This week’s parable is found in Luke 13:6-9 which is known as the unfruitful fig tree. Jesus confronted Jewish religious leaders who loved their position and their religion but had no regard for people. He rebuked them and illustrated to them what true love means. But as always, to get a better grasp of this parable we need to understand the verses before, beginning in verses 1 through 5.
About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple. 2 “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? 3 Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God. 4 And what about the eighteen people who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them? Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? 5 No, and I tell you again that unless you repent, you will perish, too.”
Pilate, the Roman administrator, had some religious pilgrims from Galilee executed as they came to the temple to offer sacrifices. Perhaps such an outrage might bring God’s Messiah to deliver his people, so Jesus was responding to a claim that bad things only happen to bad people. Sin has negative consequences, but not every bad thing is a result of sin. Jesus then turned the theological issue around. Is this punishment for sin? Do persecution and death prove the victim to be a greater sinner than those who do not suffer? He reminded them that everyone has sinned. Each must repent, turn from sin, and turn towards God in obedience and dedication. Jesus then finished his teaching with this parable.
6 Then Jesus told this story: “A man planted a fig tree in his vineyard and came again and again to see if there was any fruit on it, but he was always disappointed. 7 Finally, he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘I’ve waited three years, and there hasn’t been a single fig! Cut it down! It’s just taking up space in the garden.’
8 “‘The gardener answered, ‘Sir, give it one more chance. Leave it another year, and I’ll give it special attention and plenty of fertilizer. 9 If we get figs next year, fine. If not, then you can cut it down.’”
It sounds unnatural for a fig tree to be planted in a vineyard, but it seems that it wasn’t all that strange after all. Figs, along with grapes, have been altogether quite familiar in Israel from of old; they have been used as tree stands letting the grape vines be entwined upon them. Because this one was planted in the good earth of the vineyard it was expected to be fruitful. But yet, there stood the fig tree fruitless for years. So, finally, the owner of the vineyard ordered the garden keeper to chop that tree down.
Just before this parable the following words are found. “Unless you all repent, you will perish the same way,” in verse five. In other words, this parable is given in the context of “the judgment of God.” When we compare the judgment of God with the words of this owner, these words have a very strict ring to them. “Better chop it down!” We will see in our mind’s eye behind such words the image of a cold blooded and ruthless man. We compare that with the image of an angry God handing down his judgments in a pitiless manner. I’d say there are more than a few feeling resistances to the words of the owner.
But, as you think about it, it wasn’t anything special that the owner was commanding. Normally, what we’d think would hardly be different. I’m not good at throwing things away. My disposition to hold onto something until it is totally useless. A lot of things with no function and no use stay around and start taking up space. Every spring, I try to do a “Spring cleaning” and throw away unnecessary objects stored around. When done, I never really feel like I am missing anything. In the end I knew the judgment was right with the items to remove. Anyone who is always packing useless things is not called wise. It is common sense to pitch anything that serves no purpose or is useless.
The tree appearing in this story is not yielding fruit even though it has been at the fruit bearing age for fig trees. Two years go by, then three years, but it doesn’t have fruit. In the first place, according to the law of Moses even if a tree has fruit, it can’t be eaten right away. It can’t be eaten for three years. The fruit from the fourth year will be an offering to the Lord. Then after the fifth year it can be eaten. So, even had it yielded on the third year, it would be edible on the fourth year still ahead. But, in reality, no fruit had come at its third year either. When you think about that, it’s not odd for the fig tree to be judged as useless and unfit for the earth. “Chop it down” is every bit a judgment call. Even if there were some who felt resistance to the figure of this owner in some way or another, we’d probably be the first to say “chop it down” if we had been standing there in his shoes. That much, in a sense, would have been within our rights.
Besides that, if we take it further, there is a background to this parable in the Old Testament. The Israelites are time and again compared by way of illustration to figs, grapes, and other fruit. For example, resembling the situation of the owner in today’s parable, we find the following words in Isaiah. “For the one I love, a song of the love of the vineyard will I sing. My loved one used to have a vineyard on a fertile slope. He removed the rocks making it quite arable and planted for good grapes. He set a watch tower in its midst, dug out a winepress, and waited for the good vines to bear fruit. But, the fruit it bore was sour grapes. … What should I do for the vineyard, what is there still that I have not done? Though I have waited for good grapes to yield, why have sour grapes yielded?,” (Isaiah 5:1-4).
