Third Sunday of Lent [March 24, 2019] Luke 13:1-9

“Sir, leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future (Luk 13:8).”

It normally takes around three years for a fig tree to reach its maturity and fruition. If it does not produce fruit by that time, it is not likely to bear fruit at all. The owner has a reasonable right to cut the tree, but through the effort of the gardener, it is given another chance. Like the fig tree, through the effort of our Chief Gardener, the new Adam of eternal Eden, Jesus Christ, we are given another chance to change and be fruitful.

However, it is always easier said than done. In daily reality, it is not simply a matter of instantly erasing errors on the whiteboard, of flash and clear-cut change from bad guy to good guy, from villains to heroes. Some of us are merely entrapped in the evil structures or systems that promote sin in us and through us, and we simply do not know how to get out of it. Some of us are victims of vicious cycles of sin in our families or our societies that sooner or later turn us to be the perpetrators, and we are merely powerless to find the way out.

One time, I visited a place for the youth who conflicted with the Law. I met this teenager, Joseph, not his real name. He was arrested for stealing small amount of money, or petty theft. He shared to me his story that he was without parents, and he lived together with a band of snatchers. His elders in the group taught him how to steal and snatch, and after several practices and actual deeds, he developed the habit, not only to take the money, but also to desire for an easy money. He has been in the facility for several times, and every time he was released, he promised himself not to go back to that way of life. Yet, because he no longer knew what to do and where to go outside the facility, he once again stole something for him to fill his hungry stomach. Then, again he was caught.

Then, what does it mean to repent, to change? Is there any point we observe Lenten season every year, yet no apparent change seems to take place? We miss the point if we just think that Lenten season is only about instant change.

It is a story of a struggling fig tree to be fruitful and yet find itself facing desperate end, the story of struggling humanity. It is a story of a gardener who refuses to give up on his tree, a story of God who never loses hope in humanity. The Lenten season means that despite of all our imperfection and disfigured life, we refuse to succumb to despair. It means we take courage to fight hopelessness even when no actual fruit of change seems visible in our lives. It means we always hope in the Lord who never loses hope in us.

Deacon Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno