Amend, Amend, Amen

Lent 3C

“Why should it be wasting the soil?” asked the man with the unfruitful fig tree. I’m guessing he put himself in charge of DOGE, the Department of Gardening Efficiency. “If it’s not bearing fruit that I can see right now, cut that thing right down.”

The irony of this parable is that God is generally not that interested in Gardening Efficiency. At least not as I read our scriptures. God created both wilderness and gardens with generous abandon, and even planted trees whose fruit humans weren’t supposed to eat. The point was abundant life, not maximum consumer goods. The sower spread seeds in rocks and among thorns and there’s no sense in which he should have done otherwise, as Jesus’ parable would have it.

And then there’s the burning bush, which had no known productive purpose. Except that it endured even the brilliant fire of God’s presence without losing itself. Maybe some plants are just here to reveal the glory of God when people are ready to pay attention? Magnolias and Poppies and Goldfields and Lupines and climbing roses: did you notice them? This is the time of year when it seems like the whole of the East Bay is on fire for God.

But if that’s the case, what’s the deal with the poor maligned fig tree in heart of our Gospel lesson? John and I have fig trees in our yard so we know that they have some fruitful years, and some less so. That’s not the tree’s fault: it’s the sum of water and weather, soil and pollinators. Plus, the lesson we just heard is a parable, so we’re meant to understand the fig tree metaphorically. Parables invite us to draw our own conclusions. But let me offer some context.

You may be aware that this particular teaching of Jesus comes at the end of a series of dire warnings about the riskiness of the times, just as Luke begins to recount Jesus’ fateful final journey towards Jerusalem. The times they were a changin’, so the people had better change too!

If God were finally going to clean up the mess—as Jesus’ disciples seemed to think—it would be high time to repent and allow the transforming grace of God to grow within and among we humans. But who among us needs to repent? The ones who have already suffered so very much? The persecuted Galileans who were slaughtered and their blood desecrated? Or the ones in our day who have had to flee violence or were forcibly displaced from their homes or deported? Then and now, it is all too easy to blame the victims. To this, Jesus said an unequivocal “no”! We are all mixed up in sin, so all of us have to repent.

And that, my friends, is why we need Lent.

Then Jesus abruptly started talking about fruit trees. One allegorical reading of the parable would be to equate the fig tree with an unfruitful Jewish people, an antisemitic interpretation that directly contradicts the previous teaching that ALL have to repent. On the other hand, the vineyard owner surely had some repenting to do, as the gardener demonstrated by gently redirecting his destructive efforts at gardening efficiency. Put down your axe and attend to the soil. Amend the soil. Remember the absolution after the penitential rite we said at the beginning of worship? “The Almighty and merciful Lord remission of all our sins, true repentance, and amendment of life.” Amending is the work of God within us, most especially during Lent. Amend, amend… amen.

That’s probably why I am drawn to the image of that patient gardener, promising to dig around and fertilize the soil. I am married to a gardener who does that kind of thing. Recently, John reminded me of something about fig trees, of which we have two in our yard. They are masting trees, meaning that they bear fruit intermittently in unpredictable cycles. They seem to be capable of saving up their sugars in some years, and spending them profligately in others. Which creates a kind of feast and famine cycle for the animals that consume their fruit, and for the predators who eat them. All the way up the food chain to us. And the trees do this in concert with one another, in a way that keeps the whole ecosystem in balance.

Native American botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer described this process in Braiding Sweetgrass, her beautiful ecological ovation. Maybe you already knew about masting fig trees. I didn’t. I suspect Jesus and first-century gardeners did, though, which means that the hearers of this parable probably understood the fruiting cycles of figs as well. They would have notices that a tree that doesn’t bear fruit this year may be doing other life-sustaining things. Things like shining with the glory of God for those with eyes to see. Artists know this.

Things like working in concert with creatures towards ecological balance. Scientists know this. “If one tree [in a grove] fruits, they all fruit. There are no soloists,” Kimmerer wrote. “The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What happens to one happens to us all. We can starve together or feast together. All flourishing is mutual.”

But as Kimmerer confessed, what scientists don’t know is how masting trees communicate this mutual commitment to fasting and fruiting. Trees keep a few secrets, even from patient observers like Kimmerer. The Department of Gardening Efficiency—in the form of the vineyard owner in Jesus’ parable—seemed to be utterly unaware of the secret life of trees. The gardener in the parable knew a thing or two, though, by experience if not by scientific method. The tree will play its intended role if given time. So he counsels patience and goes about amending, amending, amen.

There is a mystery at the heart of creation that we know not. I am the daughter of an astrophysicist who studied the origin of the universe. My dad was a confirmed atheist, but he’d admit to me—his priest daughter—that science cannot explain what happened at the very beginning of time and space. Hushed reverence, falling on our knees, and maybe taking off our shoes may be the best we can do in the face of such glory and wonder.

So when Moses encountered the unexplainable bushfire, he did the only logical thing. He took off his shoes. He watched and listened and learned. He recognized the limits of his knowledge and asked of the glorious presence, “what shall I say to them?”  “I am who I am,” replied God. We all have limits to our knowing, especially when it comes to the name and the ways of our creator. We are gifted with glimpses of glory, but we humans don’t get to decide where or when the holy bush burns, or how often the fig trees fruit.

God has given the good earth and will continue to nurture bushes and trees and all life if we respect it. Our job is this: take off our shoes in reverence. Don’t accept efficiency as the only solution. Instead, watch, listen and learn. Make things better everywhere we can. Fertilize the ground for future flourishing. Go about the patient work of improving: ourselves, our gardens, our relationships and our common life. This Lent, let us amend, amend… Amen.