Dear Faith Family,
One of the few things more dreadful than being lost--directionless and disconnected--is being found wanting--unable to measure up.
The fear of not living up to expectations, especially God's, is the energizing force for many of the activities we undertake and much of what we avoid. Whether we are honest enough to admit it or not, what often fuels our desire to please God is a fear that we don't or won't.
But what if the thing we feared, that indeed our life won't measure up when God comes looking, is ironically the truth of our salvation? What if, rather than trying to avoid or achieve God's expectations for our lives, we abide in them?
I think that is a question Jesus hopes we would ask after listening to his Kingdom-illuminating story about a fruitless fruit tree. So take a minute and read an amplified version of this super short story that fills in some of the cultural and linguistic features we discussed Sunday, and see what you think.
A grape grower had a fig tree planted in his vineyard out of delight and the expectation of enjoyment rather than income. After years of caring for the tree, the master came seeking what the nutrients of his soil and his labor should have enabled the fig tree to become what it was meant to be: a tree with figs! But he found none.
Distraught over missing out on the expected enjoyment of a healthy life in the clearly truncated existence of his precious tree, the lord of the land said to his vinedresser--the one entrusted to ensure the health and wealth of his primary crop--'Behold! These past three seasons, I've come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I've found none. Dig it out! Why should it continue to be a heartbreak if the environment meant to enable its life leads to no life to be found?
Knowing the desire of the vineyard owner, the vinedresser replies in kind, 'Lord! Forgive it this year again. Let me try some rather unconventional gardening methods, digging around it and spreading manure. I'll be responsible for the tree, and if it bears fruit in the future, well and good; but if it remains living but not fully so, you can dig it out.
(Luke 13:6-9)
If, as Jesus implies, the expectation for our lives is to fully live into what we established to be in delight, through the delighted provision of good soil and constant care of another. If, however, as sometimes happens, our lives do not live up to their full expectations, and if in those less-than moments, we feel the heartbreak of life as it should be but isn't, and receive continued, patient, preserving labor for what it still can be. What would we call that? Wouldn't we call that love?
John the Beloved, one of Jesus' closest friends and followers, learned to call his life in God's Kingdom (i.e., "vineyard") just that.
So we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
By this is love perfected in us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [when it's time to measure up to expectations], because as he is so also are we in this world.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected by love.
(1 John 4:16-19)
May you be perfected by God's love this week. Confident in whatever He finds, or doesn't, because "he first loved you...and sent his Son to be the Savior," doing everything possible to ensure that we live up to His expectations.
Love you, faith family!