jesus after the crucifixion, she does not find him in the tomb or in the temple. She finds him in the garden. His hands are in the dirt. He is digging around, turning the manure, reminding us that our God is not far away but as close as our own breath, inviting us to get our hands dirty, get to work and tend the soil.
May it be so.