Between Rest and Growth
Luke 13:6-9
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
March 23, 2025
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJUDEYJWHcs
On the first Sunday of this year, we received Star Words. That was way back in January. In case, you weren’t here or don’t remember, Star Words are a relatively new prayer practice used by some Christians. We’ve only done it about 3 years here at Emmanuel. The idea is that on Epiphany Sunday, the day when we remember the magi who were guided by a star, we receive a word that might become a sort of companion or guide for us through the next year. It is not a magic word, but a word that might pop up from time to time, a word that might help us listen for God in particular ways during the year.
On that first Sunday in January, the cards were facedown, passed around in star-shaped baskets. When the baskets came back to me, I reached in, mixed up the cards and took one. When I turned it over and read the word, I had an immediate visceral reaction. I hated this word on sight; I definitely did not want this word. You are allowed to turn your word back in and get another one. But the practice encourages us to trust the word that we receive and wait to see what might happen with it. So I kept it.
My star word for this year is Grow. That’s the word I hated on sight. Every growth experience I can remember has been painful. The time I went to college and learned that I was not as academically prepared as I thought I was. The time I left a job that had become bound up with my identify and sense of self-worth. Jim and I have moved 11 times since we got married 37 years ago. Almost every time, I felt lonely and out of place. All of these turned out to be times of important growth and stretching, but still, when I saw the word GROW on my Star card, my first impulse was “No Thank You” – only my mental words were a lot stronger language.
I did not want 2025 to be a year of painful growth. Absolutely not. But here we are. If you’re not having such a great year so far either, I guess we can both blame it on my Star Word.
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There once was a fig tree. The seed catalog had promised it would bear a crop of figs in 3 to 5 years. The owner latched on to the smallest interval between planting and harvest. Every year he has gone to inspect the tree, without ever finding even a single small fruit. It has been at least 3 years. His patience has run out. The tree is taking up valuable land and resources. It must be cut down.
I wonder what the tree thinks about that. Maybe the tree is also ready to quit, ready to be done. Maybe the tree has tried one thing after another. It has done everything it can to bear beautiful, delicious figs, but the soil is inadequate and there are no other fig trees around for support. The world is too harsh. Maybe the tree would not actually mind being cut down. Becoming firewood might serve a better purpose.
But the gardener intervenes, pleading to the owner “let’s nurture it, care for it and give it one more year.”
This is a Bible story, a parable, so we expect that there is something about God in it. We often try to interpret scripture through certain unchallenged assumption. A common assumption is that God is always represented by the most powerful entity in the story. And so, without realizing what we’re doing, we may jump to the conclusion that God is the impatient owner, the one who would cut us down for not being productive. But if God is any character in this story, the merciful gardener is more consistent with the God we find in the Bible.
This is a growth year. I think so, not primarily because of my Star word, because there is so much pressure on us. All those years when we absorbed the teachings of Jesus. All those years when we studied Scripture and prayed and told each other in so many ways that our calling was to love justice and do kindness and walk humbly with God. One of the basic fertilizers of our faith is “love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself.” There were years when that fertilizer was applied in abundance in the soil in which we were mostly just resting together.
But now, we have such an overwhelming urge to make a difference, to take action. As a congregation, we are re-examining our purpose, seeking to identify the particular fruit that we can bear, and the soil that we need to be planted in. As individuals, we are all dealing with something -- a personal wound, a tense relationship, a neighborhood that is no longer neighborly, a fractured nation. We need the care and coaxing of the gardener.
Justo Gonzalez is a Cuban-American theologian. He notes that this fig tree is growing, not in a grove with other fig trees, but surrounded by grape vines in a vineyard. He says that at the last possible time when the owner might have come looking for figs, the vineyard would have already been harvested and pruned. All the green would have dried up, leaving the thick gnarled stumps. In the midst of that seeming desolation, stands this fig tree. The gardener is digging around it, applying special fertilizer. To the casual observer, it might seem like the fig tree, is the center of attention and the vines are cursed and forgotten. Gonzalez writes, “ One would think that the fig tree must be particularly valuable if it is treated with such care, but the truth is exactly the opposite. The fig tree is receiving special care because it has yet to give the fruit it was meant to bear.”[1]
Jesus tells this parable, Luke says, in the face of Pilate’s random violence. Jesus tells this parable after Pilate had executed people while they were at worship, because he could, because his power seemed to be unchecked, because cruelty and terror are often the point.
This story about a fig tree and growth and rest is told at a curious place, in response to an unpredictably harsh and violent world.
