3C Lent
20 Mar 2022
What has worth? What is the meaning of work? Two questions that permeate our lives.
I grew up right here in Iowa, in the city of Des Moines. My parents had both known poverty and I am sure my father was what we would now call food insecure during his childhood. They both worked, that is were employed by someone for wages, their entire adult lives; my father started working when he was a pre-teen. They instilled in me a strong work ethic (idleness is the devil’s work), but as I look back I think in some ways it was skewed. Your worth was tied up in your work: how much and what kind. What I am about to say is NOT to downplay the importance of work; for most of human existence one’s waking hours were mostly spent in doing what needed to be done to survive and no form of labor is more or less valuable than any other. And God created us to tend the garden, to be caretakers of this fragile planet.
The problem occurs when we tie our identity to what we perceive as productivity and when we downplay the importance of rest and leisure! I don’t know if it is because I am an only child, but my father thought it important I know how to do all those things traditionally considered men’s work in the society in which he was raised. He taught me basic carpentry, plumbing, and car maintenance. I still tell my daughter I know how to replace a carburetor, which cars no longer even have, and could replace and gap spark plugs. She laughs at me. He also taught me how to shoot and how to be safe with a gun. The only weapons he would own were shotguns for hunting; being a soldier in WWII had convinced him there was no other role for guns. My mother made sure I knew how to clean everything and cook and sew. She was so good a seamstress she could probably have been a professional, like her mother before her.
But they taught me something else. Despite the steady and hard work, they also knew how to have fun. While I am not about to say my family was idyllic, we all cared for each other and we all enjoyed leisure activities together, especially things that took us outdoors. I have probably fished in or camped at most lakes in central Iowa and many beyond.
So what does this have to do with fig trees, which I found out are related to the mulberry tree?
Fig trees are meant to produce figs, something that I love as a delicious treat. But what if the fig tree is not producing figs? What if it is barren? What if it has been under stress from drought or lack of nutrients and needs to rest?
The owner of the vineyard, the vineyard with the lonely fig tree, sees it as a waste of time and money. If it is not going to produce figs, what good is it? Well, someone should have told him that figs are not self-fertile as a rule and need other figs to pollinate. The climate where Jesus lived was good for figs, but it can be a rather fussy sort of plant!
And if the tree had been stressed? It needed to rest and store up energy. It needed the fig’s equivalent of a holiday. How often do we push ourselves and others beyond the edge because we are forced or because we think unless we are doing something we are of no value? Have you ever thought of yourself as having no talents? I am a poor artist, lousy at any sort of work with a needle, and a mediocre musician. If you are not part of a dominant culture you may fall into a trap of thinking you are less than. There are plenty of people out there who believe that.
But God says differently! In the beginning of creation, God said it was all good. God did not say easy or without sorrow and pain, but that creation is intrinsically good and that you are good. God, and the gardener, sees the intrinsic worth of every human being. You are worthy and loved just because you are.
We once had a neighbor who had a large vegetable garden every year, which she tended intensively and meticulously. Yet she never planted flowers. My father always planted a small vegetable garden yet would with as much relish choose and plant flowers every year. The neighbor said she had no time to waste on that which she could not eat; my father couldn’t see the point of not having flowers to look at and smell and cut for bouquets.
As it turns out, having a large diversity of plants is good for the soil, the air, the water, and all the animal life, not to mention good for the soul. Farmers spent years draining the wetlands of Iowa to make productive farmland; now we find out we need to restore much wetland to save the very soil we farm.
Everything should be valued for what it is. Granted, diseases that kill need to be fought with every weapon available, but we must also understand that every life is of equal value. A seemingly worthless fig tree is as loved by God as the vines that produce the best grapes.
It does not mean that trouble won’t come your way; the tower of Siloam fell on innocent people who were no better or worse than you and I. People die in accidents and of disease every day, regardless of whether they were “good” people or not. Life is not fair; our job is to hold up one another. We gather in times of joy and in times of sorrow, holding the gladness and the burdens of a community in the arms of love, as God holds us and as Jesus taught us to do.
God loves the grapes and the fig tree; God loves you and me.
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