One of These Things is not Like the Other

A Reflection for Sunday, March 23 by Rev. Corenna Rae Hoyt

Lectionary reading for 03/23/2025: Isaiah 55:1-9, Psalm 63:1-8, 1 Corinthians 10:1-13, Luke 13:1-9

Selected passage for reflection: Luke 13:1-9

Read

Book Chapter: Luke 13:1-9 CEB

Some who were present on that occasion told Jesus about the Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were offering sacrifices. He replied, “Do you think the suffering of these Galileans proves that they were more sinful than all the other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did. What about those eighteen people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them? Do you think that they were more guilty of wrongdoing than everyone else who lives in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you change your hearts and lives, you will die just as they did.”

Jesus told this parable: “A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’”

Reflect

For over 15 years, I belonged to a team that was all men other than myself. After every official meeting, they would do something together, leaving me behind. When someone pointed it out, one of the men intentionally invited me. I was filled with nervous energy as self-consciousness and gratefulness warred within me. I would finally be in the room where significant conversations happened, so I set my shoulders and walked through the door to find two of the men in their boxer shorts! I felt as out of place as a fig tree in a vineyard.

Why is a fig tree planted in the vineyard? The tree is not the purpose or focus of a field cultivating grapes.  Perhaps the seed sprouted from a fig dropped along the way, and the gardener allowed it to grow or, maybe, it was planted so not one square inch of the vineyard is wasted. After three years of checking the vineyard, the owner sees no fruit and assumes the fig tree is useless. He asks the gardener to cut it down.  It seems the owner does not understand or does not care to understand that while grape vines take up to three years to fruit,

fig trees can take up to five.

Many of us have moments when we experience the world as a fig tree amid grape vines, some spend our lives placed in fields not built for us where we are still expected to thrive. People expect us to look and act like grape vines, people doubt us and threaten to cut us down if we don’t produce in ways defined by others who are wholly unlike us. 

The fig tree reminds us that the world’s expectations are not those of the gardener and need not be ours. The gardener sees the value and potential in the fig tree. The gardener digs around the roots and packs in fertilizer, providing sustenance for this tree to not simply survive but flourish where it is planted. Perhaps the next year this incongruous tree will provide food to sustain the vineyard workers, perhaps it will provide shade for those workers to rest. The parable does not tell us because we already understand the point. Whether living fig tree moments or fig tree lives, we are invited to be nourished so we are enabled to grow into our purpose. 

Luke invites us to disrupt our ideas about how the world works, to abandon our earthly measurements of success and value. Just as we cannot measure someone's sinfulness by their suffering, we cannot measure worth by productivity. We are invited to allow ourselves to be nourished in unique ways and, like the gardener, to take the time to tend to others, trusting intentional care to lead to new life. 

Respond 

Who in your midst is living a “fig tree existence”? What patterns and systems need to be disrupted to enable everyone to flourish in that place? What could you, like the gardener, do to nourish their roots?

The fig tree was reminded it is valuable apart from what it produces. What practice helps you to detangle your worth from your productivity? Renew that practice! I encourage you to also pick a time this week to refrain from productivity, practicing your worthiness apart from your work. Perhaps you will stand at a window or drink a cup of tea on the back porch. 

Rest 

God who Sees, may the fig tree remind us that we are worthy, just as we are. We are not a lost cause and never a waste of resources. Fill us with audacious hope for our flourishing, and for the flourishing of those around us. In a system and society that often measures worth by commerce, output, achievement, ethnicity, success, status, and/or gender identity, it would be easy for us to question, with the land owner, “Can a fig tree that does not produce figs be of value? Remind us that the resounding answer is, “yes!”  As we find ourselves in seasons of unproductiveness or being planted in foreign territory give us patience. Nurture our souls as we practice audacious hope and intentional care of one another, inviting a flourishing life.

About the Author 

Corenna lives in Rhode Island with her sons, Braden and Levi, who are involved together in missions, martial arts, music, and outdoor activities. She has been a vocational minister for more than 25 years, serving in a variety of contexts.  She loves speaking, preaching, building community and coaching, as well as equipping and visioneering ministries. She would tell you she continues to learn how to listen well and walk vulnerably as she endeavors to empower people to become confident, vulnerable, generous leaders. These fuel her lifetime passion for ministries of justice, reconciliation, restoration, and healing.