2021.03.07 - Cultivating Fruitfulness, Letting Go of Productivity

Scripture - Isaiah 55:1-9; Luke 13:1-9

Isaiah 55:1-9 (The Message)

1-5 “Hey there! All who are thirsty,
    come to the water!
Are you penniless?
    Come anyway—buy and eat!
Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.
    Buy without money—everything’s free!
Why do you spend your money on junk food,
    your hard-earned cash on cotton candy?
Listen to me, listen well: Eat only the best,
    fill yourself with only the finest.
Pay attention, come close now,
    listen carefully to my life-giving, life-nourishing words.
I’m making a lasting covenant commitment with you,
    the same that I made with David: sure, solid, enduring love.
I set him up as a witness to the nations,
    made him a prince and leader of the nations,
And now I’m doing it to you:
    You’ll summon nations you’ve never heard of,
and nations who’ve never heard of you
    will come running to you
Because of me, your God,
    because The Holy of Israel has honored you.”
6-7 
Seek God while he’s here to be found,
    pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
    and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
    come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
8-9 
“I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
        God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Luke 13:1-9 (New Revised Standard Version)
13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”
 
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

Sermon

Cultivating Fruitfulness....Letting Go of Productivity

[Show film -- text is: Text of video - Art, film, & words by Lisle Gwynn Garrity | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org:

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells a story of a fruitless fig tree once planted with promise, only to grow barren and brittle. The landowner in the parable has returned to its empty branches for three years. With patience worn thin and hope withered, he commands the gardener to cut it down, seeing it as a liability to the soil.

But where the landowner sees waste, the gardener perceives possibility that lies fallow. The gardener has learned from the land that life flows in cycles—budding, flourishing, pruning, death. And so he requests one more year. 

Cutting the earth with a shovel, he loosens the clots that have settled like stone so that when water comes, the earth will receive it like a soft kiss. He blankets the roots with manure so that growth can be steadied by hope. And then he lets go.

What happens to the fig tree? Does it live? Does it die? Does it bear any fruit?

We don’t know. And so, if we can’t read the end of this story, then we must write it with our own lives. Because we know what it feels like to be the fig tree, to be deemed worthless, to be weary enough to believe that we don’t deserve to be well. And perhaps we also know what it’s like to see the world through the eyes of the landowner—calculating worth based on what we produce, what we accomplish, what we provide.

Can we cultivate the vision of the Great Gardener, the One who sees you for what you are becoming? The one who tends and prunes, nourishes and lets go?

Perhaps for us, the fruit is not the ending. The fruit is in the waiting, in the dead of winter, in the manure; the nurture, the rest, the darkness. The fruit is in all of it, sowing seeds we can’t yet see.

“WHERE THE FRUIT LIES” by lisle gwynn garrity, inspired by luke 13:6-9, acrylic on canvas | 16x20]

We are so used to evaluating everything - ourselves, other people, opportunities that come our way - as value propositions. It’s embedded in how we think, how we operate. We’re constantly making decisions based on worth - and ascribing worthiness based on production value. 

How refreshing it is, then, to hear God say through the prophet Isaiah, 
“I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
       
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.”
 
Because God doesn’t look at us and see inputs and outputs. God doesn’t ascribe worth to us based on what we do or don’t do. There’s nothing we can do to change God’s opinion of us. God looks at us and sees hungry, thirsty people in need of a banquet feast of love and mercy and forgiveness - in need of a place of shelter and respite - people who are loved and worthy simply for existing.
 
This is why I love the shift away from a productivity mindset and towards a fruitfulness one. With productivity, there’s an implication that what you put out is worth more than what you put in - that there’s a constant optimization process where variables are tightly controlled for maximum gain. Efficiency, making the best use of time (and only resting when you are burnt out beyond belief). It’s no wonder that there are mountains of books and products and systems designed for time management...why we have human resource departments. Productivity gets us to a place where we only feel worthy if we’ve done something of value. The fig tree in our parable - produces nothing of value.
 
Fruitfulness starts in a different place. Fruitfulness comes as a response to God’s initiative and grace in our lives. It’s not something that can be forced or controlled. Fruitfulness arises out of progress along the journey, of becoming more and more aligned with the heart of God. Fruitfulness springs forth from the seasons of waiting and yearning and is something that shows up authentically within us - we cannot create or manufacture fruitfulness. Fruitfulness comes when we embrace that the very ground of our being is our belovedness and turn our hearts over to the One who invites us to the feast without price.
 
Let go of productivity….cultivate fruitfulness.
 
May we return yet again to Jesus - the Great Gardener - and trust his work in us as we make our way through the rest of this Lenten season...and open our hearts to the fruitfulness that lies in the resurrection life of Easter. Amen.