Christian Art | Parables Of Jesus | King James Audio Bible | Parable Of The Barren Fig Tree
Luke 13: 1-9 | King James Audio Bible KJV | Parables Of Jesus | Daily Bible Verses 29 Saturday & Sunday Lent 3
1 THERE were present at that season some that told him of the Galilæans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
2 And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilæans were sinners above all the Galilæans, because they suffered such things?
3 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
5 I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
6 ¶ He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none.
7 Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?
8 And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it:
9 And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.
The Galileans Herod has had killed have not behaved any better or worse than other people; they were not worse sinners than whose to whom Jesus addresses his words. God does not always punish sinners in this life. Accidents and acts of brutality may constitute no particular moral judgement. We are sinners. We stand in need of God’s mercy. We must repent.
Through these sayings Jesus calls the people to conversion of heart. They have heard of and perhaps witnessed others’ suffering and death. They must know that those people were not much different from themselves. It could just as easily have been them. Jesus extends this thought into a warning: the people will indeed suffer should they fail to repent, should they not look to themselves, in the light of their own mortality, and realise they have great need of God’s mercy. This knowledge is a part of what it means to be true to ourselves, rather than to live in denial of God, to live a lie.
God is merciful. The parable of the barren fig tree illustrates this. When the owner of the vineyard decides to have the unfruitful fig tree chopped down, the vinedresser intercedes, promising to nurture the fig tree to help it be fruitful. So Christ intercedes for us, and so he came to teach us, to call us to follow him.
Through Christ, we have every encouragement and every resource to enable us to be truly fruitful. Christ, indeed, becomes our spiritual nourishment. It is our duty and our joy to respond energetically, and with great generosity of spirit. Our lives are not meant by God to be sterile. We are asked to respond to God’s grace.
‘He tells us that, without Holy baptism, no one will enter the Kingdom of heaven; and, elsewhere, that if we do not repent we will all perish. This is all easily understood. Ever since man sinned, all his senses rebel against reason; therefore, if we want the flesh to be controlled by the spirit and by reason, it must be mortified; if we do not want the body to be at war with the soul, it and all our senses need to be chastened; if we desire to go to God, the soul with all its faculties needs to be mortified.’ (St John Mary Vianney, Ash Wednesday.)
King James Audio Bible | Endnotes
The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree, as told in Luke 13:1-9, is a powerful teaching from Jesus about the importance of bearing fruit in our lives and the consequences of not doing so. This as with all parables is a parable of the Kingdom of God. The imagery of the vineyard and the fig tree is rich in meaning, conveying the message that God expects fruitfulness from those who claim to follow Him.
In the parable, the fig tree is described as barren, meaning it has no fruit. In a figurative sense, this represents a life that is lacking in good works and productivity. Just as a tree that bears no fruit is of no use to the farmer, a person who fails to live a productive and meaningful life is of no use to God.
The relationship between faith and good works is a central theme in the parable. It is not enough to simply have faith in God; our faith must be expressed through good works and spiritually accomplished actions. This is why the owner of the vineyard gives the fig tree one more chance to produce fruit. He is showing mercy and giving the tree the opportunity to prove its worth, but if it continues to be barren, it will be cut down and cast aside.
The reality of judgment is another important aspect of the parable. Just as the fig tree will be judged and either preserved or destroyed, so too will all people be judged by God. This is a sobering reminder of the ultimate accountability we will face for the choices we make in this life. The concepts of heaven and hell are present this theme, destinations for the souls of the righteous and the wicked respectively.
As we explore through the parables of Jesus relationship with God, an understanding of the meaning of parables is that within the context of engagement with the parables we are present with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane – toward crucifixion of Jesus and hence redemption.
