Patience + Productivity

“Patience + Productivity”

March 23, 2025

Luke 13:6-9

Third Sunday of Lent 

Luke 13:6-9

6 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. 7So 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?” 8He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig round it and put manure on it. 9If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” ’

About two weeks ago, June and I were talking about how fun it would be to try and tap the maple trees that stand right in front of the parsonage.  I began to think through what it would be like to try and do a big undertaking like this, especially when I would be starting from knowing absolutely nothing.  I kid you not, it was less than 12 hours later when our own Elizabeth Agen messaged me and said: “Hey, do you want us to help you tap your maple trees?”   I absolutely love our church family.  

The next day Elizabeth, Maggie and Emmie all came over and expertly helped us to tap our own trees.  The first glorious day of taping yielded over 2 gallons of sap from our trees.  Over the next few days, we added another 5 gallons.  I couldn’t believe how much sap was coming out of these trees!  I thought to myself—this is amazing!  We’re going to have maple syrup for the whole neighborhood.  I was imagining overflowing pitchers of church-raised maple syrup at our church’s Easter pancake breakfast.

Five steamy days later and a lot of hauling of buckets, and straining the bugs out, and watching the stove and checking the temperature, we finally had what appeared to be syrup-like consistency maple-smelling sweet golden goodness.  It wasn’t going to overflow any pitchers at the pancake breakfast, but if we all take just a taste, it will be enough.  

The process of tapping trees and hauling sap gave me a new respect for this extremely time-consuming, yet extremely rewarding local tradition.  It reminded me of reading Braiding Sweetgrass a couple years ago along with some of you.  In her book, Robin Wall Kimmerer weaves together stories about tapping maple trees and connecting with a deeper sense of purpose in the patient waiting for the sap to boil down.  

Wewene is a Potawatomi word, Kimmerer’s mother tongue, that means “carefully, or in a good way.”   

“Wewene, I say to myself:” Kimmerer writes, “in a good time, in a good way. There are no shortcuts. It must unfold in the right way, …you must swallow your sense of urgency, calm your breathing so that the energy goes not to frustration, but to fire.”― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

These words and the very act of making maple syrup run counter to the kind of world we live in that values immediate gratification.  A world of fast food, no slow food.  Maybe being patient with maple sap is God’s way of saying wewene.  All in good time.  Slow down. Stop your rush to consume.  Spend the time and your patience will produce a different kind of result.  Let go of your superficial expectations.  Invest in processes that take time and your product will be different.  

Maple trees for us in the great northeast are sacred and revered for their gifts.  But for Jesus in his homeland, there was a different tree: the fig tree.  The fig trees are part of Bible stories more than 50 times, including today’s parable from Jesus in which the fig tree takes center stage. 

On Friday night at youth group, we acted out the parable we just heard read today: the story of a fig tree in a vineyard.  It was great because Alex is in our youth group and he’s just recently risen to local acclaim after his starring role as Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins. So obviously he was nominated for the feature role of Fig Tree.  And he did a great job.  Others volunteered for the roles of vineyard owner, gardener, and narrator.  After we’d run out of parts and still had an interested actor, they improvised and became a bird.  

With lots of laughs we put into action Jesus’ parable.  The owner of a vineyard planted a fig tree and after three years of seeing zero figs on said fig tree, he jumped to the conclusion that the only appropriate thing to do would be to cut it down.  “What a waste of soil!”  The gardener spoke up.  “You know, we could give it another year and see what happens.  I’ll put some manure around it and we’ll wait and see.”  And so, the owner agreed.  Our play added a little more chit chat and a lot of bird tweets but essentially that’s where the parable ends.  And even though Alex the Fig Tree improvised and pulled a balloon reminiscent of a fig out of nowhere at the end, the Biblical story itself leaves us hanging.  We don’t know what happened.  We can only imagine. 

It’s kind of a bizarre little parable right from the get-go.  A fig tree planted in a vineyard?  A vineyard is where grapes grow, right?  Right.  And in this parable… are we the fig tree (like Alex)?  Is God the owner inspecting us for figs?  Does the fig tree make figs in the end, or is it just a habitat for birds?  Jesus doesn’t give us a user’s guide for his parables.  He puts them out there and asks us to discern the meaning ourselves.  

