Re-Reading Luke 13: 6- 9
Life and life narratives today are defined and drawn
on the parameters of greed, be it the ‘unregulated urbanization’ which is the
root cause of recent floods in Chennai, or the ‘consumerism’ (driven into excessive
shopping ‘buy one get one free’) which drives people towards accumulation of
wealth or be it ‘selfish individualism’ where domination of the powerful over
the powerless for all are zeroed on ‘greed.’ The caption that very well
captures the greed of human beings today is “Yeh
Dil Mange More”, ( this heart desires more) and therefore puts in
perspective the struggles for life across the globe against corporate giants,
be it the anti-globalization struggles, anti-posco struggle, or be it the
anti-nuclear struggle etc. Captions like, “Owner’s pride, neighbour’s envy”
have been used as captions of virtue, taking for granted the vices like envy
& greed. In such a context of greed,
which affects the whole of creation, discerning the common creed of life is a
challenge for us all as communities that wrestle with faith in making it more
contemporary and relevant. At a time like this, when corporate greed dominates
the society today, the gospel need and the Christian public witness is to
affirm life, protect life and sustain life, life in all its fullness.
Jesus as recorded in Luke 13: 6-9 narrates a parable
about a fig tree that continues not to bring forth fruits when the owner comes
searching for its fruits. After three years of thorough inspection and waiting,
the owner pronounces his judgement to cut down such a tree with no fruits, for
it even wastes the soil. There comes the gardener, who pleads the owner to let
it stay for one more year, for he would give extra care and effort and strive
to bring fruit, and then takes a grace period of extending the life of that
tree by an year, ‘if it doesn’t yield fruit even then, you can do as u want, to
cut it down’, says the gardener. Now I would like to attempt to re-read this
parable of Jesus from our own given context and try to decipher the voice and
position of God in this parable, and find implications for us in our faith
journey.
The Economic-Corporate Greed:
Here is an owner of the
land, who planted a fig tree in his vineyard. His understanding of a garden is
to yield fruits all the time, be it grapes or figs from his garden. When he
kept looking for fruits for three years from a lonely fig tree among the vine
groves, he kept judging the fig tree by its yield. He wasn’t satisfied with the
yield that comes from the vines in his vineyard. He like any other corporates
gives a time period of three years for the fig tree to produce its yield and prove
its mettle. He believes that by only
bearing fruits, a tree is worth, if not, it ceases to be worthy. All he wanted
to make was profit from his garden, and therefore pronounces a judgement that
three years of waiting for fruits from the fig tree is of waste of time and
waste of soil and a waste of employees working on her. So he says to the
gardener to ‘cut down the tree.’ This is exactly the ideology of greed, to have
more and more, to have profit and to judge by those norms of profit, in this
case the external visible fruits of figs.
The Eco- Feminist Creed: There comes a common powerless gardener,
who dares to speak on behalf of the fruitless fig tree appealing him for one
more year and one more opportunity to prove its credibility. It is this employee
gardener who spends lots of time with the trees and the vines in the vineyard,
and knows the worth of each tree in the garden and befriends all of the trees
with whom he keeps working. The gardener does not join the owner in judging it
by its fruits, instead he assures the owner to take extra effort, extra care,
by digging around and by putting manure
for her and appeals for yet another chance to affirm her life. Cutting down the
fig tree just because it does not bear fruits is not the available option for
the gardener, on the other hand the gardener wants to save life, affirm life
and build a community of unity & diversity seasoned with justice &
peace. Probably, according to the gardener, the fig tree would have been a
space of shade for him in that scorching sun, where he could take some rest. Or
the fig tree could have been a nesting place for several birds in that
vicinity, or the fig tree would have had the strings of the vines tied to her,
bearing the tension of those grapes on the vines. The gardener developed a
cherishing relationship with the trees and the vines in the vineyard, and
cannot think of any tree being cut off for any reason, and therefore the
gardener’s creed was ‘do not cut down the tree.’ For cutting down the trees
have both sociological and ecological problems, and the small farmer very well
recognises this fact and pleads not to cut down the tree.
The Encouraging Seed: We recognise the voice of God in the
gardener, who counters greed by affirming life, who doesn’t judge by mere fruits,
but seeks extra time and opportunity in preparing the tree to fruit. Imagine,
the owner who is all powerful could have easily neglected the voice of the
gardener nor would have punished the gardener for not listening to his command,
yet the gardener, who cares for every tree equally, whether it has fruits or
not, takes courage to speak to a person with power, risks his life and
employment and appeals to give him an opportunity to prove life. We see an
eco-feminist in this gardener, who relates to all of the creation with equality
and justice, and wants all trees and plants to live and let other creatures live.
The gardener knowing the ill effects of cutting down the trees prevents such a
mishap by placing his life in a state of jeopardy, in speaking back to the
greedy owner. The eco-feminist towards the end of the parable says, ‘if it
bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down’, which
only shows that he is confident that the tree would bring fruits, life of the
fig tree would be affirmed in dignity by next year, otherwise he wouldn’t have
agreed to such a deal.
The parable is silent of what has happened the next
year after all these extra efforts of the gardener, but if we stretch our
imagination, two primary things would have happened. One, the owner would have
realised over the year that it is not always by fruits that one needs to judge
a tree, for he would have changed his mind to acknowledge life in all forms in
the creation and recognises the worth of every creature as he or she comes
forth. There would have been a change of mind to the greedy owner on
recognising the extra efforts of the gardener. On the other hand, the other
possibility would have been to visualise the fig tree filled with lots of
amazing figs on her branches to surprise the owner, and the owner would have
realised how mean he was in being judgemental on the tree and by wanting to cut
the tree.
Implications for us today:
At the time like this, when ecological narratives and
paradigms are contaminated by human greed and selfishness, Christian Public
Witness is to affirm life, support life, protect life and sustain life, life in
all its fullness.
·
This New
Year, this parable encourages the local family farming by houses in the
household to give extra time, efforts and energies to plant and work on farming
and also encourages us to recognise the small landless labourers and farmers,
their hard labour and their creative initiatives for food security.
·
Let us
not be driven by values of greed and profit in our lives, for affirming life in
all its dignity to all of the creation is all that matters in the journey of
faith. Let us make a commitment to participate in the struggles for justice of
all the victims of greed in our contexts. Let us pledge to give up, overcome and
defeat greed this New Year.
·
Let us
not judge creation and people merely from our own perspectives try to look life
in all its totality, wholeness and fullness and learn to respect the equal
worth of life in all creatures of God. For justice is beyond borders.
·
Make a
commitment to befriend our creation, make them as our kith and kin, stop
cutting down trees, and be committed to our environment and ecology. Rise and
respond to the needs of our creation.
·
Explore
God among the powerless and those among the margins, for justice and peace
comes from them to the entire communities. For it is no longer mission to the
margins, but it is mission from the margins.
The gospel need in the context of corporate greed to
is to affirm life in all its fullness and trying to explore and locate God
among those on the margins, specially the landless labourers, small farmers,
daily wage employees, un-seasoned and off-seasoned workers etc. and continue to
work for community of peace and justice for all. May God, the farmer who seeds
God’s creation in all equality continue to inspire each of us to channel peace,
equality and justice to all of our creation.
Rev. Raj Bharath Patta,
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