A Story of a Fig Tree

Third Sunday of Lent

March 3, 2013

Luke 13:1-9

“Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future (Luk 13:8).”

It normally takes around three years for a fig tree to reach its maturity and fruition. If it does not produce fruit by that time, it is not likely to fruit at all. The owner has a reasonable right to cut the tree, but through the effort of the gardener, it is given another chance. Like the fig tree, through the effort of our Chief Gardener, the new Adam of eternal Eden, Jesus Christ, we are given another chance to change and be fruitful.

However, it is always easier said than done. In daily reality, it is not simply a matter of instantly erasing errors on the whiteboard, of flash and clear cut change from bad guy to good guy, from villains to heroes. Some of us are merely entrapped in the evil structures or systems that promote sin in us and through us, and we simply do not know how to get out of it. Some of us are actually victims of vicious cycles of sin in our families or our societies that sooner or later turn us to be the perpetrators, and we are merely powerless to find the way out.

Then, what does it mean to repent, to change? Is there any point we observe Lenten season every years, yet no apparent change seems to take place? We miss the point if we just think that Lenten season is only about instant change.

It is a story of a struggling fig tree to be fruitful and yet find itself facing desperate end, the story of struggling humanity. It is a story of a gardener who refuses to give up on his tree, a story of God who never loses hope in humanity. The Lenten season means that despite of all our imperfection and disfigured life, we refuse to succumb to despair. It means we take courage to fight hopelessness even no actual fruit of change seems visible in our lives. It means we always hope that the Lord never loses hope in us.

Br. Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP