The Gospel parable of the fig tree is a story about not giving up on ourselves and not giving up on the Church.

These days the Church has been scarred by the struggles of life. The truth is that the Church has always been scarred by the struggles of life. The Church has not always witnessed to the love of Jesus in our world. We need to confess our sinfulness. But just as in the days of Moses, so in our day, the burning bush, the fire of God’s love will not be extinguished within the Church and within us who are the Church. The Church is infused with the fire of God’s love for us. This is and always will be our spiritual anchor. The season of Lent is our time to repent and to become closer to our loving and forgiving God.

The Scriptures are a tale of two trees: the tree that is the bush that is on fire but is not consumed, and in the Gospel the parable of the barren fig tree that yields no fruit.

Jesus tells the parable of the barren fig tree. After three years of waiting, the owner of the vineyard was ready to give up on the tree. Things were not on schedule. It’s time to bail out and cut the tree down. The gardener (representing Jesus in the parable) begs the owner to be patient. Things will turn around. Give it one more year. I will dig around it and put fertilizer on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.

So too, our growth doesn’t always happen on schedule. In the parable, the gardener knows an extremely important piece of wisdom about life. Everything in life doesn’t run according to schedule. Plain and Simple. No one disagrees with this truth, but it is easy to forget in given situations.

Isn’t it true we have been struggling with our same life issues over many years?  Our discipleship of the Lord Jesus is on our unique schedule and that schedule is more than a bit messy.

The Gospel parable of the fig tree is a story about not giving up on ourselves and not giving up on the Church. It is about growing from the experiences of life. It is about failures that make us grow. Who of us can’t identify with this parable?  Who of us can possibly claim that we have not at times been that barren fig tree – the one who disappointed everyone’s else’s expectations, the one who has already come up short in our Lenten resolves, the one who is still carrying a grudge that should have been let go of long ago, the one who hasn’t walked the talk of Gospel forgiveness.

What are the failures in your life that have helped you to grow?  You would think that by this time in life I would have figured out the right balance between personal prayer and the various activities and ministries in life; you would think that I would have the right balance with spending time with family and my commitment to ministry and the need for relaxation to reenergize myself.  You would think that by this time in life I would be more patient and forgiving.  You would think by this time I would have figured out to keep my golf ball in the middle of the fairway. 

But I, like most of us, are a work in progress and will always be a work in progress.

Today’s Gospel parable challenges us to reflect on patience and forgiveness – probably a need for many of us.   First, we must have patience and forgiveness with ourselves.  We need to allow ourselves the invitation to consider that our failures will help us grow.  We need to allow ourselves to experience God’s unending love for us even though we are not always worthy of God’s love.

Further, we need to share this love and forgiveness with others.  Among our families and friends, there may be someone we have given up on.  The divide is too wide.  They have continually failed to meet our expectations.  The grudge may be permanent, or the injury may have cut so deeply, that amputation seems to be the only resolution.

The Gospel parable calls us to be nonjudgmental.  I am to accept others for where they are at this time in their lives.  Each of us “blooms or bears fruit” in his or her own time, some early, some later in life.  The fig tree inspires us to patience.

Listen again to the Gospel parable, although the fruitless tree had yielded nothing in three years, the gardener implores: “Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it: it may bear fruit in the future.”

The Gospel provides new hope and invites us to always try again.  Forgive the past and look to the future.  May our two mantras today be:  May our failures help to grow.  Secondly, forgive the past and look  to the future.

Thankfully the God of today’s Gospel parable and the God of the burning bush doesn’t give up on us. God is a God of second and third chances. God’s burning bush of love is within us. Jesus the patient gardener calls us to bear fruit. Yes, this Lenten season is about conversion. It is about growing in our relationship with God. It is about repentance and bearing fruit that enables us to grow more fully into a Gospel way of living.

Some of us in the spiritual journey have a spiritual director or a soul friend, a trusted person with whom we can share the secrets of our hearts. What a gift to have that kind of a friend.  In a deeper sense, life itself is our best spiritual director. In our lives, we are standing on holy ground. What makes that ground holy? God is present in the burning bush of his love that is within us, and God is present to us in the burning bushes of the circumstances of our lives. Even when we seem like the barren fig tree, when we are overwhelmed by the struggles, be assured that Jesus, the patient gardener goes with us and invites us to take the risk of being vulnerable, in trusting that his love for us unending. May we have the grace of spiritual sightedness to recognize the holy ground of God’s love on which we are standing?

I invite you this evening to reflect upon your day -- its joys and its struggles -- to consider how your failures are an opportunity to grow, and this day you are standing on holy ground as the fire of God’s love is burning with you.

Have a Blessed day.