3/24/19 “With No Promise To Do Better” by Nancy Petty

Text: Luke 13:1-9

I was fired from the first job I ever had. I was 16 years old. It is not as bad as it sounds so let me explain. Do you remember those plastic cup holders that would hang on your car door so you would have somewhere to put your can of cola? I don’t think they had Starbucks back then so it really was for your Coke or your gas station cup of coffee. It was designed so that a little lip would fit between the window and the doorframe. Remember those? In addition to the cup holders there were also these plastic trays that would fit across the hump in floor of the car between the front seats. It was a square plastic box that had a place for two cups to sit in, along with a little compartment for Kleenex and other important things one might need handy while in the car. Now these things are built into the design of our cars. But way back when, these conveniences were accessories for our cars. Well, my uncle Jack owned the machine that made those car accessories and the plant that produced and distributed them. And thus, my very first job ever was working on the assembly line at his plant.

My job was this: as the items would roll off the assembly line, I was one of several workers that would collect them, stack them in a specific manner, and then put them in a box for distribution. The cup holders and in between the seat organizer would come out of the molding machine, still warm from the heat that shaped them, onto a conveyer belt where we stood ready for stacking and boxing. One of the necessary skills needed for this job was that you had to be fast. You couldn’t think, you just had to act. And it helped if you didn’t have a high need to converse with your co-workers or daydream about what you might do after work thus getting distracted while packing the boxes. Well, as you can imagine, at 16 I wasn’t all that fast when it came to keeping up on an assembly/production line. And as now, I had a high need to converse with my co-workers. And lord knows, every 16-year-old spends a lot of time daydreaming and being distracted. I felt like Lucy and Ethel when they tried to work on the production line of the chocolate factory. Do you remember that episode? They couldn’t keep up with boxing the candy as it came down the production line so they started trying to eat what they couldn’t get into the boxes. It was a disaster. And so was I, a disaster, trying to stack and box those little plastic cup holders.

After the first week, and I’m sure many complaints from my co-workers to my uncle Jack, he came to me and suggested he had some other work he really needed me to do. And this work was at his home, not at his business. As you can tell, that experience has stayed with me. And while I obviously recovered from the disappointment of being fired, what has stayed with me is that feeling of not being able to do better at that job – of not being able to produce what was expected. I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t produce the number of boxes of plastic cup holders that was required to be successful at the job at the end of each day. Not only could I not produce what was necessary, I was interfering with the other workers who were trying to do their job. I was holding them back from producing what they needed.

I was like the fig tree in Luke’s parable: I couldn’t produce, wasn’t producing what was expected. And besides that, I was taking up space – wasting the soil – that someone else could have occupied who could produce. And so at 16 I was fired, cut down for not producing what was expected.

We live in a world where there are great expectations to produce: something, anything. In the business world there is actually a whole field of study called production orientation. In production orientation, focus is on the methodology for increasing the output rather than the needs of the customers. It’s all about how much of a certain product a company can produce to get to the market. But it’s not just businesses that expect a certain level of producing. If you are a teacher you are expected to produce: produce the highest number of students that can pass standardize tests to get your school a blue ribbon or get, if you are lucky, a 1% pay increase. If you teach at a university, you are expected to produce: scholarly articles and ground-breaking research that will win your institution acclaim. If you work in a church, you are expected to produce: new members, pledged budgets, newsletter articles, sermons, programs that draw in the masses. If you are a student you are expected to produce: good grades, extra-circular accomplishments. Well, you get my point. There are all kinds of expectations placed on us to produce – to produce whatever is comparable to the sweet tasting ripened figs.

