Streams of Mercy
Yesterday’s lesson from the gospel of Luke was the parable of the fig tree. For three years the tree grew, and no fruit came, so the owner wanted to cut it down. After all, why should a fruitless tree take up precious space in the vineyard! But the gardener said, “Let’s wait a year, let me work with it, dig about it and fertilize it, and maybe it will begin to grow and have good fruit.” So the owner gave the tree another year.
This Lenten season speaks to us of the mercies of God extended beyond human logic and expectation, and at the same time, it reminds us that God will not continue forever to overlook our failure to live fruitful lives. Ultimately God will call us to account for the space we occupy in his vineyard. The truth is that God has the right to expect fruit from our lives!
The parable of the fig tree gives us the hope and assurance that God is with us always. God wishes for our lives to be cultivated and fertilized with the hope of our producing a life of faithfulness. We need a sense of purpose; we are not who we should be until we find God’s purpose for our lives. We must remember that we are God’s people in this time and place- God’s people called to bear kingdom fruit The fig tree had enjoyed the richness of the earth and the sky for years; it should have produced. What about you and me? .
It’s been said that God’s mercy is still talking to God’s judgment, and on that conversation hangs our salvation. There’s still time to be faithful, to respond, to experience second chances and new beginnings and bear kingdom fruit.
Lent is a time to take stock of our own hearts, souls and life in God; a time to acknowledge our need for God, a time to confess our sins, accept God’s forgiveness, and begin to bear fruit. Are we stingy with our love for others? Are we withholding forgiveness from old wrongs? Do we refuse to believe that we can be forgiven, and carry from year to year a growing burden of guilt? Are we so busy making a living that we’ve forgotten to make a life? What have we done, Jesus asks? What have we left undone? Who can tell out of what barren lives, out of which barren churches God shall yet bring fruit!
In this season of Lent, let us give thanks to One who gives us the gift of one more year, the gift of one more day; the One who patiently works in our lives and though our life experience, that we might grow to be fruitful, to have life, and have it abundantly.
Giving thanks for the richness of this Lenten journey, and for those streams of mercy, never ceasing.
Elizabeth