(8) The Fig Tree

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for The Fig Tree, originally shared on April 23, 2020. It was the eighth video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   I’m standing in front of our fig tree. Fig trees are where the figs in fig newtons come from. Here’s a fig, just emerging. It will grow into a fig that we will enjoy, if the squirrels, the birds, the possums, and a bunch of other critters don’t get it first. “That’s right, I’m talking to you.”

   In the Bible, it’s a symbol of God’s relationship with God’s people.

   We are now in the COVID-19 pandemic. We are now at a point where just a hint that the worst might be over has released the floodgates of frustration over the limits and the pain of economic hardship for many. Bad behavior has come pouring out.

   Some people want to believe that because things are a little better that we can go back to what we knew as normal.

   This pandemic took months to bring us to this point, and it’s going to take months, and maybe years, to bring us back to normal. But, we will not start to get back to normal until we can know that it is gone.

   We know about wildfires in Southern California. We know that just because the fire department has made it so that there is less fire in your house, it doesn’t mean that it’s safe to go inside.

   And, we know that just because a fire appears to be going out, that there aren’t embers waiting for the opportunity to flair up into a raging inferno again.

   This is a time to listen to the people who can make the best judgement possible for when it’s time to start turning the dimmer switch gradually up toward normal.

    I heard about a dad who was working from home and went to the kitchen to get a snack. When he did, he looked out the window and saw his son. There was no baseball going on, so his son had laid out a simple diamond and found a Wiffel ball and bat. His son threw the ball up in the air, took a swing, and missed. He picked up the ball, threw it up in the air, took a swing, and missed. He picked up the ball again, threw it up in the air, took a swing, and missed. He threw his bat on the ground, threw his hands in the air, and shouted: “I am the greatest pitcher…in the world!

    We all pass the tests we write for ourselves.

   Now is a time to listen to what God is calling us to do in caring for others.

    I saw someone online who was at a demonstration holding a poster that said, “Sacrifice the Weak”, a concept that couldn‘t be less like what Christianity produces in people.   

   Christian uniqueness, something that Christianity brought to the table, includes the idea that all people have value equally before God.

   The fig tree is a symbol of life, particularly the new life that comes from God making us brothers and sisters, and the new life that is the fruit, the outcome, of that new life.

 Song of Solomon 2:10-13

    Natural Church Development is a church development program that is based on the belief that all healthy living things grow and reproduce. If they are not reproducing, there is something wrong that must be corrected. Bearing fruit is living the Christian life ourselves and leading others to receive the gift of faith from God.

   The fig tree bears fruit or it is cut down, though God is patient and gives us time for repentance. Now is that time.

    For our video last Monday, I wore a quilted jacket because it was chilly; today I’m wearing a t-shirt because it’s warm. Tomorrow will be hot. People can be just as fickle as the weather.

    However, God is merciful and calls and equips us to grow, to be fruitful, to organically be the people we have been created to be: Living the abundant life that comes from the living relationship with the living God that has been God’s intention for us from the beginning of Creation. This means, among other things, that we who have received grace upon grace live for the sake of others.

    Winston Churchill, in November of 1942, over three years after what would be known as World War II had begun in England, said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

   That is the place where we are now.

    But we are not alone, and it’s not us against the world. It’s the world against the virus.

    The streams of living water that are the Holy Spirit, God’s personal ongoing presence for good in the world, change us. Like the rain that fills our streams, we are not stagnant. Streams of living water bring change, they overflow their boundaries, they bring life to us and to everything we depend upon, they are the same yet they are always different. They bring God’s presence in the midst of a new way of living.

    Sally and I want you to know that you are not alone. Though we are physically apart during this Safer at Home and Social Distancing phase of bringing the COVID-19 virus under control, we are bound together in the Body of Christ, the whole Christian Church on earth.

    Like branches on the fig tree, now is the time to bear the fruit of a new life and the care for others that comes as the result of a living relationship with the living God.

Talk to God, pray. Listen to God, read the Bible. Love God, have faith. Serve God and live to act for others.