I’m trying to learn all I can from those who have lived faithfully through hard times. Fyodor Raychynets is one of those people. He is a Ukrainian Baptist pastor and seminary professor. If he seems familiar, you might remember that I mentioned him three years ago just after the Russian invasion. His wife died of Covid just before the war. At a time of grief and uncertainty, he and his adult children lived in different parts of Ukraine. Then his son within the next year. His office and entire library were destroyed when the seminary was bombed. If there were ever a modern day Job, it would be Fyodor, who refuses to doubt God’s goodness.
When the war began, he kept a journal. On Day 15, he wrote "War is when evil reaches unseen dimensions and lowest forms, and when good manifests itself in its highest manifestations against the backdrop of total, uncontrollable madness."
And on Day 20: "War is when you understand changes; when not in theory, but in practice, you especially appreciate the moment-- here in now --and live it more consciously."[2]
Maybe this mysterious parable is about how we respond, not to a punishing God, but to the limits of mortality, to this moment which will not be ours forever.
Fyodor’s own initial response to the war was to cultivate a small group of volunteers to serve elderly people who were sheltering without electricity, without water, in basements. They were scared to death. These people had never dreamt that they would experience war again in their lifetimes. And so, he and his volunteers did what they could to deliver food and water and medical supplies.[3] They took stock of the great need and their own capacity and responded, in a small but critical way.
Barbara Brown Taylor says, “I am convinced that the longing to bear fruit – to live lives that matter- is embedded in us as deeply as the longing to eat, sleep, love and be loved. The problem is that such loves don’t happen automatically. They require a certain alertness to the way things really are, both in us and in the world; a certain willingness to make choices we would not make if we thought time would never run out, a certain awareness that we need all the help we can get, from any gardener willing to tend our roots.”[4]
Here's the thing – I believe that we are alert to the way things really are. I believe that we are willing to act. We would deliver supplies in a war zone, we are ready to speak truth to power, to put ourselves at risk, if only we could identify the specific ways to do that in our context. But that is not yet clear, at least not in the ways that would make the big changes we think are necessary.
And while we are not bearing the fruit that we want to, we also resist the rest and nurture that we need. You know I would have welcomed REST as a Star Word. Napping is my super power. But these are not restful times. Anxiety and dread keep naps at bay.
I suspect that is true for many of us. We say to ourselves, “I cannot rest because someone is suffering. How can I possibly enjoy myself in a time like this? I cannot watch a funny movie or seek out the beauty of art or music while people are being killed and greed is running rampant and democracy is dying. All my energy and efforts must be exerted to rage against the chaos and destruction. I cannot rest. It would be wrong.”
But then I think about the fig tree and the gardener’s extra care. Sometimes growth or healing or bearing fruit takes much longer than we ever thought it would. Sometimes it takes digging around our roots, rediscovering the supports that we actually have, understanding the deep wisdom we already know. Sometimes it means giving ourselves permission to rest and receive.
Just week or two ago, Fyodor was interviewed again, three years into this terrible war. He spoke about the urgency of now and the challenge of holding onto hope when the world is falling apart. He said “"If I want to say to someone, ‘I love you,’ I say it. If I want to forgive, I forgive. If I want to do something meaningful, I do it now—because tomorrow is never guaranteed."
He described living fully in the present as an act of resistance against fear and oppression, saying “"The enemy wants us to live in fear, to be paralyzed by it. But to live fully is to resist."[5]
Friends, maybe this parable is about allowing ourselves to be nurtured, accepting the care we need – laughter and love, experiences of joy and beauty, and rest so that we can bring all of ourselves to the life we are now living. Thanks be to God.
[1] Justo Gonzalez, Luke in the Belief Commentary Series, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2010), p. 172
[2] https://for-the-life-of-the-world-yale-center-for-faith-culture.simplecast.com/episodes/a-voice-from-kyiv-fyodor-raychynets-faithful-presence-in-the-war-on-ukraine-ZlU7z8o3/transcript
[3] Fyodor Rayschnets, “A Voice from Kyiv: Faithful Presence in the War on Ukraine,” For the Life of the World, Yale Center for Faith and Culture. https://faith.yale.edu/media/a-voice-from-kyiv-fyodor-raychynets
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Wake-Up Call” in Always A Guest: Speaking of Faith Far From Home, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2020), p. 144
[5] https://faith.yale.edu/media/the-fear-to-hope-ukrainian-pastor-on-democracy-fear-and-abundant-life-in-the-midst-of-war