Sermon for March 23, 2025

Sermon for March 23rd

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a young family, excited to move into their first home. It was an old house, but it was their house, with lots of potential and lots of work ahead of them.

One of the most exciting parts of their new home was their yard. It was a big yard, with lots of space for their kids to run and play. When they bought it, it was just grass, but they had dreams. And over time, those dreams started to come to pass.

They put in a garden, which took different shapes over the years. They tore down the old woodshed and put in a sandbox. They trimmed down the old apple tree, which seemed to only produce weird, pre-softened apples that were never good to eat, but the wasps loved them. And they planted fruit trees. There was a hascap bush, a saskatoon bush, a plum tree, an apple tree, rhubarb, various kinds of mint, and they tended some voluntary raspberries that came up in the corner of the yard.

For the dad, his greatest pride and joy were the fruit trees and bushes. He waited for years for the plum and apple trees to start bearing fruit. “How cool would that be,” he thought to himself, “to eat a plum from my own backyard.”

But after waiting 7 long years, the plum tree never bore any fruit. Actually, it bore very few blossoms over the years. It just grew into a relatively spindly tree at the edge of the yard. Every year the dad would wait and every year he was disappointed by the lack of plums on his plum tree.

That wasn’t to say that the other fruit trees didn’t bear fruit. The Hascaps exploded, offering more berries than the family could possibly harvest. The raspberries always did well. For a handful of years, they even had strawberries. Those harvests yielded some wonderful fruit salad.

Even the apple tree managed to generate fruit, at least on occasion. Subjected to the prairie winds and the variable prairie spring temperatures, the blossoms were often destroyed before forming fruit. But when they did hang on, and when apples did form, they were the most beautiful tasting apples in the world. They were honey crisp apples and their taste lived up to the name. One year in particular the tree produced an abundance of apples. While they were never particularly beautiful to look at, they tasted like they were hand delivered by angels.

But, as things do, both trees eventually died. Just as the pandemic reared its ugly head, the plum tree died. It was just an ugly, spindly stalk, with sharp, spindly branches that did little more than impale the dad when he attempted to mow around it. So, in due course, the dad cut it down, leaving just a small stump where the tree had once been.

A couple of years later, the treasured apple tree followed. It didn’t die like the plum tree, in one great, tragic gasp. Instead, pieces of it died off, until only a few healthy branches remained. The dad, in the end, was forced to cut it down, just as he had cut the plum tree. But it was far sadder this time. Which each pull of the blade, he remembered the apples and wondered if he would ever taste their like again.

This wasn’t, as it turned out, the end of the story. The plum tree began sprouting branches again. To date, it has reshaped itself into a more fulsome looking tree, although still a bit spindly. It hasn’t produced fruit yet, but it may.

The apple tree is doing the same. Life is returning from what looked like nothing more than dead stumps. Will either tree bear fruit, either again or the for the first time? The dad doesn’t know, but he hopes so. The taste of the apple still lingers, as do the happy memories of harvesting the apples with his daughter, a little girl then but who is now almost fully grown.

Today we hear about the story of about a tree that didn’t bear fruit and how the landowner wanted it cut down, but the gardener wanted to keep it and nurture it along. The gardener wins the argument, at least for the time being. One could argue about who the gardener and the landowner were meant to represent in this text. Is the landowner God or is the gardener? If God isn’t the landowner, then who is? Who could possibly step into that role if it isn’t God?

But let’s leave that for the moment. Instead, let’s focus on why the gardener is doing what he is doing. Why is he so insistent that he can encourage the tree to bear fruit? Wouldn’t it just be easier to start again with a new, healthier tree?

Well, if the dad in our story is any indication, the gardener cares for the tree. He was the one who likely planted it, and he has certainly been the one to care for it. He hopes that it will produce every year, and when it doesn’t, he thinks about what he can do differently to help it do better next year. He doesn’t want it cut down because he has poured his love into it.

But like with the dad in the story, there may well come a time when the tree does need to be cut down. But even that doesn’t have to be an ending. Perhaps the cutting is more of a pruning, allowing the tree to shed its dead weight, so it can start again, drawing strength from its roots and growing into a healthy and hale tree once more.

That may be the part that is often ignored here in this text. If the tree is cut down, it doesn’t mean the life of the tree is ended. It means the tree is being given another chance at life. It is often said that pruning is necessary for a healthy tree. It may well be the case for this fig tree from the Gospel.

Wherever you stand on who the gardener and the landowner might be, one thing is fairly clear. We are the tree in the story and the tree is not cut, with its roots pulled from the earth. If it is cut down, one could argue the gardener is cutting it down so that is might spring back to life again, just as the apple tree and the plum tree did in the story about the young family.

If we are the tree, then God is shown to be tireless in God’s care for us. Nurturing us, guarding us, encouraging us to grow. And yes, when there is need, pruning us back so those parts of us that are not life giving can be removed and we can become healthy again. If the tree is a metaphor for us and our relationship with God, we can see that those moments of painful pruning might actually be good for us. We can move on from something that is weighing us down and inhibiting our growth. God will help us rid ourselves of whatever those elements of our life might be.

And God will help us root deep. For it is from our roots that we take our life. And those roots are strongest when they are rooted in God. When the water that is our life is God’s very love, then we can bear all measure of pruning. We can bear the harsh winds and cold seasons of life. We can bear it because our roots run into the deep and beautiful waters of God’s love, from which we are made new and beautiful again and again.

Amen