The eighth commandment is a call to authenticity and integrity in all aspects of life. The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:25: ‘Therefore, putting away falsehood, let everyone speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.’ The commandment instructs us to speak truthfully and authentically in our interactions with others, rather than living a ‘double life’ where we present ourselves differently to different people [ … ]
George Herbert meditates on dual nature of human life, aligning life’s movements with the sun’s dual motion. This interplay of the physical and spiritual mirrors central theological concerns of the 17th century, particularly the relationship between earthly existence and pursuit of eternal salvation [ … ]
We process. Glass exhibition cases, old reliquaries. A forearm here; here a nun’s fingertip. In chapel, at a glance, there are the usual faces. But they all stand to attention. Jonathan breaks from the procession to – fire the organ with oomph and dignity: Ride on! ride on in majesty! The angel-squadrons of the sky look down with sad and wondering eyes to see the approaching sacrifice. When we’ve done the readings, the Arch holds that tree in his hands to deliver the homily. He rocks quietly on his feet, some few seconds, as if balance defeated it. A way you might affect as the Spirit moves… Copying. Then he says: ‘Our palm fronds may seem to us today rather dry. I mean this not in a literal sense, but by the standards of those who originally lined the roadways in order to welcome Jesus into Jerusalem, as they proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, who would be clambering up and ripping their palm branches fresh from off the trees. I think perhaps also our faith is somewhat distant from that of the people there on that highroad into Jerusalem, and something of our sense of the meaning has shifted in vividness from what it was then. And of course the expectation of all those many people is markedly different, but in many important respects the same. There are the same essential qualities to all our faith in God, which springs complete from our humanity, and that is one and the same in value for all of us, and time is consistent on this point. So then, let us renew the fullness of Catholic faith, and let us ask the Lord’s blessing as we embark upon our Holy Week. ‘Our Lord enters into Jerusalem in order to refresh us. He is to die in order that we may have life. There is a living reality here, both spiritual and as entangled in the joy of our daily living. We have Ladies’ Day where I grew up. They still have it, and they close the roads off, and little children parade, dressed-up like spring brides. When I was a boy, there was a May Day festival, and there was a May pole on the field, with the people dancing, like Morris dancers might be one way of visualizing this if you’ve never seen it, with their ribbons tied onto the top of the May pole, and they would weave around each other, dressing the pole, which is what we called it. It was like a dance with red and white and blue ribbons all hung off of the top of the May pole, which stood there all year, only like a telegraph pole, but it was concreted in, and then there was a slide, and swings – one baby-swing and two you could have a go at – terrible health and safety but that’s what it was in those days. ‘There was a round-a-bout – we used to run it round and round to try to get it off its central axis. It were rusty as anything and creaked like mad – on concrete. And climb up where it was all greased up at the top. Ruth, who was big as the next four of us, used to sit there sucking on the lollipops we nicked for her from Raddies, and she’d direct matters. We were trying to destroy it, and get it to dislodge from its central axis, and fly away – roll off into that farmer’s field, which he only ever kept for silage, but we never succeeded. There was a car someone had left there so we spent forever smashing that up, until someone who lived in one of the houses there took exception to our doing that, so he put thick grease under the door handles and gave us a right talking to. ‘It would only be a few stands, hot-dogs and things like that. The man selling the hot dogs would have his records on full blast. There’d be a couple of set-up stalls. Air-rifles – that sort of thing. But we all had them, and we all went shooting, of course, if not with twelve bores then with smaller gauge. Or pay a pound – I have no idea how much it was in actual fact then – it might have only been a few pennies – and we’d get all that time smashing up the crockery the man would put up for us to smash on the dressers. That was my particular favourite thing to do at these festivals, by the way, in case you were wondering. You got a little bucket of so many cricket balls. ‘I dread to think what went into those hot dogs. Probably EE rules would forbid it now. But it was a fair mix in those days. A lot of young people then were C of E. We’ve done a lot to hang onto our young people, which is a tremendous encouragement when you consider how things are, while in recent decades the Church of England hasn’t been so successful. People still want it on feast days and what are essentially now civic celebrations. It’s strange to see, though, how all the little stands there people have are run by the police and people like that along those lines. There’s no May pole. That was a sort of faith that ran and ran beneath all the theoreticals of it in the 1960s and the 1970s and into the 1980s. The May pole isn’t there now in the particular place I’m thinking of. Considering May poles were officially suppressed hundreds of years ago – as a part of the protestant reformation. One or two of you are probably thinking I’m remembering things from that time! ‘I should have liked to say that those processionals were so hardwired into us, that even after the last thirty years, when I became a bishop, they are still with us. They were […]