Which brings me to this parable of the fig tree. “Now, a quick warning: we tend to read this parable allegorically, assuming that the landowner is God and the gardener Jesus. But nowhere in Luke do we find a picture of an angry, vindictive God that needs to be placated by a friendly Jesus. Rather, Jesus portrays God as a [loving parent] who scans the horizon day in and day out waiting for the wayward son to come home and as a woman who after sweeping her house all night looking for a lost coin throws a party costing even more than the coin is worth to celebrate that she found it. Luke’s Gospel overflows with the conviction that “there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Given Luke’s consistent picture of God’s [mercy and grace], then perhaps the landowner is representative of our own sense of how the world should work. That is, from very early on, we want things to be “fair” and we define “fair” as receiving rewards for doing good [for producing] and punishment for [whatever the opposite of good is, non-producing]…[But] what if perhaps, [as I want to suggest this morning] the gardener is God, the one who consistently raises a contrary voice to suggest that the ultimate answer [isn’t about being able to produce what someone else expects us to produce] – not even in the name of justice – but rather [the ultimate answer is] mercy, reconciliation, and new life.”

Yes, I am suggesting that the spiritual life can be about lying fallow, not producing, even wasting the soil. I am suggesting that the spiritual life is about letting go of the shame and guilt of not producing what is expected and simply trusting that you are enough without any promise to do better. I am suggesting that the spiritual life is knowing that your value to God is not determined by your mastery (the fruit you produce) but by God’s compassion. God’s acceptance does not depend on you being good or even doing good. You are precious to God just as you are this very moment. Your goodly/godly inheritance includes being welcomed home without reservation. The spiritual life is understanding that with no need to produce anything there is a ring and a robe and sandals waiting for you, as well as a fatted calf and party. You are that valued, that cherished, that welcomed. You can waste the soil and God still rejoices in you and in your creation. Barren of fruit, you are still God’s beloved.

The prophet Isaiah says it this way:
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.

For someone like me, this is a hard message to hear. I will confess such grace, such mercy is hard for me to understand. I have lived most of my life trying to earn God’s love and acceptance. I have spent a good portion of my life trying to deserve God’s love and acceptance. Letting go of the idea of God as the landowner who is ready to chop down whatever doesn’t produce is hard work for me. To be willing to be the tree that for a time “wastes the soil” is almost beyond my comprehension. And yet, I believe with all my heart that God’s love is not conditional on what I do or don’t do. God’s love is grace and it is freely given with no need of promise to be better.

Now, let me issue a last warning: if your work – your boss – expects you to produce something at the end of the day, it’s not going to go over well if you tell your boss that your pastor said you don’t have to produce anything. What happened to me with my first job will happen to you if you chose that approach. That’s life. It is the world we live in. If I showed up Sunday after Sunday without a sermon, well…some of you might appreciate that. Youth, you must do your homework. Sarah, you will need to keep on publishing those scholarly papers and books. Rob, you will need to keep writing those articles about the NC General Assembly to shine a light on all their shenanigans. You, teachers, will need to produce those lesson plans for the coming week and the lawyers in the room will need to produce those briefs needed by the court.

But none of that, hear me clearly, none of that matters when it comes to how valued or important or loved you are by God. As Robert McMillan said last week, God loves you already from the day you were born. Whatever you do with that love is in gratitude and appreciation for that life and love that has already been bestowed upon you. We are all fig trees. But God is not the landowner of the world advocating for us to be chopped down if we are not producing the fruit the world is expecting of us. No, God is the gardener saying give me more time to tend to this person, to nurture him, to nurture her – to let them keep growing.

So hear this. There is no price to pay. There is no quota for goodness. You can’t earn God’s love, and you can’t lose it. If there is an angry, demanding voice in your head that says you are not enough, and heaven knows there is one in my head, then I am here to tell you that voice is not God’s! That demanding voice is a product of our childhood, of our culture, of our collective sin of worshipping supply and demand, but it is not God’s voice. Can you believe me? Can you summon the courage to recognize that God’s voice is the soft, gentle voice saying, give her more time, give him more nurturing, give us more care? Can you summon the courage to know that no matter how much good you produce in the world, God loves you no more and no less than those of us who take years to figure out what, if any fruit we might bear. You cannot be fired from this job as a beloved child of God.

O let all who thirst, let them come to the water.
And let all who have nothing, let them come to the Lord:
Without money, without price,
Why should you pay the price, except for the Lord?