“Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none”.
The gardener has put in all the effort to prepare the soil, to plant the seed, to water,
train it to a height, awaiting it’s flowering and fruit. After three years without fruit, the
frustration is obvious. With axe raised, he’s ready to cut the fig tree down, to give up on it and throw the years away. Notice Jesus’ response. It is not to cut up the
tree by its roots – or, at least, not yet. Instead, Jesus says “let it alone this year also…”
The point of the parable is not the fig tree but the frustrations we experience when we do not see the fruit of our struggles, sacrifices, effort, prayers, loves, and so on and running alongside this is the demand to ‘leave it a year’, to not give up, to not throw the towel in – which is another way of saying – try a different effort, try again, do not give up.
Jesus proves to be a living parable: he is both the fig tree that people were ready to give up on, looking like he would not bear fruit, and he is the one who says no, allow some more time to allow hope to kick in. The fig tree, then, becomes a Cross on which
our hope hangs.
Fr Ryan Service Holy Trinity, Sutton Coldfield
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