“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. 4 See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. 5 See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
6 “Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:1-9
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At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them — do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'” – Luke 13:1-9
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Preamble: Martin Luther King, Jr., once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In a parallel thought, theologian Matt Skinner recently said, “The Christian outlook on repentance arcs toward joy.” It’s a surprising thought, to think that repentance would lead to joy, but that’s the big picture thought for today.
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Our theme for this morning, the third Sunday of Lent, is If It Bears Fruit – which is taken from today’s reading in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus teaches that as Christian believers, our lives need to be bearing spiritual fruit. And if our lives are not producing spiritual fruit then we’re not really following Jesus.
But two big questions come up right away:
- What exactly IS spiritual fruit? How do we know if we have it?
- How does one go about bearing spiritual fruit? How does it happen? How does it grow?
I want to start with the second question first, because I think this is where many people tend to get discouraged. How do we bear spiritual fruit? How do we bring this fruit into our lives? How much time does it take? What goes into growing it?
I imagine it this way: spiritual fruit – like any kind of fruit, even the kind we eat – takes a lot of work but not a lot of effort. Here’s what I mean:
A few weeks ago I bought two dwarf cherry trees. I ordered them through the mail, and they arrived a few days ago. What attracted me to these trees is that they only grow to about 5 feet tall and you can grow them in pots! We don’t have to dig up half the backyard just to plant some cherry trees!
But before I see a single cherry I have a lot of work to do. I need to buy LARGE pots, and dirt to fill the pots, and frost covers because the trees need to be protected from frost. I need to plant them and water them and trim them. And I probably won’t see any fruit for about three years: it takes that long for the tree to become strong enough to start producing fruit. Planting fruit trees is truly an act of faith! And it’s a lot of work.
But from the tree’s point of view, bearing fruit doesn’t take much effort. The tree grows, soaks in the sunshine, take in nutrients from the soil, and when the proper time comes it blooms and bears fruit. The tree doesn’t need to work up muscles to bear fruit. It doesn’t need to watch YouTube videos to figure out how to produce fruit. If the gardener (me) has done the work, fruit happens – because that’s what fruit trees do.
That’s what I mean by fruit takes a lot of work but not a lot of effort. The gardener does most of the work. The tree just does what it was created to do.
In our passage from Luke, Jesus tells a parable about a fig tree. This particular fig tree is not bearing fruit. In the parable the man who owns the fig tree represents God, and the fig tree represents a human being (could be anybody). God plants this fig tree in his vineyard (the world). God comes looking for fruit and doesn’t find any, so he says to the gardener (Jesus, in this story) “three years I’ve been looking for fruit on this tree, and I’m still not finding any.”
As we’ve just learned from our example of cherry tree, some trees don’t produce fruit right away. Some trees might take two years, three years, maybe even four years, to produce fruit. The gardener knows this. I think this is one of the reasons why it’s agreeable to God to give this fig tree another year, and to work with it some more. The work of producing fruit, for the most part, is the gardener’s. The tree’s job is to take what the gardener gives it and grow fruit.
What the gardener has given us is our skills, our talents, our families, our communities, everything that makes up our lives. There are times when something goes badly wrong and a tree never bears fruit. It might have been frost-bitten when it was small; it might have been attacked by animals or insects; it might not have been a healthy tree to begin with. In the same way, human fruitfulness is sometimes inhibited by sickness or violence or other difficulties that prevent people bearing spiritual fruit in their lives.
In either case, God, the gardener, digs around the tree and puts manure on it. I expect this is probably not a very pleasant experience for the tree. Trees don’t like having their roots messed with: no plant does. And nobody I know (human or plant) enjoys having manure thrown on it!
In some ways we can parallel this to life’s difficulties and challenges. God may sometimes allow difficult things into our lives to help us grow. Let me say quickly: not all difficulties, hurts, or sicknesses are from God. Some tragedies – for example the war in Ukraine – are the result of other peoples’ sins. Some tragedies – like the example Jesus gives of a building falling on people – are simply accidents. These are things God never intended.
But for everyday difficulties, God may allow them into our lives to help us grow stronger. If we face into them with prayer and with trust in God, God will bring about changes in our lives (‘change for the better’ is the definition of repentance) and use them to help us produce fruit. God has created every single one of us to be fruitful. Bearing fruit is what we’re created to do. It’s what we’re here on earth to do.
To take this from a slightly different angle: Jesus once said (in the gospel of John): “I am the vine, you are the branches…
“and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes [that is, trims back] so that it will be even more fruitful. (John 15:1-2) And Jesus goes on to say, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:5-8)
The way we go about bearing fruit is to stay connected to Jesus – and we do that through Bible reading, and prayer, and fellowship with other believers, and worship. If we stay connected to Jesus, the True Vine, we don’t have to push fruit out like a woman in labor. It happens naturally because it’s what God created us to do.
So how can we recognize the fruit of the Spirit? What are we looking for?
First off, fruit is something that benefits others. Just like trees don’t eat their own fruit but rather give their fruit to the gardener, and the gardener then takes care of the tree and feeds it, and it becomes a circle of care: the tree for the gardener, and the gardener for the tree. In much the same way the fruit we bear is for the good of others.
The apostle Paul lists some of the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. He says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…” – Galatians 5:22-23. I don’t think this is a comprehensive list; it’s a list to start with.
Paul also lists seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in I Corinthians 12. He includes: wisdom, understanding, wise counsel, courage, knowledge, holiness, and fear of the Lord. He goes on:
28 First, God has placed apostles in the church. Second, he has placed prophets in the church. Third, he has placed teachers in the church. Then he has given to the church miracles and gifts of healing. He also has given the gift of helping others and the gift of guiding the church. God also has given the gift of speaking in different kinds of languages. 29 Is everyone an apostle? Is everyone a prophet? Is everyone a teacher? […](I Corinthians 12:28-31)
The answer to these questions is assumed to be ‘no’. No one has all the gifts; no one has all the fruits. The point is to have some. And then Paul goes on in verse 31:
31 “But now I will show you the best way of all…”
…and he leads us into that beautiful chapter on LOVE, the greatest gift and the greatest fruit of all.
These things grow in our lives naturally, over time, if we stay close to God, pray regularly, read scripture regularly, and do our best to follow the teachings of Jesus. The fruit will come.
In the beginning of our reading Jesus points out that tragedies in life may come. If they do, it does NOT mean that anyone is a worse sinner than anyone else. In a world that has rebelled against God, sometimes bad things happen. And at times like these, prayer is our best response. Again looking at Ukraine – I have been moved to tears as I read and hear the people in Ukraine turning to the book of Psalms and reading the Psalms as prayers. In the face of unthinkable violence and tragedy they are staying close to God, and they are asking God to be their protection. And their faith is inspiring the faith of people around the world. Does God want this war? NO. Are the people bearing fruit anyway? ………….. oh yes!
At the end of our story, when everything has been said and done, there is waiting for us an amazing reward. Isaiah describes it in our reading for this morning:
“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. [2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?] Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” (Isaiah 55:1-2)
This passage is a true and trustworthy promise of God. It is for all of us trees who stay connected to Jesus and through him and in him bear good fruit. So hang in there, Trees of God. Stay connected and trust the Gardener. The fruit will come. AMEN.
Preached at Carnegie United Methodist Church and Hill Top United Methodist Church, 3/20/22