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Stewardship
Luke 13: 6-9

The direct meaning of this parable is clear. Jesus gives his people an ultimate warning: if Israel rejects the last opportunity given to it on the occasion of the coming and of the ministry of Jesus, if it refuses to repent and finally produce spiritual fruits, then it will be destroyed as a barren fig-tree is cut-down. This warning is the last one, for God can do nothing more beyond sending his own Son! If the elect people refuses to listen to his Son, to whom then will it listen? In order to understand the reason for this harsh warning, we must bear in mind the whole past of Israel. Here is a people on whom God has lavished his care and who has responded most of the time by infidelity. In this people, unfaithfulness has become as it were a second nature. Jeremiah could bitterly observe this phenomenon in his time: Israel is so accustomed to do evil that it cannot do good anymore. God constantly sent judges, prophets and sages to his people so as to remind it of the demands of the Covenant. Israel continued to indulge in idolatry and to practice social injustice. Finally, after having in many and various ways spoken of old to the fathers by the prophets, God spoke to his people in the last days by a Son (Heb 1:1-2).

The coming of his Son is the last chance. This is what the parable teaches. When the owner of the fig-tree decides to have it cut down, the vinedresser obtains a delay, an extension, a graceperiod: maybe he lavishes exceptional care on the fig-tree, it will finally bear fruits. The parable speaks of Gods mercy. This admirable patience of God towards his people is always the same towards each one of us. Despite our repeated refusals to bear fruits, he comes back, day after day and year after year, with the same stubborn hope that he will finally see us bear fruits. For, if we are faithless, he remains faithful (2 Tim 2:13) To us too, through the intervention of Jesus, who is always to make

intercession for us (Heb 7:25), a last chance is granted. The coming of Jesus is a year of forgiveness, restoration and second chances. Please reflect. What would you do if you had only a year to live, only a short time in which to make up for the wrongs done and opportunities missed? How would you live your day if you knew if would be your second chance your last chance. What kind of steward would you be? The parable speaks about our theme for this morning: Stewardship. The Vinedresser shows to us a mark of a good steward. Sir, leave it alone again this year. . . Although the fig-

tree of the parable has proven sterile for three consecutive years, the vinedresser takes up the defense before the owner. Not only does the vinedresser plead its cause, but he even offers to adopt altogether exceptional measures in order to render the fig-tree productive. I will dig around it and spread some manure on it. The vinedresser shows that being a steward requires a compassionate character. He could have just cut down the fig-tree just as the owner had wanted it. But he pleaded in behalf of the barren fig-three. Sir, leave it alone again this year, just the time for me to dig around it and spread some manure on it. As we begin the second semester let us imitate the vinedresser in the parable. Let us be compassionate and caring to others - to our colleagues, friends, students, classmates, or room mates. Let us be like the Master, he is a patient and caring. During his Palestinian ministry he was surrounded with disciples who were little educated, slow to understanding, rough, sometimes quarrelsome and ambitious. Yet, he never reduced by one iota the height nor the purity of his demands. It is to such men that he preached the Beatitudes, the love of enemies, to forgive 70 times seven, service and selflessness, the presence of the Kingdom of God. He trusted them, even when the results of his efforts seemed so dismal. Even the fact that they betrayed him and

abandoned him at the time of his arrest did not shake his trust in them. And this trust was finally vindicated in full. These men ended up being transformed, to the point of becoming tireless apostles, to the point of shedding their blood for him. From barren fig-tree that they were for a long while, they became magnificently productive. This morning I challenge each in this fellowship to be like Jesus, compassionate steward of the Gods vineyard. Let us return to the parable for our final point. In this parable the fig-tree is threatened of being cut down, not for the reason that it would be producing poisoned fruits, that it would be harming the growth of other plants around it or that it would be offending the eyes because of some deformity. The only reason given is that it is barren: As the parable goes See here! For three years I have

come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down!. Its only sin so to speak is a sin of omission. However this was aggravated by being like a parasite: it uses the ground for nothing (v.7). Many of us think that we sin only when we commit a positively wrong action. For us the fact that we refrain from

wrongdoing is enough to make us good disciples of the Lord. We justify ourselves thinking that as long as I have done nothing

wrong even if I have not done anything good, Im a good steward of the Lord.. Such reasoning can be done in good faith, and of course we are not to judge those who make them. But the fact nevertheless remains that these ways of seeing things run counter to the thought of Jesus. For him there can be no neutral moral zone: He who is not with me is against me (Matt 12:30). Neither, in order to be able to call oneself his disciple, is it enough to abstain from wrongdoing. Because, apart from the sin of committing evil, there is also the sin of omitting good deeds. The whole discourse on the last judgment is illustration of this. There the unrighteous are judged, not because they have committed evil, but because they have omitted the good actions they should have done: for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me. (Mt. 25:42-43). As can be seen, a person is not a Christian simply because he harms no one. The dead in the cemeteries do the same. A Christian who is content without doing anything good is like the barren figtree. Because in reality, a Christian without bearing good works is actually contributing evil to Gods creation. Like the saying which

goes Evil triumph when good people do nothing! Let us go back to the parable, this fig-tree, by not producing figs, was using up

the ground for nothing. This means that it not only took the place of another fig-tree, which could have borne fruits, but it also drew from the earth the moisture and the nutritious elements ensuring its growth without producing anything in counter-part. In this respect, it too was not neutral in the vineyard, since it exhausted the soil without giving back anything in return. But not being for the vineyard, it too became against it. Likewise, the Christian who is satisfied with not harming any one is neutral only in

appearance: by omitting to accomplish good deeds. Furthermore, by presenting himself as a Christian without really being one, he becomes a counter-witness in the eyes of those who might perhaps be tempted to believe the Good News and who, because of him, will never do so. And so although he claims he harms no one, he actually harms all those whom his barrenness turns away form the Gospel. A disciple of Jesus as a steward of the Word cannot define himself in terms of abstention, omission, negation. If it was possible to define the life of Jesus by these words: he went about doing good (Acts 10:38), the life of his disciples can be defined

only in the same positive way. A Christian is essentially a productive fig-tree. Therefore, we who are in the seminary are challenged by the parable of Jesus. We are to bear fruits. As teachers we are to bear the fruits of teaching. As students we are to bear the fruits of diligence. Let us bear fruits for this is our second chance.