A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at St Columba’s United Reformed Church, on 23 March 2025
Unfortunately, for technical reasons, it was not possible to livestream this service
About six years ago my wife and I received a gift of some money to mark our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We thought we would purchase something lasting with it, so we bought two trees – an apple tree and a plum tree. These are not the sort that you plant in the ground. They are ones that are designed to flourish in large pots on your patio. If you move house you can take your trees with you.
The apple tree and the plum tree look very similar. They are the same size. At the same point in the year they begin to bud. Then at about the same time they come into leaf. Next, they both come into blossom; everything the same. At this point, though, a significant difference emerges. After coming into leaf and blossoming the apple tree produces a crop of apples for us to eat. After coming into leaf and blossom the plum tree produces …
Absolutely nothing!
Six years, and it still has not produced a single, solitary plum. What should we do about that? Both trees have received equal treatment. They are located to get equal amounts of sunlight. They sit in the same type of soil. We ensure that both are watered. Despite this, we have not been blessed by any plums, whilst at the same time we have enjoyed a modest, but tasty, crop of apples.
Also, the clock is ticking. Some time towards the end of this year we are due to move house. We don’t know exactly where we are going to be, or the size the property. All the same, when you know that you are going to move, you start to review your possessions, making decisions about what is going to come with you and what is not. (For example, my wife is under the impression that many of my books will not be coming with us.) Which still leaves us with the question of what to do with our fruit-free plum tree.
Is it going to be like the message that John the Baptist preached to the crowds when he warned them to avoid the wrath of God by bearing ‘fruits worthy of repentance? (Luke 3:8) As he put it to them, ‘ Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire’ (3:9); presumably, plum trees included.
Alternatively, will it be more like the gardener in Jesus’s parable of the fig tree? Will we give this non-productive plant a bit more time; one more chance to get its act together? ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year,’ pleads the gardener with the vineyard owner, ‘until I dig round it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’ (13:8, 9) Watch this space.
Now, of course, Jesus did not tell this parable in order to help me, you, or anyone else make decisions about horticulture in relation to house moves. Jesus told parables as a way of helping us get an insight into the nature of God, and how God works in relation to us and the world in which we live. So what glimpses of God and God’s ways might we catch by considering this story featuring a non-productive fruit tree?
The circumstances that led to Jesus sharing this parable tell us it’s a life and death matter. It begins with some people telling Jesus about ‘the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.’ (13:1) It seems some pilgrims from Galilee who had come down to Jerusalem for religious reasons had been massacred by soldiers under the control of Pontius Pilate.
Luke’s Gospel is the only account of this incident, but there are known examples in history where Pilate did similar things, so it’s no surprise really. It’s sobering, though, as we progress through Lent, towards Good Friday, to realise that that Pontius Pilate had “previous form” regarding killing people from Galilee who come to Jerusalem at the time of a religious festival.
Jesus responds to that report with one of his own, the collapse of the tower of Siloam, with eighteen fatalities. Concerning both he makes the point that those who died were no better nor worse than anyone else. In other words these were not incidents of God’s wrath being visited upon people because they were more sinful than average.
What matters, says Jesus, is repentance – which means “turning around” – before death comes. And it’s then that he tells this parable about a fig tree, a landowner, and a gardener; about God, and about turning our lives around whilst we still have lives to turn around.
Just imagine for a moment this parable as being a picture of the mind of God, contemplating humankind, including you and me. We have, as it says in the psalms, ‘been fearfully and wonderfully made.’ (139:14) We are capable of sustaining flourishing societies and a good environment. In practice, though, too often we fail to do so, because of our competitiveness, greed, selfishness, and the like. The results of this are all too evident in what we see in daily media reports from around the world, and through what we experience in our interactions with others. We are far, far away from being as fruitful as we should be. What’s God to do?
God might be like the landowner in the parable who having planted a fig tree in a vineyard is deeply disappointed by it. This landowner is more than ready to destroy it: ‘Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ (13:7) Having created humankind in order to look after things in the garden (Genesis 2:15), and with the expectation that we would do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our maker (Micah 6:8), you could understand, given human performance to date, why God might think of sweeping us away. John the Baptist, with his talk of the axe already being at the root of the tree would probably agree.
But contained within the mind of God is not only the landowner, but the gardener. The landowner is ready to wield the axe right now, but gardener engages him in conversation. Surely, he pleads, this unfruitful tree – that unfruitful crew – is worth one more effort: ‘let it alone for one more year until I dig round it and put manure on it.’ (13:8) There’s still the possibility of a turnaround; there might be fruit next year.
What’s the God of heaven and earth going to do with us? Make a final judgment now, or have one last go at getting us to bear fruit before it is too late? The parable itself does not provide a definitive answer to that question. It does not record or report the response of the landowner to the gardener’s request for one more year. It leaves it to us to figure out what happens when God’s justice enters into a debate with God’s love and mercy; to end it all now or give it, or them, another year.
For us, the answer to that question is not found within the parable itself, but in the person of the parable-teller, Jesus Christ. The gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ is itself the answer to the question about what happens next in the parable; of the outcome of the conversation in the mind of God.. Yes, God is a just God, and that has to include an element of judgement. At some point we face judgement about our lives and what we have done with them; about how fruitful we have been with what God has give to us. Note that even the gardener, who wants to save the tree, asks only for an extension before the axe falls, as it must do.
But not yet …
Judgement is delayed for another year, whatever a “year” is in the mind of God, for whom, as it says elsewhere in scripture, ‘one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.’ (2 Peter 3:8) And in this interim period God’s love and mercy come to the fore they have the upper hand over strict justice in the mind of God. Through the life-example, through the teaching of Jesus Christ; through his cross, God works upon humankind to make us fruitful; to make us loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, generous, faithful, gentle and self-controlled (Galatians 5:22-23); to make us the sort of people that God wills us to be.
So let’s spend this time well. Let’s be profoundly thankful that God grants us this extension, this opportunity to live fruitful lives, turning around and following in the way of Jesus Christ.
And as for our plum tree, I suppose we’ll work on it and give it one more year … but the clock’s ticking!