Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent

“A man had a fig tree planted in a vineyard.”

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The man is God the Father, and the fig tree is
humanity.

In the beginning, the Father planted the tree of
Adam within the vineyard of Eden. There he gave Adam his divine
mission, his purpose: Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the
earth, and have dominion over the earth.”

Most modern exegesis has found in these
commands a simple exhortation to have children, to spread across our
planet, and to steward it for our benefit. Though it is the case that
mankind should and has done these things, this interpretation does
not begin to approach the mystical depth implied in the original
languages; the breadth of the task implied in these commands which
the Early Church intuitively understood.

To be fruitful does not mean to reproduce, but
to come to maturity, for a tree does not bear fruit until it has
grown and reached its final state. To be fruitful means to be what one was
meant to be, to fulfill the potential in one’s nature. This is the
command given to Adam: “Fulfill who you are, become a true
man,” that is, become what the Father intended you to be before all
time in creation, “in the image of God, after his likeness.”

‘And having become a true man, multiply,
increase, that the crown of creation, the glorified man might reign
everywhere.’ For it is necessary that no part of creation not be
filled with the majesty of man’s glory.

Then we hear the third command given to Adam, the third stage of his
mission, so to speak, that is, ‘to fill the earth.’ This is
better translated ‘to fulfill the earth,’ that is to bring all of creation
to its completion and end; for sinless man, being united to God, would
unite all of creation to God in his own person, thus bringing to pass the
everlasting song of the angels, that ‘heaven and earth be full of the
glory of God.’

Here then comes the final command: “have
dominion over the earth,” or perhaps better understood, “be lord
of the earth,” be God to the creation, even as the Father is God to
mankind. Man as God’s viceroy to the cosmos.

This the Father desires of our first parents,
Adam and Eve, that having created all, He, in his love, might
bring all into participation with himself through mankind.

And yet, it is written, “A man had a fig tree planted in vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, but he found none.”

Herein lies the tragedy of mankind; that having received from God’s infinite love the privilege of participating in the perfect union of heaven and earth, of creation and the uncreated, he despised his purpose, and sought another.

It is written: “And the man said to the
vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this
fig tree, and I find none.” For it is true that in the three ages
of man, these three ‘years,’ man has been utterly unfruitful; far
from growing up into his full maturity, with each age he falls deeper and
deeper into the abyss; our corruption increasing day after day, a
cancer devouring our nature.

For the first year is that of the Garden of Eden, wherein sinless Adam was
deceived by the serpent, and partook of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil; having taken of the tree of death, Adam was prohibited from
taking of the tree of life, and so the tree of his humanity began its
age-long withering, its slow approach to desiccated lifelessness. The
fall of man may be likened to the autumn, the fall of a year, which
ends in a winter, lifeless, cold, dark.

The second year is that of the giving of the Law; for having received the
Law by the hands of Moses, all goodness and love was presented before
mankind in Israel; a path was given to man, whereby he might
repent, and return to his God; and yet it was as the prophet Isaiah
said: “What more could I do for my vineyard, that I have not done
in it? When I looked for it to yield good grapes, why did it yield
only wild grapes?” 

Having received the knowledge of the complete
goodness of God in the Law, Israel turned to the baseness and wildness of
the golden calf. They would not seek the purity of the words of the
Law, etched on immaculate stone; but rather turned to worship the
baseness and carnality of a cow. 

And not only in the wilderness did they ‘worship
the creation and not the creator,’ for again and again Israel spat on
the God of creation, and turned to Ba’al, and Ashtaroth and Molech, and
to their corrupt worship, which indulged every disorder of corrupt human
nature. Fruitless Israel. Fruitless humanity.

Then comes the third year, the year of the coming of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in the flesh. He comes preaching to many the kingdom of God; he comes preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins; he comes offering the free entrance of all into the fullness of the being of God; but he has entered into the winter of humanity’s soul. 

