Growing Slowly like Fig Trees

 "For three years now I have come in search of fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?" Lk 13:7

At the time of Jesus, fig trees were often planted in grape vineyards and took three or four years to bear edible fruit. More important, to be healthy, fig trees needed large amounts of water, a resource which to this day Israel has in short supply. It made perfect sense to cut down a fig tree that was not producing good fruit after three years. Nevertheless, Jesus insisted that God was patient and would give his people more time to grow as long as they worked at bearing fruit.

The lesson remains important today in helping us understand God and God's love for us. Like the Israelites of old, God wants us to succeed, to grow, to understand, and to internalize the great truths of our faith. When that happens, we will bear fruit, and the fruit will feed the world. God is patient, but we must work and do what it takes to bring forth good fruit. We need to water, fertilize and tend to the fig tree that is our faith.

Today, do something that will help you grow in faith.

What have been the most important elements in your faith life?

Shepherds

"Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your inheritance. Micah." 7:34

God as our shepherd has always been an attractive, inviting and empowering notion for believers. In the ancient world from which this image comes, shepherds treasured their sheep as their inheritance. Without their sheep, they were nothing. 

Additionally, because the poor could not afford their own sheep pens, shepherds were hired to look over the sheep of many families in a common pen throughout the night, and  while they were able to rest, they could not sleep since it was their task to protect the sheep from predators. In order to do this effectively, shepherds would lie down across the opening of the sheep pen in order to protect the sheep entrusted to them. That the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament remind us that God and Jesus are shepherds, willing to give their lives for their sheep, is both comforting and challenging.

Today, thank someone who has been a Good Shepherd to you.

What is your most helpful image of God?

Celebrating Differences

  "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." Mt 21:32

Whenever we fail to look at stones and people with the eyes of God, we fall into the trap of rejecting them because they don't fit our notion of perfection or beauty. What a shame and what a loss. Not only do we demean and objectify things and people who are "different," we expose ourselves as prejudiced and small minded.

We have no real idea what Jesus looked like, but we do know that he has been portrayed as a member of every race, ethnic group and culture, and while some may want to insist that he should always be a middle eastern Jew, the vast majority of  believers realize that Jesus is beyond any one culture or background.  In other words, we need to find the Christ everywhere and in every person, especially the poor.

This is not to say that difference doesn't matter. When we move outside our comfort zone culturally and socially there is always a level of disorientation, and while this is disconcerting we need to work our way through it in order to see and meet people where they are. Simply put, while inculturation is painful, when it is embraced it becomes a gift that opens us to a God who is beyond every culture.

Today, acknowledge your discomfort with difference.

Have you had a cross cultural experience that benefited you and helped shape your faith?

Lazarus and the Rich Man

  "And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores." (Lk 16:20-21)

It is so difficult to read the passage about Lazarus and the rich man. How is it possible to have someone lying at your feet and not see him? Couldn't the rich man at least have swept the crumbs off his table so that Lazarus could have something to eat? How could he let his dogs lick Lazarus' wounds? These seem natural but unanswerable questions, but they demand reflection from us.

Who is it that we don't see? Are there people so unimportant that we ignore them? Too often the answer is yes. Sometimes it is people of color or those who are culturally different than us. At other times, it is people who are generational recipients of welfare. More often we turn away, almost unconsciously, from the homeless and mentally ill because they frighten us, but we can and ought to try to change this.

The act of seeing whatever and whoever is directly in front of us is a discipline and practice we can learn, but it takes prayer and silence. Those who take time each day to sit quietly, to breathe deeply and pay attention to all creation, after a while, find it impossible not to see those in need, and while we might not be able to do anything immediately, at least we have honored those who need to be seen and recognized as people just like us.

Today, spend five minutes in quiet and reflection in preparation for seeing that which is directly in front of you.

What situations and people are most difficult for you to face?