So, I Googled it.  Well, at least the part about fig trees in vineyards… where grapes grow.  What was that all about?  And the Internet reported, through a variety of scientific and agricultural articles, that planting a fig tree in a vineyard is actually long-standing practice in the Middle East.  The fig tree is there for practical reasons.  Unlike vines, fig trees have a very broad root system.  By planting them in a vineyard, the fig tree’s roots tests out the soil.  Like a canary in a coal mine… if the fig tree can make it, the grapes will, too.  The branches of fig trees are also used as natural trellises for grape vines.  Their presence offers stability for the vineyard’s vines.  The leaves of the fig trees also help to mitigate the very hot sun on the sensitive grapes. And get this: fig trees are also planted in vineyards to attract birds.  Birds love to sit in fig trees, scoping out potential fruit, enjoying the shade and this means they are less likely to bother the grapes.  Turns out a tweeting bird in our youth skit was pretty on point.  Thank you, Ryan!

So maybe all of that internet research was agricultural insight that Jesus’ first audience would have just inherently known, but for me a world away, this context was so illuminating.  

The owner approached this fig tree expecting productivity in the form of figs, but in reality, the fig tree was being productive in its own way with its roots and its branches and its leaves and its attractiveness to the birds.  The fig tree didn’t have a sense of urgency because it knew that its greatest gift was its ability to work behind the scenes for the good of the whole eco-system, not just in producing a basket of figs for the owner.  

And the gardener—bless that gardener—the gardener could see this different kind of productivity, and the gardener stood up to the owner and said wait a minute.  “Give it more time.  You’ll see.  I will nurture this fig tree myself and time will tell.”  The gardener had a vision.  Patience isn’t the opposite of productivity.  In this case, it’s the source of productivity.  Taking stock of a complex eco-system and patiently figuring out what your purpose is.  This gives the fig tree value beyond its figs, and there may also be figs eventually.  The gardener could see that value and stood up for it.  

All of that leads me to see the gardener has the divine, God figure in this story. And I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest, Jesus wants you to see yourself as the fig tree.  

Can you see it?  Can you imagine it?  If you can, I want to ask you what does productivity look like for you in this season right now?  Do you need to redefine it?  Are you wrestling with unrealistic, maybe even superficial expectations?  Do you feel like your worth is based on how well you can produce to someone else’s standards?  

Is Jesus calling us to something different?  Instead of getting our worth and purpose from the owner at the top who threatens us to conform, maybe we should instead get our worth and purpose from the gardener who is close to the ground.  Who understands how to advocate for us and nurture us from the roots up.

To be like the fig tree in this moment is not to choose between patience and productivity.  It’s to look around yourself thoughtfully and to take your time to carefully figure out how your purpose in life in this moment right now will best uplift and improve the whole ecosystem, not just a few at the top.  To be like the fig tree in this moment is to redefine the meaning of productivity because the standards of our world have become too narrow, too selfish, too interested in making a few benefit without consideration of the whole.  To be like the fig tree is to find divine solidarity in the midst of what is still in the process of becoming and hope in what is still not yet finished.  

Maybe this is the message of the fig tree parable:  Don’t be afraid to take your time to figure out who it is you are called to be for a moment such as this.  Don’t be afraid to offer yourself for the good of the whole even when the world demands that every person be for themself.  And as Robin Wall Kimmerer said:  swallow your sense of urgency, and calm your breathing so that your energy goes not to frustration, but to fire. Patience may feel like a failure.  But only if you’re plotting your worth against someone else’s timeline.  Reinvent the metrics for defining your own worth.  Build a new measure for productivity.  Break the system and make a new one.  We don’t need the approval of the people at the top.  We need a new foundation.  Wage a quiet protest by channeling your energy into growing the community around you.  Find joy in community.  Relish what is slow.  Find ways to invest in one another.  Prioritize sustainability over burnout.  Be in this for the long haul.  Trust your intuition.  Collaborate.  This is what God sees as productive and I think God calls it wewene.  Carefully, in a good and right way.   May it be so.  May you find your inner fig tree and may you find divine solidarity for the patient, world-changing work ahead.

Oh, and don’t forget to come for pancakes on Easter to taste the sweet gifts of our own trees shared with love for the whole community.  

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Anna