Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When I read this parable of Luke, it made me
think of hope, which is always a good thing to have.
Jesus told this parable. There was a fig tree growing
in a vineyard. The owner came out looking for fruit
on it, but didn't find any. The owner said to
(00:21):
the vine dresser, look here, for three years now, I've
come out in search of fruit on this fig tree
and have found none. Cut it down. Why should it
clutter up the ground. In reply, the vine dresser said,
leave it one more year while I hoe around it
(00:42):
and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine,
If not, then let it be cut down.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
What would you do? Let it be or cut it down?
In the revival hymns of the mid to late nineteenth century,
this text inspired at least two hymn writers, and one
(01:32):
is more like a responsive reading, if you will. The
first verse goes something like cut it down, cut it down,
spare not the fruitless tree, and it spreads a harmful shade.
It spoils what else were useful ground? No fruit for
years on it I found, cut it down, Cut it down.
(01:54):
Then the second verse goes one more year, one more year, Oh,
spare the fruitless tree. The oldest branches, broad and green,
Its spreading leaves have hopeful been some fruit their own
may yet be seen. One more year, one more year.
Then it goes back to cut it down, cut it down,
(02:17):
and burn the worthless tree. Then one more year, one
more year for mercy, spare the tree. And finally, when
we get to the fifth verse, it goes still. It
stands still. It stands a fair but fruitless tree. The
master seeking fruit their own, has come but grieved at
(02:39):
finding none. Now speak to justice, mercy flown, cut it down,
cut it down, And of course I want to add
more verses, sort of keeping going back and forth between
cut it down and cut it down. Also another hand
written in around the same timeframe by a Merry Bridge
(03:00):
as Kennedy slate of a Fall River, Massachusetts, her him
was called the barren fig tree, or in the vineyard
of the Master, and it goes through the same thing. Fruit,
no blossom, only leaves their own found low, this tree
burdens the ground. And then, as it continues, each verse
(03:24):
ends with the same refrain. If the master to the
vineyard comes a visiting, seeking, looking, asking for God's own,
then it makes us more of less. The tree are
we fit for a visit? Is the fruit upon the tree?
Will he bid the gardener cut it down? What will
(03:47):
you do? The revivalism of the nineteenth century and the
evangelical fervor of the time would often say, cut the
tree down and get it over with it. Well, I
don't know if that's the best idea or not. Really,
the decisions ours. Often commentators sometimes think they are also agriculturists.
(04:12):
All these things seemed right, as if they know with
certainty about the vineyards and then the trees of biblical times.
One says, of course there would be a fig tree
planted in a vineyard. Did you catch that in the
scripture reading? Someone has planted a fig tree right next
(04:32):
to the grape vines? Well, what kind of garden is this?
After all? Are we looking for trees or grapes? But
many commentators write as if they know everything about fig
trees of that period, And some would say, the fig
(04:53):
tree is planted in the garden so the vines will
have somewhere to grow. Fig trees now and then can
grow to be very big trees with very big leaves.
And if you are looking for grapes, you probably find
none of those two, for this tree would have overshadowed
(05:13):
it all and there'd be no fruit to be found
from figs or grapes. But the piece in the story
is it's a little bit of a complicated tell Amy.
Joe Levine and Ben Worthington, in their commentary on Luke
sort of has this conversation with one another, is well,
first of all, did you notice the one who is
(05:35):
concerned about the tree and the planter is not the
one in charge of the garden or the vineyard. It's
the owner. The owner went out and planted a tree,
but then the tree doesn't produce anything, just leaves, thus
cut it down. Could it be that this owner, as
(06:05):
Levigne and Wetherington would suggest, perhaps is a micromanager. Even
though there are hired hands to care for the vineyard
the tree, this person goes right out into the garden
and does the work for themselves, sort of making doing
it their way, perhaps regardless of what anyone else tells them.
(06:30):
If I won't fix, I will plant a fig tree
wherever I would like. Yet, it's a story that grabs
us with this sense of what should we really do here?
Is this tree a good thing or is it a
(06:51):
bad thing. Yet the answer is not as simple. Sometimes
we are faced with questions what should we do. Do
we move on and just say forget it, or do
we stick with it for a little while longer. Sometimes
(07:14):
some of us have tried gardening for ourselves. Some of
you I know are very productive farmers or would be
farmers or gardeners. Some of us dig holes and hope
something will fall in and grow. But when it comes
to trees, I have a little bit of experience. Now
(07:35):
I am nowhere close to being a horticulturalist. But we
had a tree. It was in our backyard. When we
moved there, we were told it was a rows of sharing.
