Like every good preacher keen to maneuver his viewers into motion, Jesus attracts on quite a lot of homiletic approaches in Luke 13. On the one hand, he recollects the scary information of the day, native disasters assured to place the worry of the Lord in anybody inside earshot of Jerusalem. He speaks of occasions now misplaced to historical past however presumably vivid within the second—cultic sacrifices mingled by Pontius Pilate with Galilean blood, a Siloam tower that crushed 18 folks in its sudden fall. He grabs their consideration and delivers an ultimatum aimed squarely on the complacent: “Until you repent, you’ll all perish simply as they did.”
However then, leaving apart the shock of this starting, he asks his hearers to think about one thing as abnormal as a fig tree, a plant acquainted not solely within the panorama of historic Israel but in addition in its traditions. Within the opening of Genesis the fig grows in Eden’s lush backyard together with “each tree that’s good to the sight and good for meals.” It famously retains firm there with the tree of the data of fine and evil, which is about aside uniquely and off-limits. When after consuming that forbidden fruit Adam and Eve expertise disgrace of their nakedness, it’s the close by fig that gives them with a masking (3:7).
Though linked on this strategy to the primal human catastrophe, recollection of the fig tree’s bountiful presence in an unfallen Eden nonetheless carries over into the bigger world of the Hebrew Bible. Within the Track of Songs, its luscious fruit is the harbinger of spring and of unabashed love (2:13). It additionally suggests the fertility of a promised land characterised by pure abundance, “a land of vines and fig timber and pomegranates” (Deut. 8:7–10). To explain the safety of Solomon’s united reign, we’re informed that the 12 tribes as soon as lived peacefully in shaded security, “all of them underneath their vines and fig timber” (1 Kings 4:25).
Conversely, the destruction of the dominion is exemplified by the fig tree’s break, as when the prophet Joel speaks of an enemy’s invasion: “It has laid waste my vines and splintered my fig timber; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches have turned white” (1:7). Used to explain each Israel’s flourishing and its woe, furthermore, the fig also can epitomize its final restoration in a future day of the Lord, when “they shall all sit underneath their very own vines and underneath their very own fig timber, and nobody shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken” (Micah 4:4). The tree will flourish once more; it’s God’s will.
Towards this wealthy community of Hebrew Bible affiliation Jesus turns to the fig tree within the parable of Luke 13. As we discover in Matthew and Mark, it may be seen as his method of talking about Israel in relation to himself. The tree is supposed to bear fruit, but it surely has not. What then is to be carried out? In Matthew and Mark, Jesus curses the fig. Could it in future by no means bear fruit (Mark 11:14); could it even wither on the spot (Matt. 21:19). Likewise in Luke, the pissed off proprietor of the winery sees its obvious sterility as trigger for instant motion: “See right here! For 3 years I’ve come searching for fruit on this fig tree, and nonetheless I discover none. Minimize it down! Why ought to I be losing the soil?” However in a transfer attribute of Luke’s Gospel of second possibilities—one thinks of the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15)—a gardener persuades the winery proprietor to forbear not less than for some time longer. Let the barren tree be tended and cared for over the course of yet another yr: let’s see what occurs after we fertilize!
The folks listening to this parable immediately are Christians who manifest their very own model of the fig tree’s failure, yr after yr, to bear fruit. The preacher could not need to name for repentance by threatening imminent destruction (”Minimize it down!”), although some could select to take action. However who can resist the gardener’s recommendation to dig round deeply and replenish the soil, to utilize the manure we’ve got in lots, to spend extra time properly?
The purpose, in any case, is to bear fruit and to search out out what prevents us from doing so. There isn’t a fast treatment. It can take laborious work in addition to persistence, however simply consider the attainable harvest but to return. “The fig tree places forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom: they provide forth perfume. Come up my love, my truthful one, and are available away” (Songs of Songs 2:13).
