Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Jan/75

Contributor - Peter J. Yff

Title - This Year Also

Topic - New Year's

Among the parables of Jesus there occurs one to which I would like to draw your attention as being particularly appropriate to the New Year. In Luke 13 : 6-9 our Lord tells the story of a fig tree which has been given space in a vineyard for some three years. This was the normal time for a fig tree to mature. A tree that had not produced fruit in this span would likely never become productive. Accordingly, the vineyard owner has directed his vinedresser to cut it down. Why should it take up space, wasting both time and resources?

The vinedresser pleads for a further opportunity. "Let it alone, sir, this year also . . ." The extension is given, and further opportunity for fruit-bearing is granted.

One of the commonest of complaints among people, often in middle years, and at other times as well, is that they have not realized at all what they had wanted from life. There is a feeling of frustration, of having spent time but not having realized ambition or desire. That there are numerous explanations is well known. Sometimes opportunity was not taken. Perhaps ambition did not match one's ability. Another person's failure or inattention may have caused a particular project to fail. Our own desire to be at ease, to be uninvolved in the needs of another may have caused us to miss an opportunity.

Missed opportunity because of the failure of another is one thing. Missed opportunity because of our own lack, or our own selfishness is quite something else. The lessons of this little parable speak volumes to us all.

The fig tree appears often in scripture as a symbol for the nation of Israel. God had certainly granted Israel every opportunity to bear fruit. Time and again Israel had been unfaithful. The words of the prophets had fallen all too often on deaf ears. The lure of pagan idols or foreign ways had drawn Israel from the right path much too frequently. The climax occurred when Jesus came to his own people, as the Fourth Gospel tells us, (John 1 : 11) and his own people refused him. In the place of penitence and godly living Israel displayed a steadfast insistence on going her own way. Time would run out one day.

As we know, it did. Destruction was visited upon Jerusalem and Judea in the terrible years of the Roman-Jewish war, 66-70 A.D. Their national existence was effectively cut down in the Holy Land.

The fig tree may also represent individual lives among God's people. God does not give us a free ride through life. Altogether too many people seem to feel that all one needs to do is to hold out his ticket, and have it punched occasionally, while we ride along, as though on a train whose destination simply has to be heaven. God is not a conductor who punches one's ticket and allows him to sit back, and do nothing. God is a Father who expects that his children will work for him, will carry out his will and way in their lives. God expects that we will use the talents, and the time, that he entrusts to our care.

Jesus, after all, did not call his disciples just to walk with him. He called them to serve him, to take up their cross daily. He called them, so that through them his mission and message might go out to all the world. Simon, the fisherman, became a fisher of men.

If we have been taking up space in a pew only; if we have been busy only with putting bread on the table, and neglecting the "bread for the soul", we ought to pay heed. Time will not last forever. Our Lord taught this emphatically. Blessed are those servants who are found working when their Lord returns. In this New Year let us not merely be present, let us not merely take up space, but let us become productive in our Christian living. Let us do more with, and for our families. Let us build more solidly in the church's work. We need to translate Christian virtues (faith, kindness, love, joy, peace, and the like) from mere words into life and living. When we begin to "seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness", when in all our ways we acknowledge him, then our lives will reflect this. We should remember that time will not last forever . . . that one day our Lord will return, or for us, time will have run out. We do not know when, nor is that so important. Let us be working for Him, that whenever he returns, or calls, we will be ready. Such fig trees, to use Jesus' figure, will not merely encumber the ground, but will bear fruit.

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