It was more or less a twig. It's a really
(08:00):
close to the back wall of our garage. Each season
it would produce a few leaves and then no blooms.
It was. But so we did our homework. We measured
the tree height, and we read up about how much
root space this tree would take because we were going
(08:20):
to move this tree to our front yard, to the
corner actually, And so we did all the work and
we decided the diameter should be about three feet wide
and we should go about two and a half feet
deep for according to the measurements of this tree, it
should be of this certain height, it should have a hole.
(08:45):
So I spent an entire Saturday afternoon digging, And when
we finally got to the bottom of this project, and
George had come home from a meeting that he had
been at, I said, how do you think we're doing?
And I said, well, we'll save the tree for another day.
But there was still some time left, so I went
(09:06):
to the back and began to dig slightly around the tree.
One shovel into the ground, and the entire tree popped
out of the ground with a root ball about this big.
So suddenly, what do you do if you have a
tree with no ground on a big hole. Having dinner plans,
(09:30):
we both quickly grabbed shovels and we started back filling
all we had already dug out and planted this twig
of a rows of sharon. This rows of sharon blooms
each year. We also learned that some rows of sharons
are invasive in some states. They're not natives here, and
(09:54):
the rows of sharings that one should be planting are
of the sterile variety, so they will not propagate into
your lawn and elsewhere. We didn't know anything about this
tree's pedigree. But if we do not keep up with
mowing our lawn, we'd have a loan of rows, of
sharing trees everywhere through storm, through my brutal haircuts, as
(10:23):
George calls them, sometimes this tree flourishes. I'm certain this
has very deep roots now, because they even pulled that
a few times and it is thirty in the ground.
But then there's other trees we've planted which have remained twigs,
(10:44):
perhaps not enough sunlight. But the tree that annoys me
the most is probably one of the most beautiful trees
in the corner of our back lawn has grown so
large that the radius which is on our side of
the property line has become nothing but barren ground. For
(11:05):
the shade beneath this tree, no sunlight dare penetrate, and
as much seed as we have planted, nothing grows another year.
I wonder at this point it's like, why waste seed?
(11:25):
The tree is too big for just one or two
people to cut down. We'd have to hire someone to
cut down the tree. And we've had trees cut down
after storms and different things. And as much as we
love those trees, but long for some of those trees
to disappear once they were gone. Now we wonder if
(11:48):
we get too much lack of privacy, for everyone can
see everything in our backyard, and those trees are gone.
But we have learned that some things do grow better
with sun. We actually moved a box garden we had
on the side of the house near where the old
fig Rosa Sharon is. We moved over now where it
(12:11):
gets more sunlight during the day. It's hard to grow
anything when you have a deer population ravaging everything you have.
Regardless of living in the city of Syracuse and in
the University neighborhood, deer like to make their way into
our neighborhood and feast on all that we plant. Whether
(12:33):
deer like it or not, they sure enjoy it out
of our yard. So the question is what will you do?
But I think the tide may be turning a bit
for the tree. For every tree is not a bad tree,
(12:56):
and everything in life, tree or pursing, is never good
for nothing. And the theologian and Biblical New Testament scholar
Amy Joe Levine and harassed by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, has
written a book called The Good for Nothing Tree once
(13:28):
a gardener planet of fig tree. Everyone was excited about
watching it grow. Its leaves would give shade. Their fruit
would be sweet to eat. The children could hardly wait
to taste the figs. Spring bloomed to summer, Summer cooled
into fall, fall blue into winter, winter warmed into spring.
(13:54):
Why is it taking so long, the children ask, Why
are there no figs? Some people wondered, Will that figet
fig tree ever ever grow up? The gardener cautioned, it
takes time. Another summer came, another fall, another winter, another spring.
(14:20):
There were still no figs. Some people shook their heads.
This tree will never account for anything. The tree dropped
a tiny leaf. It's good for nothing. Two more leaves fell,
and the tree shivered in the wind. Are the gardener moaned,
(14:41):
The leaves are still so small. There are no sign
of figs. This not good, not good at all. It's
time to start over with a new tree. The children pleaded,
Not yet, please, The fig tree just needs more love.
