Checking In

Luke 13:1-9

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, ‘Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 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? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.’

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. 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?” He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, 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.” ’

Our passage today begins with some touching on some violent stories— one about the cruel Pontius Pilate massacring some worshippers in the temple for reasons unknown, and another about a tragic accident in the city of Siloam, in which people were apparently killed when a structure toppled. It was the common wisdom at the time that if people died some horrible death, whether it be a murder or a random accident, they or their ancestors must have done something horrible, must have led sinful lives in order for something so terrible to happen. Jesus is here saying that this is simply not the case. “…do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.”

This is Jesus speaking the truth—that everyone suffers under a broken, oppressive, and unjust system. It’s a partial answer to that ultimate question of theodicy—why do bad things happen to good people? I think there’s still a lot of mystery to that, it’s one that will never be truly answered or understood in any of our lifetimes, but one thing we can be certain of—is that in a society that puts some people above others, whether it be because of the amount of money they have, the family they were born into, the color of their skin, the people they love, the gender they were given at birth, innocent people from all walks of life will suffer.

He then goes onto tell this parable of the fig tree—the owner of the land where this tree grows has become impatient with its inability flower and produce fruit, and so just before he’s about to cut it down, one of his employees convinces him to give it just one more year in which this worker will tend to this barren tree and coax out its latent fruit.

This is a really interesting and challenging parable, because there’s at once a sense of urgency, and also a call for patience—urgency knowing the landowner wants to chop the tree down, and relief and patience that this gentle gardener as received another year to really tend to this tree give it the love and care it deserves. And it strikes me that’s often the line we’re talking in today’s world, filled with panic at whatever chaos and cruelty is happening here or abroad with the need for calm and patience in order to make the type of change that will help more people in the longer term.

Jesus was all about thinking about things differently, doing brand new things. He starts out our passage today, after all, with refuting that ancient belief that people who die a horrible death must’ve done something to deserve it. And he continues with this parable that, like most parables, is open to interpretation. There’s debate about who the landowner represents, who the fig tree represents, who the gardener represents; but I don’t know that the correct answer to any of those debates, if there is one at all, really matter in the long run. Because I think our passage for today is really saying, above all else, they we have to do things differently. Because everyone suffers when we forget what really matters in life.

The landowner of Jesus’ parable is out of patience. When he looks at this barren fig tree, all he sees is a tree that’s not producing fruit that should be making him money. He sees something that’s just taking up valuable space in his vineyard. He says that for three years he has come looking for fruit and never finds any. But he doesn’t talk about the state of the tree; or what he’s been doing to encourage that fruit. It reads to me like he just walks out to the tree once a year, sees that it’s not bearing fruit, curses, and walks away angry. His employee gently tells him all it needs is a little love and care— let me give that love and care to the tree, and then come back and see it.

A person, like a plant, a tree, like any living thing, when neglected, will not flourish. The landowner in this parable doesn’t understand or seem to care what this living thing needs to thrive. He hasn’t given it the resources or the care it needs to produce its own life-giving sustenance. And so he sees a useless thing to be destroyed, rather than a living thing in need of love.

My friend sent me an interesting article recently. It was about brain fog. Brain fog has been widely reported to be a symptom of long covid, especially since reports of brain fog to doctors have skyrocketed since the pandemic. Like any vague and nebulous medical phrase, there’s a lot of mystery as to what causes brain fog— one cause is often hormonal (I know up until just a few months ago, I was experiencing the version of brain fog that people often refer to as “mom brain”). But neuropsychologist Karen Dahlman says that the cause of brain fog can, and often is as simple as stress. She says

The more your cognitive space is taxed, the more preoccupied you are, the more difficult it is to pay attention, and the more the process of encoding information is interrupted.

I’ve talked before about how after the pandemic, life kind of just went back to what it was before to a degree, and very few people ever had the blessing of being able to really process what they just want through, what the country and the world went through. The author of the article I read, Katie Arnold-Ratliff, battling with brain fog herself, talks about how damaging this was:

I think perhaps the fog never lifted for many of us…because the horrors never did either. Life…continues to demand that we perform this dance, that we balance the mundane and the frightening without going insane.

So ultimately, the brain fog remains because we never got a chance to learn from the collective trauma we all went through. And the uncertainty has continued at a breakneck pace, and many people have been able to recover, and so, the brain fog stays.

