The Third Sunday of Lent - March 3, 2013
The Third Sunday of Lent
Luke 13:6 – 9
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
In the short parable, Jesus encourages patience and letting things be. Spiritual growth takes time. We “become” over a lifetime. Spirituality is more about process than an event, even a series of events.
But the human tendency is to take our temperature, to be constantly checking to see “how we are doing,” to pull up our seedling faith to look at the roots.
Sometimes we use markers for the journey that are quite arbitrary . . . how someone else is doing it . . . or what I “think” a growing spiritual life looks like . . . or some pietistic notion of holiness.
In fact, sometimes spiritual becoming is like moving through a cloud, where the usual landmarks are gone and we can’t tell where we are. Growth can be disorienting. We don’t bale out, though. Patience. Letting be. These are the attributes for the spiritual life commended by Jesus.
Luke 13:6 – 9
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
In the short parable, Jesus encourages patience and letting things be. Spiritual growth takes time. We “become” over a lifetime. Spirituality is more about process than an event, even a series of events.
But the human tendency is to take our temperature, to be constantly checking to see “how we are doing,” to pull up our seedling faith to look at the roots.
Sometimes we use markers for the journey that are quite arbitrary . . . how someone else is doing it . . . or what I “think” a growing spiritual life looks like . . . or some pietistic notion of holiness.
In fact, sometimes spiritual becoming is like moving through a cloud, where the usual landmarks are gone and we can’t tell where we are. Growth can be disorienting. We don’t bale out, though. Patience. Letting be. These are the attributes for the spiritual life commended by Jesus.
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