3rd Sunday in Lent

20 March 2022

Bible readings for today

Collect

Holy God,
merciful and patient over all creation,
who confronts our casual and fruitless ways,
fire our hearts with compassion,
quicken our minds against deceit and shallowness,
and strengthen our wills to resist evil
and follow Christ.
Through Jesus Christ our Liberator,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen

The Fig Tree (Luke 13:1-9)

Bible Story with Drama

What you need

a prop for a gardener (eg gum boots, shovel, watering can, etc
a bucket

What you do

Choose 3 people to help you. Since you're going to tell the story, and they won't have to speak, they can be any age
Give one person the gardener prop. Have one person stand in the middle of the 'stage' with their arms up like a tree. The third person is the owner of the land.
Encourage the characters to mime the story as you tell it.
Tell the story saying something like, "One day the owner of a field came looking for some fruit on his fruit tree. (the owner walks up to the tree). The owner looked up and down the tree. He looked on the branches. He looked under the branches. He looked down by the roots and up at the tippy top looking for some fruit. But there wasn't any fruit! He got mad and stomped his foot! Just then the gardener came by (have the gardener walk in). The owner called him over, "Hello gardener", he said, "would you please come over here? We have a problem! I have looked for fruit on this tree for 3 years. 3 years! And there hasn't been any fruit— none! I'm sick and tired of this tree that doesn't give any fruit. I want you to chop it down!" The gardener walked around the tree. He looked on the branches. He looked under the branches. He looked down by the roots and up at the tippy top. There was no fruit. The owner was right. But the gardener saw that it could be a good tree with lots of fruit in the future, so the gardener said, "Please don't chop this tree down. Let me feed it some good fertiliser. I'll take care of this tree. And when you come next year, I'm sure the tree will have fruit. If not, then we can chop it down." The owner was happy with that and the gardener was very happy that he could take care of the tree, feed it lots of good food, make sure it got plenty of water and help the tree to bear good fruit for the owner!

I wonder...

I wonder why the owner of the land was upset about the fig tree.
I wonder why the gardener asked the owner to wait another year.
I wonder when God has given us another chance to do the right thing.

Biblical Reflection

"So many of the judgement sayings of Jesus are depictions of tree chopping and wood-burning, hell fires and, taken out of context, eternal torment. This passage is about what we might call ‘fate’ (as long as we don’t start thinking of ‘fate’ as bigger than God), the age old observation that the rains falls on the just and the unjust alike. Faith in Jesus is not a barrier against the sticky facts of living with mortality. In the second paragraph Jesus turns to focus on readiness, forbearance, patience – the context suggests patience in prayer, and the longing for God’s explanation that all that does not seem right. We have, sometimes against all odds, to hold to the belief that, as Julian of Norwich put it, all shall be well." - Rev. Michael Godfrey

A Second Chance

I once heard the story of a fighter pilot during World War II. It seems that one day, the mechanic who was responsible for putting petrol in the airplane made a mistake. You see, airplanes don't take the same kind of petrol that our cars do. This mechanic was supposed to mix the fuel just right. It wasn't an easy thing and the man made a mistake. The fuel was the wrong kind. When the pilot was up in the air, the wrong kind of fuel was going through his engine. Pretty soon the engine started sputtering and it seemed like the engine was going to conk out completely! The pilot was a very good pilot and he was able to land the plane, but the landing was rough and the plane was badly damaged. The mechanic came running out to to the damaged plane and the pilot, who was, thankfully, unhurt. The mechanic had tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm so so sorry", he sobbed. "As soon as you took off, I knew that I'd made a mistake. You could have been killed, and it's all my fault." The pilot looked at the mechanic who had been working on his planes. Then he said, "I know how sorry you must be and to show you that I trust that you'll never make this mistake again, I want you to service my plane tomorrow!"
What an amazing example of giving someone another chance and trusting that they'll do better. Our story today is a little bit like that. The owner of the land is fed up with this one particular fig tree that wasn't bearing any fruit. Figs are delicious and every year the owner would come to this tree hoping to find some yummy figs waiting to be eaten. Three years and nothing! The owner was so fed up he wanted the tree chopped down to make room for something else. Sometimes we can be like that tree. We're supposed to give a certain kind of fruit-- love, peace, kindness, helpfulness, honesty and more, but sometimes we don't. We all make mistakes, we might be mean to someone, refuse to help out when we need to or even lie. But God doesn't give up on us. He's like the gardener that wants to give us another chance. He wants to give us good healthy food, speak to us through his word, fill us with his holy spirit so that we can be the kind and loving people that he wants us to be. No matter how many times we disappoint God by not bearing good fruit, he always gives us another chance to do the right things.