This is what happens when we’re not taken care of. We’re unable to flourish, unable to focus on our jobs, the people we love, at our full capacity because we haven’t been allowed to take care of ourselves or each other. In my reading of Jesus’ parable, we are the barren fig tree—left to just… be, without being given or even shown the resources or the love that we need to thrive in this world. It’s ironic because as we’ve been pushed back into the world as if nothing happened, so that our economy doesn’t collapse, so that things still get done, so that we keep making money for the powerful, so that the world keeps running—and yet, because we’ve been pushed back into this world before any of us were ready, forced to bury whatever fears or anxieties still linger from these past 5 plus years, too fogged up to keep things from collapsing.

And so… as usual— we make sure we have each other’s backs. And we do that by really caring for each other— by making sure our most active volunteers don’t burn out, by making sure we tell people they’re doing a good job, by making sure people are holding up okay, especially when they’re going through a trying time. And I think this especially true for us to consider here in Vermont. There’s a lot of stoicism here—people saying they’re fine when they’re not; people being wildly self-sufficient when they could really use a hand. We have to really nurture each other. The landowner in Jesus’ parable saw a seemingly healthy fig tree that for wasn’t producing any figs. But the gardener saw something different—he saw a fig tree that was living, yes. But it wasn’t thriving. It needed a little extra support. We have to make sure those around us are actually as okay as they look, or as they say they are. Really pay attention to people and what they’re going through.

Now the interesting thing about this parable is that we don’t know how it ends. We’re left with a cliffhanger. What happened after that year of nurture? What happened after that year of protection from the landowner’s impatience and frustration? I hope we can assume the best—that the gardener was able to give the fig tree the tenderness and the care it needed so that it could flourish and live a long life giving life to people around it. But if the fig tree is representative of us, then we can’t think quite so literally about it. The fig tree is, while very much alive, is a plant, rooted to the ground, unable to really do much besides accept the care that the gardener is giving to it. Humans, on the other hand, have free will; we have stubbornness; we have neuroses; we have emotional baggage—we have a lot that might prevent us from accepting help and support when we need it. So this isn’t just a lesson about following in the example of Jesus, represented by the gardener in this parable, and checking in on and helping the people around us; it’s also a lesson about accepting that help, in order to make this into a truly giving and caring world full of pure reciprocity and love. Because of that constant urgency that seems to always be present in our culture, it can feel like there’s no time to really slow down and accept some care when we need it. That’s how we ended up going back to “normal” so quickly after pandemic restrictions were lifted, and that’s why we have so many people walking around in a fog.

So how do we balance that urgency with the need to slow and down and care for each other? I don’t have any one good answer to that question, rarely is there one straight-forward answer to any of Jesus’ stories or parables; so maybe we do our best to keep it simple—check in on each other. Be patient with each other. When people think to check in on you, be honest and accept help when it’s offered. Even in the face of deadlines or danger, take the time to care for yourself and those around you.

We need to create the conditions for everyone to thrive and flourish. Simply living and going through the motions isn’t enough. In order to be able to give love and compassion we must receive it. And build on it. Now, that good news for us is that thanks to our faith, we have a bit of a head start here, if only we take it. Even in our foggiest moments, even in these fearful and confusing times, we have a gentle, patient gardener in Jesus, someone who knows our every pain and our every joy, who can tend to us when we need tending. And whether we receive this tending in through prayer, through walks in in the woods, through meditation does not matter—but we have to make sure that we do take the time, even in the face of anxiety and urgency, or rather especially in the face of anxiety and urgency, to accept that tending. And then we pay it forward. We check in on people who we know are going through a tough time, even if they put on a brave face; we check in on people who we haven’t seen for a while; we check in on people just for the sake of checking in. And we treat people with the care and the patience of the gentle gardener from the parable of the fig tree.

Jesus begins this passage with two troubling and violent stories. But his purpose in doing this is to make clear that those people who suffered and died didn’t deserve it. They were victims of a broken and unjust world. Now, I can’t promise you that we’re going to create and earth as it is in heaven in any of our lifetimes; but during what time we have, we can do the very least, which is plenty— we take this parable of the fig tree to heart, and we care for one another as this gardener so tenderly cares for this fig tree. Be patient with all. Be kind to all. Receive love and care, and give it in return. If we abide by these simple principles, we will flourish forever and ever. Amen.