For the Jews of his time no longer could
remember their ancient mission, they no longer cared for sacred
things. What they longed for was power, earthly power, to liberate
them from Roman power. Their eyes could not bear to see the divine glory
offered them, for being under the yoke of Imperial rule so long, they
envied only temporal glory.

The third year had come, and again mankind
had shown no fruit; he had not come to his true purpose and end, even
having been given guidance by the Word of God, first on stone, then in
flesh. So it is written: “Look, for three years now I have
come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down.” The
divine patience of the Father seems to have worn thin, and ‘the wrath
of God is revealed against all unrighteousness,’ 

For in rejecting the counsel of his Son, it
was made manifest that “the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually.” What option is left? “I will blot out
man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and
creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made
them.” “I have come seeking fruit of this fig tree, and I find none.
Cut it down.”

How close all of us are to destruction; see how visible the wrath of the Father is against all wickedness, for he desires that mankind come to fruition, but we in our rebellion incessantly cast our vote for corruption, for un-being, for non-existence. And so the wrath of God is made manifest; The decree of hell is laid at the root of sinful mankind: ‘Let them perish by their own will.’  

But it is written: “The vinedresser
answered him, ‘Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig around
it and put on manure.’” The Son of God intercedes on our behalf before
the Father, “Lord, the tree is sick unto death, and of itself cannot
produce any fruit; but only let me replant it and nourish it, and perhaps
it will be well.”

Now do you see what Christ is saying? Do
you see the via dolorosa, the path of suffering which our Lord
trod on the Friday of our Redemption, bearing the wood of his
passion? 

That is not merely Jesus, but the
vinedresser; see how he carries the tree of our sins, lifeless, dead,
and not only dead, but death-giving; see how the vinedresser has dug us
up to replant us upon Mount Zion; see how he waters us with his
life-giving blood, see how he lays down his torn flesh to nourish our
roots. We see our Lord bearing his cross to his death; what he bears
is the fig tree of our sinful humanity.

The parable ends: ‘Then if it should
bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it
down.’

There is something despairing about this
ending; it leaves uncertain whether or not the tree will indeed bear
fruit, whether or not the dying tree of mankind might be saved. Was
the shedding of Christ’s blood on the way for nothing? Was the scourging
of his body to no avail? Are we so sick, so dead, that even being
nourished by the sufferings of Christ, we cannot be saved?

But do not despair. Rather, look again to
our Lord’s Passion, look again to the vinedressers labor; see the
tree of the cross planted high up upon the mount of Sacrifice. Look
upon its branches, and see hanging from them, finally, the fruit of
the tree of mankind.

The fruit which the man in the parable sought
has been born. Indeed mankind has finally come to its completion in
the sacrifice of the Son of Man. God created man to ‘be in his image,
after his likeness.’ And Jesus is the Image of God, he is the
likeness of God, for ‘God is love,’ and Jesus shows himself to have
fulfilled the Law of Love in his self-offering for the sake of
mankind. 

And we are united to this new tree of
mankind, replanted and restored, through Baptism. By the washing of
regeneration, we are grafted onto the tree of humanity, now healed
from all corruption and made strong, now brought to its fulfillment and
fullest fruition through Christ.

The tree of life has been restored in
Zion. Though we fast during the days of Lent, let us feast on this
day of the Lord, Sunday, when no one fasts. Approach the table of
God and take the fruit of the tree of life.

Eat the fruit of the sacred supper, and
unite yourself to the glorified body and blood of Christ, that his majesty
might be multiplied in the many people in whom he now dwells through his
feast; take him into yourself, that he might fulfill his creation in
you and cast out the devil from your soul, that he alone might rule within
the throne of your heart.

Draw near to the Lord’s altar, that the Son of God may complete the
mission given him of the Father:

“Be fruitful, and multiply, and fulfill the
earth, and have dominion over it.”

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Preached by Pastor Fields

Sermon Texts: Ezekiel 33:7-20; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9.