(Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Growing Figs”, originally shared on May 13, 2021. It was the 115th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Do you know where Fig Newtons come from? Well yes, from the cookie aisle at the store. But before that? That’s right, the figs in Fig Newtons come from a fig tree! Figs trees are used for more than bare bones clothing in the Bible. Today, we’re going to see what’s cooking when it comes to the meaning of figs.
We have a fig tree in our back yard. It grows like crazy. It produces figs from late Spring to early Fall. The figs taste better some years than others, but they are always plentiful, if we can harvest them. Every year, it’s a battle between us and the birds, the squirrels, and who knows what else to get to the figs first when they are ripe.
Our yard, and probably a lot of our neighborhood, is a testament to the critters that feast on these figs and then pass along the undigested seeds, producing more fig trees.
In that sense, they are helping the fig tree achieve the second part of its two-fold purpose, to be fruitful and to multiply.
In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, the first chapter, starting at the 9th verse, we read:
*Genesis 1:9-13
“and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with seed in it.”
Our figs were large and mostly tasteless last year. We used an organic fertilizer this year and we’re hopeful it will help improve their flavor and usefulness to us. And that the birds and critters will leave us some.
Figs are a superfood. I’ve read that they have more mineral and fiber content than all the common fruits, nuts, and vegetables. The entire fruit is edible, they are low in calories, and they boost the immune system. They have medicinal qualities and were used to treat wounds and boils in the Bible. The fruit is high in natural sugars, can be dried and formed into cakes, and was often used by travelers. That’s still true today.
We thought that we had come to an agreement where the birds got the top level, the squirrels got the middle, and we got the lower level. But apparently, somebody had other ideas. “I’m talking to you squirrels!”
Sally makes a compote from them that we use as a jam or on ice cream. We often eat them cut in half and sprinkled with lemon juice from the fruit on our lemon tree.
Figs are good for eating, but the purpose of a fig tree is to produce more fig trees. The fruit falls from the tree and the seeds germinate in the ground and grow into another tree. Fig trees were so plentiful that they were known as “poor people’s food”.
In the Old Testament, fig trees are a symbol of both blessing and judgement. They are a sign of blessing as the newly liberated people of God come out of slavery in Egypt and into the land promised to their ancestors where they could eat from the fig trees. The lack of trees that bore edible fruit was a sign of God’s judgment on God’s people for their covenant disobedience.
References to figs in the New Testament point to their meaning in the Old Testament. In Mark 11, starting at the 12th verse, Jesus sums up Jesus’ judgement against his generation for their failure to either live by the faith of Abraham or by the covenant of the law given through Moses in Mark 11, starting at the 12th verse:
Our fig tree loses its leaves in winter and provides dense shade in the summer when its large leaves are mature. Jesus finds no fruit in this text. Nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Our fig tree bears fruit almost concurrently with its leaves, so if this is a similar variety, it had ceased to bear fruit, or had never born fruit in its season.
His generation was a season that did not bear the fruit of a living relationship with God.
What can be said of our generation? Is a living relationship with the one true living God even on the radar screen of our generation?
There is also hope. In the gospel of Luke, the 13th chapter starting at the 6th verse we read:
*Luke 13:6-9
What happens after a year? I’ve got to think that the gardener (God, presumably) would give it another chance, and another, until finally the day of Judgement comes, and then the chances would end.
We know that the Day of Judgement is coming, but we are not focused on that. We focus on right now.
There is a story about Martin Luther, also ascribed to others, that tells of him being found by one of his church members one afternoon in his back yard digging a hole, getting ready to plant an apple tree. The church member wanted to talk about the book of Revelation and the signs of the Last Judgement. His member asked, “Dr. Luther, what would you do if you knew that the world would end tomorrow?” Luther barely missed a beat and replied, “I’d plant my apple tree.”
Our focus is on bearing fruit, on feeding one other with the true spiritual food, with the thing that satisfies, and on reproducing our faith.
All our actions, all our charity, all our concern to do justice (that is, to do God’s will), to feed the hungry, to be the voice of the voiceless, comes from who we as the people of God, or it is nothing.
Jesus said, in Matthew 7, starting at verse 15,
*Matthew 7:15-20
We are who we are because of the work of God, the Holy Spirit, the streams of living water, at work within us. The cross has made all this possible. There is nothing we can do to be saved but open our hearts, our true selves, to receive the gift of faith by God’s grace. The Holy Spirit, God’s ongoing personal presence for good in the world, changes who we are. We become a new Creation. We are born again. It is from this status as the people of God that we bear the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
What is that fruit we bear? What does it mean to be a fruitful fig tree? Paul writes to the Galatians in chapter 5, starting at the 22nd verse:
*Galatians 5:22-23
We are approaching the New Normal. What can we do to be the new creation of the Holy Spirit and show the world what new life looks like?
Open your heart to God. Confess your sins and turn from them. Bear fruit that befits repentance by being that good tree. Grow those spiritual figs. Bear the fruit of the Spirit.
Invite others to do the same.
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