The gardener declared, trees don't need love. This one just
(15:05):
doesn't grow. We should get rid of it. It's not
worth waiting any longer. Please give the tree more time.
The children begged, don't give up. We'll take care of it.
The gardener said, go ahead, but it won't matter. The
(15:27):
fig tree is good for nothing. That's just the way
it is with some trees. The children tried anyway. They
pulled weeds, they trimmed branches, they added mulch. They watered
the tree. Sometimes they got wet too. Loving the fig
(15:48):
tree wasn't too hard. It just took time. Summer went by,
then fall, winter came, spring arrived. Some people shook their heads,
Look at those silly children. That good for nothing tree.
(16:10):
It just takes up space. Enough dilly dallying. It's time
to plant a new tree. But the children didn't want
another tree. They wanted this one. They didn't care how
long it took. They loved the tree. They worked, they washed,
they waited. There were still no figs. So the children
(16:38):
tried again. They worked, they watched, they waited. Then, as
spring turned into summer, buds appeared. They were tiny, but
if you looked hard enough you could see them. The
children kept watering and weeding and watching and waiting. Before long,
(17:01):
the small leaves grew as wide as umbrellas. The children
took a deep breath. What does our tree smell like?
To you. Ask a child, I smell maple syrup, coconut.
One shouted vanilla. Another suggested. Everyone agreed that figs looked
like purple raindrops. Each day the children rested in the
(17:26):
shade of the leaves. They picked the figs, peeled away
the wrinkly skin, and ate the sweet, juicy fruit. As
summer came to an end, the children sat under the
tree with a picnic of homemade fig balls. It took
so long to grow, one child's side, You were right
to be patient. The gardener said, that's how it is
(17:47):
with some trees. Second child said, it isn't just some trees.
It is our tree. It needed us. A third child added,
it needed love. The fourth smiled, and it loved us back.
We never gave up. They each took a sticky, delicious bite,
(18:09):
and the book ends. If you'd like to see it later,
it's how to make fig balls. So what will you
do another year? Or cut it down?
When I read this parable of Luke, it made me
think of hope, which is always a good thing to have.
Jesus told this parable. There was a fig tree growing
in a vineyard. The owner came out looking for fruit
on it, but didn't find any. The owner said to
(00:21):
the vine dresser, look here, for three years now, I've
come out in search of fruit on this fig tree
and have found none. Cut it down. Why should it
clutter up the ground. In reply, the vine dresser said,
leave it one more year while I hoe around it
(00:42):
and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine,
If not, then let it be cut down.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
What would you do? Let it be or cut it down?
In the revival hymns of the mid to late nineteenth century,
this text inspired at least two hymn writers, and one
(01:32):
is more like a responsive reading, if you will. The
first verse goes something like cut it down, cut it down,
spare not the fruitless tree, and it spreads a harmful shade.
It spoils what else were useful ground? No fruit for
years on it I found, cut it down, Cut it down.
(01:54):
Then the second verse goes one more year, one more year, Oh,
spare the fruitless tree. The oldest branches, broad and green,
Its spreading leaves have hopeful been some fruit their own
may yet be seen. One more year, one more year.
Then it goes back to cut it down, cut it down,
(02:17):
and burn the worthless tree. Then one more year, one
more year for mercy, spare the tree. And finally, when
we get to the fifth verse, it goes still. It
stands still. It stands a fair but fruitless tree. The
master seeking fruit their own, has come but grieved at
(02:39):
finding none. Now speak to justice, mercy flown, cut it down,
cut it down, And of course I want to add
more verses, sort of keeping going back and forth between
cut it down and cut it down. Also another hand
written in around the same timeframe by a Merry Bridge
(03:00):
as Kennedy slate of a Fall River, Massachusetts, her him
was called the barren fig tree, or in the vineyard
of the Master, and it goes through the same thing. Fruit,
no blossom, only leaves their own found low, this tree
burdens the ground. And then, as it continues, each verse
(03:24):
ends with the same refrain. If the master to the
vineyard comes a visiting, seeking, looking, asking for God's own,
then it makes us more of less. The tree are
we fit for a visit? Is the fruit upon the tree?
