Master gardeners well understand that their plants, trees, and bushes need rest, nutrients, and time – and hungry growers also need their flora to produce fruit and vegetables. Both needs are true in the biology of horticulture – and so also in the discipleship of those who sow, tend, and water their faith. To flourish and grow in belief, you and I need rest, nutrients, and time – and we need to produce the spiritual fruit that the Lord requires of us.
If you’re forever striving for even-more growth without taking time to rest, you’ll burn out. And if you’re only-ever resting, you won’t grow and bear fruit. Those seemingly opposed divine truths of our humanity are what a lone fig tree serves up in this morning’s Scripture lesson: Expressions of the in-between times of nurture before fruit, where the ground is fertile for repentance and transformation. Let us pray in preparation to receive the Word of the Lord in the Gospel of Luke –
Creator God, your Word is like soil – something in which to root ourselves. Your Word is like the sun – big enough to touch everything with its warmth. And your Word is like a gardener – a love that prunes and encourages, waters and delights, seeds and tends. So, as we now turn to your Good News, please warm our bones, tend to our broken pieces, and show us how to grow. With hope we pray.
You need not be a tree-hugger to identify with this hapless fig tree: Human worth is too often measured by what you produce. Rest is allusive in a world that’s forever sprinting. Demanded outcomes lack support and resources. And, like the fig tree, many of us are feeling our way through in-between seasons when the chapters of our lives feel undefined and uncertain, when we doubt whether personal and spiritual growth will even take place.
In this our moment of anxious days and sleepless nights, perhaps we do well with the mindset of a gardener – and with putting the Master’s skills into more-regular practice: Abiding in patience, hope, and trust; strengthening roots in well-tended soil; exercising discernment, and demonstrating resilience.
Asparagus is my favorite vegetable. But we’ve never grown much asparagus in our garden, because it takes time – usually a couple growing seasons from planting to first harvest, and I just don’t have the patience.
Asparagus needs a year, then at least another, to concentrate its efforts on largely invisible work: Taking foothold in the soil, spreading its roots, gathering strength to flourish. Asparagus, like the fig tree of our lesson, cannot be rushed. The lack of asparagus in a fledgling bed – as with a young fig tree’s lack of fruit – is not a sign of failure. Maturity requires time and care, attention and patience.
Please don’t for long imagine Luke’s vineyard owner as God. Resist the temptation of hierarchical thinking that the most seemingly powerful figure in a parable must always be God. Doing so with this parable runs afoul of the psalmist’s declaration of the Lord as “merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8) And surely a call to faithful waiting seems more apt and necessary for God’s ever-impatient people. As God reminds Habakkuk, “There still exists a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” (2:3)
Faithful waiting doesn’t mean doing nothing. A gardener waters, weeds, and fertilizes. Nothing is wasted. Down below the surface, the fig tree isn’t just gathering strength; it also is building relationships. Soilborne fungi are finding homes in its roots, boosting the tree’s capacity to resist disease and take in nutrients. In return, the tree feeds the fungi. Neighboring insects – ants and beetles – spread those helpful fungi, break down organic matter to enrich the soil, and reduce disease-causing pathogens.
Perhaps this parable is better read as a gentle rebuke against those of us who are all too comfortable with our on-demand, instant-gratification culture – and who believe the lie that we control more than we actually can and do. Thus comes our Lenten invitation: Repent and believe the Good News! Slow down. Do your part. Remember the promise. Whether asparagus or fig, the harvest will come in its good time.
It is precisely as we heard earlier from the second letter of Peter: “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” Ancient words, ever true: A story of surely being on the way but definitely not yet being there, a faith journey of messy middles and nuanced surprises. The writer Anna Strickland paints with words a vivid picture –
“So much of the beauty of the world comes from the in-between spaces. In the space between night and day, the sun and atmosphere collide into a dazzling display of color. Waterfalls span the space between cliffs and the river below with astonishing power. Mangrove forests, beaches, and bayous exist entirely in the space[s] between land and water. The edges of things, the mixing spaces, … are the most interesting places on earth.”
And yet, we feel compelled to exist in categories – pigeon-holing “sacred” and “secular,” “female” and “male,” “left” and “right,” “right” and “wrong,” “black” and “white”; compressing the beauty and complexity of the whole spectrum of being into just two words.
Oh, how good it is when you set aside the boxes we construct and follow the lead of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, who created night and day and everything in between; land and water and everything in between; you and me and everyone in between. Again quoting the Reverend Ms. Strickland, “The Alpha and the Omega is surely with us in the space in between.”
The seemingly small minority of patient and gracious folks who tend and water, nourish and grow, in those in-between spaces just might turn out to be the best hope of our fallen and divided world.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be wholly pleasing and acceptable to God the Father Almighty. Amen, and amen.
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message during worship on the Third Sunday in Lent, March 23, 2025, at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Jeff Chu, Hannah Garrity, Lisle Gwynn Garrity, and Anna Strickand inform the message. It is part of Pastor Grant’s Lenten series, “Everything in Between: Meeting God in the Midst of Extremes.” The video clip is from Lumo’s Gospel of Luke.