Figs and grapes are different. But the point they have in common is in that someone’s expectations have been betrayed. The fig tree is not just useless. It also corresponds with the figure of humanity which has continuously betrayed its trust and expectations. In Isaiah God lifts his voice of lament with “What should I do for the vineyard, what is there still that I have not done?” It is the same even in this parable from Jesus. The figs have not been growing wild along the side of the road. They have been set in a vineyard. They have been planted in good soil. There is even a gardener there to care for the plants. When we consider the Old Testament background to this parable, the figs are not trees that have been turned wild. It assumes they’ve been tended to by hand already. In other words, “despite all that” it is then “for three years already, even though I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree, I have never found any on it.” Therefore, to say “chop it down” is an altogether quite sensible judgment call.
So, we need to take another look here in this passage about what it says on God’s judgment. Most often we resist depictions of God’s wrath. We feel a resistance against the harsh words of this owner in this parable. But what the owner is saying is not improper or hardly strange, so it is neither wrong nor weird if God shows his anger towards us or if he hands down judgment. Much rather, the truly important thing is that we admit that by our very natures we exist as helpless to being judged and being taken down. Even if God judges and destroys the world, it would not be an immoral or an abnormal act. As master of the universe it is within God’s sovereign right.
When you understand this, it seems that the especially surprising thing being said in this parable is not in the first half of it but rather the second part. The words of the owner to “chop it down” are a normal judgment call, but on the other hand the very unusual words are those of the gardener that come after his.
So, let’s take a moment to listen to his statement. The gardener answered the owner, “Master, leave it be for this year. I’ll dig around the tree and fertilize it. Then, next year it may bear fruit. If it is still no good after that, chop it down,” (verses eight and nine).
The gardener asked that the fruitless fig tree might stay on till next year. Were the tree to remain, there would be no particular benefit to the gardener. Instead, it would only add the extra work load for him of digging around it and giving it fertilizer. Nevertheless, the gardener petitioned the owner on behalf of the tree. The parable ends with the words from the gardener. In the final analysis, the message to be implied by that is that the owner did not reject the gardener’s words. As a development in the story this is not what you’d expect but it is rather surprising.
In addition, a surprising thing happened but not just in this parable, but outside the parable, in the real world of life. This parable only appears in Luke’s Gospel and not the other three. Also, similarly, there are the words of Christ in it that Luke’s Gospel alone transmits. When Christ was hung on the cross, the Lord prayed, “Father, forgive them. They do not know what they are doing,” (Luke 23:34). Please, please leave it alone for this year. Please do not chop it down. Next year it may have fruit. In his having spoken like that, we see on the cross the figure of the gardener who showed mercy and who was so strangely attached to a fruitless fig tree that was just wasting space.
Even more though, it wasn’t only on the cross. Jesus’ petitioning didn’t end then. His intercession still continues now. Paul wrote the following verses. “Who can judge us in sin? He who died, no rather, he who was raised from the dead, Christ Jesus sits on the right hand of God and intercedes on our behalf,” (Romans 8:34).
The words of the gardener end with “If it is still no good after that, chop it down.” But nothing is said conclusively about a year later regarding whether the fig tree gave forth fruit or if it didn’t have fruit and was chopped down. This means that the heart of what Jesus meant to say in this parable was not on whether the tree was ultimately to be cut down or to be left alone. None of that mattered. The place we ought to be looking is on the point that the tree still stood though it deserved to be cut down because of the way it was.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this parable is given in the context of “God’s judgment.” When we think of how that it is on God’s judgment, our thoughts inevitably turn to whether we will be chopped down or saved on “the last day.” However, the parable of Jesus draws our eyes so apt to turn to “the last day” back to “now, this hour.” For, the main thing is not “the last day, but “now, this hour” in which we stand under the intercession of Christ and are shown God’s mercy and patience.