God as manure
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Ferndale
March 20, 2022—Lent 3C
Exodus 3:1-15; Luke 13:1-9
Let’s call today a “tale of two trees.”
One of them is ablaze in the wilderness, calling Moses away from the path that he was on, from the work that he was doing. The bush is on fire, but is somehow unharmed, and Moses knows, as he approaches, that this means that God is present. So Moses takes off his shoes, because this is clearly holy ground, and God is calling him closer.
The other tree (the fig tree) seems to be barren, having not borne any fruit for several years now. In this story, the person approaching the tree is not a passing shepherd, suddenly aware of the presence of God. It’s the owner of the orchard, and what he sees is a tree that isn’t earning him any money, a tree that is just taking up valuable space, and he wants to cut it down.
God, however, has other ideas. God is still at work, even if it isn’t as obvious with the fig tree as it was with the burning bush. And if we see the gardener as Jesus, though you know I also encourage you to play with what the parable might teach you if you think of yourself the gardener, or your worst enemy as the gardener, and on and on. But as I was saying, if we see Jesus as the gardener, we find him pleading with the owner not to give up on the tree. God is still working within this tree, he insists, and I will help tend it. Let’s give it another year.
One might well imagine, a year later, Jesus asking for another year. And then another. And then another…
Because we are always, and ever, works in progress. And the story of scripture assures us that God never, ever wants to give up on us. Even if we seem to be beyond hope. Even if it’s been years. Even if the world suggests we are useless. Even if we ourselves are the ones who are ready to give up.
Either one of those might be true. Any number of toxic people in this world might have told you you’re worthless. Then there are the endless, mostly unachievable standards for every aspect of existence that hound our psyches. And these then add weight to the actual failures that come to all of us in our lifetimes. Inadequacy can start to feel like the whole truth.
So it’s no surprise if we arrive at the idea of repentance with the same warped conviction that it’s yet one more pass-fail situation, yet one more task on our to do list that we fear is more than we can manage. Which is very bad news, given that Jesus makes it clear that unless we repent, we will be destroyed.
Our sin will destroy us, it’s true. Little by little, or in one fell swoop, our sinful ways eat away at all that is healthy and thriving in us as individuals and as a nation. That’s the nature of sin. It destroys our bodies, our spirits, our relationships, our communities, our environment.
Only repentance can stop that. But we are terrified in the face of that reality, because we think repentance is all on us, and past experience has taught us that we’re not as good at it as we’d like to be. As Paul describes so vividly in Romans 7:15, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Seriously, we’re terrible at repenting, even though we’re pretty good at wanting to repent. And we’re afraid that this truth will be the death of us, stuck as we are between the knowledge that our sin is destroying us, and our own inability to fix it all.
But that’s only a problem if it’s actually all up to us. If will power and stick-to-it-ness is what’s required. In answer to that, Jesus tells this parable, to remind us that it’s not all up to us. And what we need is not so much will power and grit as it is surrender and trust.
This story of the fig tree is the grace of God, reaching past the part of us that agrees with the owner that we are not worth the trouble, and continuing to work within us. This story is Jesus reminding us that it is God who is sunlight and shelter, God who is life-giving water, God who is the nutrient-rich fertilizer that brings forth good fruits in us.
We don’t do it by ourselves. Almost all of our job is simply to allow ourselves to be tended. To let Jesus loosen the soil so that air and water and fertilizer (God as compost? God as manure?) can get to our roots. Perhaps he might need to loosen up those roots, too. If we’ve curled up too tightly in self-protection, so that we don’t take up too much space, so that others can’t see us (so that God, in particular, can’t see the mess we’ve made of our lives).
Jesus does this (this loosening) by assuring us that God is not like the owner of this orchard. If we can take that in, breathe that in, pray that in, it will create space within us; it will loosen the knotted roots of our psyche. Jesus will work that truth into your soil: that God isn’t interested in throwing you away because you aren’t profitable, doesn’t want to give up on you because you’re a waste of time. No matter what your parents, or your ex, or that idiot boss, said to you. No matter how you feel when you look at fashion magazines or the person on the cover of Forbes. No matter, even, what terrible blunder you actually committed, two weeks or 20 years ago. And no matter what destructive behavior you’ve been aware of, for so SO long, and still haven’t managed to stop.
God hasn’t given up on you. God is at work, and still longs to bring forth the fruit that God created you to bear.
In the Gospels, salvation is often closely tied to the idea of sight: in Jesus, we receive the gift of seeing things differently. And this week, the scholars at Working Preacher defined repentance not just as turning away from your sinful behavior, but as turning to see things from God’s point of view.
God sees you. Even if you’ve been trying like crazy to hide yourself away. God sees you, and yes, God does see the unhealthy parts, the parts that have dried out from neglect and the parts that have maybe been overwatered. God sees the dead wood and the twisted bits. But what God really sees is the fruit that you could bring to the world. And God just needs you to let him in, so that his power can work in you to bring it about.
This is what will heal you. This is what will mend the broken places, and grow you away from the worst of those destructive behaviors. And that, my friends, is Grace. And it is every bit as dramatic and beautiful (and a little bit scary) as that burning bush that drew Moses so inexorably off his path. So take off your shoes, because this is, indeed, holy ground. May it be so, Amen.