Meet me in the vineyard

"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘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?’” (Luke 13:6-7, NRSVUE)

As an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church, I occasionally encounter someone who doesn’t really think that religion in general, and scripture in particular are really very relevant in these modern times. I hear things like, “These books were all l written to an ancient tribal culture that has very little to do with the problems we face today.”

Sometimes I’ll hear, “Every society in the bible was an agrarian (farming) culture. The modern industrial and post industrial problems we face today have very little in common with theirs.”

Just for the record, I disagree. The ways people make a living have changed, but PEOPLE are very much the same, and the problems that concern them are just variations on the same problems that have always plagued humanity. Take the short passage above for instance.

It is unnecessary to research the care and nurture of fig trees to find something that applies to today’s world. Because the important point of this story isn’t about fig trees, it’s about people.

I have worked all l over the world in a variety of different jobs. Usually I have had people who worked for me, but I have ALWAYS had someone, sometimes several someones, that expected me to do what they said. Without exception the worst bosses were those that simply issued orders that they expected to be carried out without discussion. And the best ones were the bosses that spent the time to develop good working relationships with their workers and welcomed their input.

I’ve worked for both, and I’ve been both and relationships are the key to satisfaction in every instance and at every level.

The owner of the vineyard obviously loved figs. Why else would he have planted the tree? He just wanted some delicious figs and was tired of waiting. Owning a vineyard doesn’t necessarily make you an expert in growing things though. The worker had been working in that vineyard for many years, and just as importantly, he had been working for the owner for even longer.

While the text doesn’t say what the outcome of their conversation was, I like to think that the owner and the worker had a mutual respect that comes with many years of working together. You know, you can always cut a tree down, but then you’ll never learn what that tree might have become.