One More Year
“Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’ ””
— Luke 13:6-9 (NIV)
Just before this, people brought Jesus news of Galileans whom Pilate had killed while they were sacrificing. He raised a second disaster himself: a tower at Siloam had collapsed and killed eighteen people. Twice he told the crowd they would die the same way unless they turned back, and only then does this story arrive. The scene straight after it is a Sabbath, a woman bent double for eighteen years, and an argument about whether she could wait one more day. The Greek word for the man who answers the owner means the one who tends vines, and nothing tells us whether he was a slave, a hired worker or the manager. What he volunteers for is hard and filthy: breaking up packed ground by hand, carrying in animal dung. The verb he uses for letting the tree stand is the everyday word for cancelling a debt. Someone speaks up for what has already been condemned, and offers to pay for the delay with his own hands.
Somebody near you has quietly dropped off the list of people you expect anything from. Nobody announced it, and you never said it out loud. Maybe it is someone in your family who has promised the same thing too many times. Maybe it is someone you study or work beside, and you stopped including them months ago. Maybe it is a neighbour you now only mention with a sigh. Maybe you are the one on somebody else's list. Jesus told a story about a man who did not cut the tree down but spoke up for it to the owner, and took the dirty work on himself. You can do the same today for one particular person.
Speak up for the one written off
- 1Pick one person you have quietly given up on and say their name to God in the gardener's words: leave them one more year. Then do one thing for them they will not expect: answer their call, drop something off, speak well of them.
- 2If contact with that person harms you, or you cannot reach them, stay with the prayer. And if someone writes them off in front of you today, say one true sentence in their defence.
God, there is someone I have stopped expecting anything from. I never said it out loud, but I decided it. Thank you for not deciding that about me. Teach me to speak up for them before you, and to do one good thing for them today. Amen.
Today I ask God for one more year for someone I had written off, and do something for them.
What was happening just before this story?
People had brought Jesus news of Galileans whom Pilate killed while they were sacrificing. He then raised a second disaster himself, a tower at Siloam that fell and killed eighteen people, and twice he told the crowd they would die the same way unless they turned back. The story about the tree comes straight after those warnings.
Who is the man who asks for the extra year?
The Greek word used for him means simply the one who tends the vines. The text never says whether he was a slave, a hired worker or the manager. What it does say is that he would be the one doing the extra labour: breaking up packed ground by hand and carrying in animal dung.
Does the story say what happened to the tree?
No. It stops at the request and never tells us whether fruit came, or even what the owner said. Today's step works the same way: it ends with your prayer and your one move, whatever happens after.