Will he bid the gardener cut it down? What will
(03:47):
you do? The revivalism of the nineteenth century and the
evangelical fervor of the time would often say, cut the
tree down and get it over with it. Well, I
don't know if that's the best idea or not. Really,
the decisions ours. Often commentators sometimes think they are also agriculturists.
(04:12):
All these things seemed right, as if they know with
certainty about the vineyards and then the trees of biblical times.
One says, of course there would be a fig tree
planted in a vineyard. Did you catch that in the
scripture reading? Someone has planted a fig tree right next
(04:32):
to the grape vines? Well, what kind of garden is this?
After all? Are we looking for trees or grapes? But
many commentators write as if they know everything about fig
trees of that period, And some would say, the fig
(04:53):
tree is planted in the garden so the vines will
have somewhere to grow. Fig trees now and then can
grow to be very big trees with very big leaves.
And if you are looking for grapes, you probably find
none of those two, for this tree would have overshadowed
(05:13):
it all and there'd be no fruit to be found
from figs or grapes. But the piece in the story
is it's a little bit of a complicated tell Amy.
Joe Levine and Ben Worthington, in their commentary on Luke
sort of has this conversation with one another, is well,
first of all, did you notice the one who is
(05:35):
concerned about the tree and the planter is not the
one in charge of the garden or the vineyard. It's
the owner. The owner went out and planted a tree,
but then the tree doesn't produce anything, just leaves, thus
cut it down. Could it be that this owner, as
(06:05):
Levigne and Wetherington would suggest, perhaps is a micromanager. Even
though there are hired hands to care for the vineyard
the tree, this person goes right out into the garden
and does the work for themselves, sort of making doing
it their way, perhaps regardless of what anyone else tells them.
(06:30):
If I won't fix, I will plant a fig tree
wherever I would like. Yet, it's a story that grabs
us with this sense of what should we really do here?
Is this tree a good thing or is it a
(06:51):
bad thing. Yet the answer is not as simple. Sometimes
we are faced with questions what should we do. Do
we move on and just say forget it, or do
we stick with it for a little while longer. Sometimes
(07:14):
some of us have tried gardening for ourselves. Some of
you I know are very productive farmers or would be
farmers or gardeners. Some of us dig holes and hope
something will fall in and grow. But when it comes
to trees, I have a little bit of experience. Now
(07:35):
I am nowhere close to being a horticulturalist. But we
had a tree. It was in our backyard. When we
moved there, we were told it was a rows of sharing.
It was more or less a twig. It's a really
(08:00):
close to the back wall of our garage. Each season
it would produce a few leaves and then no blooms.
It was. But so we did our homework. We measured
the tree height, and we read up about how much
root space this tree would take because we were going
(08:20):
to move this tree to our front yard, to the
corner actually, And so we did all the work and
we decided the diameter should be about three feet wide
and we should go about two and a half feet
deep for according to the measurements of this tree, it
should be of this certain height, it should have a hole.
(08:45):
So I spent an entire Saturday afternoon digging, And when
we finally got to the bottom of this project, and
George had come home from a meeting that he had
been at, I said, how do you think we're doing?
And I said, well, we'll save the tree for another day.
But there was still some time left, so I went
(09:06):
to the back and began to dig slightly around the tree.
One shovel into the ground, and the entire tree popped
out of the ground with a root ball about this big.
So suddenly, what do you do if you have a
tree with no ground on a big hole. Having dinner plans,
(09:30):
we both quickly grabbed shovels and we started back filling
all we had already dug out and planted this twig
of a rows of sharon. This rows of sharon blooms
each year. We also learned that some rows of sharons
are invasive in some states. They're not natives here, and
(09:54):
the rows of sharings that one should be planting are
of the sterile variety, so they will not propagate into
your lawn and elsewhere. We didn't know anything about this
tree's pedigree. But if we do not keep up with
mowing our lawn, we'd have a loan of rows, of
sharing trees everywhere through storm, through my brutal haircuts, as
(10:23):
George calls them, sometimes this tree flourishes. I'm certain this
has very deep roots now, because they even pulled that
a few times and it is thirty in the ground.
But then there's other trees we've planted which have remained twigs,
(10:44):
perhaps not enough sunlight. But the tree that annoys me
the most is probably one of the most beautiful trees
in the corner of our back lawn has grown so
large that the radius which is on our side of
the property line has become nothing but barren ground. For
(11:05):
the shade beneath this tree, no sunlight dare penetrate, and
as much seed as we have planted, nothing grows another year.
