The Earth Cries Out: Third Sunday of Lent
By Rev. Nicole Lambelet
Today, we enter the third Sunday of Lent with a reflection on care for God’s Creation. The theme of our Lenten devotional series is “The Earth Cries Out: Reflections, Lamentations, and Prayers for the Injustices to Our Earth and Our Communities.”
Each week contains a short reflection, discussion questions, and a prayer. We hope that you can utilize these devotions with your congregation, friends, and family.
Luke 13: 6-9:
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
Meditation:
The parable of the fig tree in Luke chapter 13 is the first in a series of parables and stories in this chapter about “work” and “rest.” In our reading for today the fig tree is in danger of being removed because it was not doing the “work” of a fig tree. For over three years, it was not producing figs! In response, the man who planted the fig tree commanded the gardener to cut it down. The gardener, however, pleaded with the man, asking him to “let it (the tree) alone” (literally in the Greek the gardener asks the man to “pardon” or “release” the tree) for one more year. After making this appeal, the gardener cultivates the soil around the tree’s foundation and fertilizes it.
This parable is provocative, in part, because there is no resolution. We never learn whether the gardener's work was effective. We never learn whether or not the fig tree became productive enough to justify its place in the man’s field. Because the parable resists such resolution, it also resists narratives upholding production or success as the primary condition for belonging.
In the absence of any narrative resolution at the parable’s end, the work of the gardener comes to the fore. Knowing that the fig tree’s vocation is intimately connected to the support of the ecosystem surrounding it, the gardener offers the tree rest from the pressures of production. The gardener provides the tree with the nutrients and conditions it would need to thrive. Irrespective of all signs indicating that the gardener should do otherwise, the gardener persists to carry on in her own vocation as a way to persist in caring. She does this as a way to persist in the face of the fig tree’s unpromising future. She does this as a way to persist in hope against all reasons for hope finding rest in her persistence to be about the work she had been given to do.
Reflection Questions:
As we consider this parable in light of the climate crisis before us, I wonder how the witness of the gardener might speak to us:
How can we resist upholding the values of production or success as conditions for belonging in our own ecosystems of care?
How can a deeper sense of vocational clarity ease our own anxieties before a seemingly bleak future?
How might we too find rest in the persistence of God’s hope?
Prayer:
God who offers us belonging and companionship through the gift of your Christ, free us evermore to rest in your love. Guide us as we work to cultivate communities of compassion and care with one another and with the earth. Empower us by your Spirit as we persist before an uncertain future. Amen.
About the Author:
The Rev. Nicole Lambelet is the Associate Priest for Family Ministry and Community Engagement at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Atlanta, GA. Before becoming a priest, Nicole worked at the intersections of food production, justice organizing, and violence prevention. Currently her vocation in the Episcopal Church USA centers on the tasks of formation and discipleship, as she attempts to follow Jesus by creating spaces for healing, resiliency, and hope.