I wonder at this point it's like, why waste seed?
(11:25):
The tree is too big for just one or two
people to cut down. We'd have to hire someone to
cut down the tree. And we've had trees cut down
after storms and different things. And as much as we
love those trees, but long for some of those trees
to disappear once they were gone. Now we wonder if
(11:48):
we get too much lack of privacy, for everyone can
see everything in our backyard, and those trees are gone.
But we have learned that some things do grow better
with sun. We actually moved a box garden we had
on the side of the house near where the old
fig Rosa Sharon is. We moved over now where it
(12:11):
gets more sunlight during the day. It's hard to grow
anything when you have a deer population ravaging everything you have.
Regardless of living in the city of Syracuse and in
the University neighborhood, deer like to make their way into
our neighborhood and feast on all that we plant. Whether
(12:33):
deer like it or not, they sure enjoy it out
of our yard. So the question is what will you do?
But I think the tide may be turning a bit
for the tree. For every tree is not a bad tree,
(12:56):
and everything in life, tree or pursing, is never good
for nothing. And the theologian and Biblical New Testament scholar
Amy Joe Levine and harassed by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, has
written a book called The Good for Nothing Tree once
(13:28):
a gardener planet of fig tree. Everyone was excited about
watching it grow. Its leaves would give shade. Their fruit
would be sweet to eat. The children could hardly wait
to taste the figs. Spring bloomed to summer, Summer cooled
into fall, fall blue into winter, winter warmed into spring.
(13:54):
Why is it taking so long, the children ask, Why
are there no figs? Some people wondered, Will that figet
fig tree ever ever grow up? The gardener cautioned, it
takes time. Another summer came, another fall, another winter, another spring.
(14:20):
There were still no figs. Some people shook their heads.
This tree will never account for anything. The tree dropped
a tiny leaf. It's good for nothing. Two more leaves fell,
and the tree shivered in the wind. Are the gardener moaned,
(14:41):
The leaves are still so small. There are no sign
of figs. This not good, not good at all. It's
time to start over with a new tree. The children pleaded,
Not yet, please, The fig tree just needs more love.
The gardener declared, trees don't need love. This one just
(15:05):
doesn't grow. We should get rid of it. It's not
worth waiting any longer. Please give the tree more time.
The children begged, don't give up. We'll take care of it.
The gardener said, go ahead, but it won't matter. The
(15:27):
fig tree is good for nothing. That's just the way
it is with some trees. The children tried anyway. They
pulled weeds, they trimmed branches, they added mulch. They watered
the tree. Sometimes they got wet too. Loving the fig
(15:48):
tree wasn't too hard. It just took time. Summer went by,
then fall, winter came, spring arrived. Some people shook their heads,
Look at those silly children. That good for nothing tree.
(16:10):
It just takes up space. Enough dilly dallying. It's time
to plant a new tree. But the children didn't want
another tree. They wanted this one. They didn't care how
long it took. They loved the tree. They worked, they washed,
they waited. There were still no figs. So the children
(16:38):
tried again. They worked, they watched, they waited. Then, as
spring turned into summer, buds appeared. They were tiny, but
if you looked hard enough you could see them. The
children kept watering and weeding and watching and waiting. Before long,
(17:01):
the small leaves grew as wide as umbrellas. The children
took a deep breath. What does our tree smell like?
To you. Ask a child, I smell maple syrup, coconut.
One shouted vanilla. Another suggested. Everyone agreed that figs looked
like purple raindrops. Each day the children rested in the
(17:26):
shade of the leaves. They picked the figs, peeled away
the wrinkly skin, and ate the sweet, juicy fruit. As
summer came to an end, the children sat under the
tree with a picnic of homemade fig balls. It took
so long to grow, one child's side, You were right
to be patient. The gardener said, that's how it is
(17:47):
with some trees. Second child said, it isn't just some trees.
It is our tree. It needed us. A third child added,
it needed love. The fourth smiled, and it loved us back.
We never gave up. They each took a sticky, delicious bite,
(18:09):
and the book ends. If you'd like to see it later,
it's how to make fig balls. So what will you
do another year? Or cut it down?
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