Confession Confession

How to do Lent, part twotwo:: CONFESSION : a sermon praught by the Rev’d Dr Richard Major in the church of St Mary, Staten Island, New York, at the Sung Mass and Baptism for the Third Sunday of Lent, 11th March, 2007. © Richard Major 2007 [email protected] [email protected] www.stmarysi.com Exodus iii 1-15 ; Psalm ciii 1-11 ; I Corinthians x 1-13 ; Luke xiii 1-9. From the Gospel: TTThisThis year … I shall dig about it, and dung itit.... In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost: Amen. 2. LENT III 11 th March 2007 The Holy Gospel HERE WERE PRESENT at that season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And JESUS answering said unto them, Suppose T ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. He spake also this parable; A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? And he answering said unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. James Tissot, The Gardener and the Fig Tree (1886-96). Confession 3. OU THINK YOU have a hard time of things? Ha! you ought to try being a fig tree for a while. Y Now there’s a tough life. Let me tell you about the biology of figs. A fig tree’s one job is to produce fertile figs. But that’s not nearly as easy as it sounds. The only way that a fig can do it is if a teensy little wasp creeps into the flower of the fig-tree through a tiny wee opening at its bottom. It has to be not just any old wasp, but a female fig-wasp; and not just that, it has exactly the right species of fig-wasp. Each species of fig will only work with one species of wasp. If all these conditions are met, and if the wasp is also pregnant, she crawls in – and even then things aren’t easy. Her wings tear off, most of her antennæ snap off, and she dies; but her life has been a success. She has perpetuated both species, tree and insect: she has deposited her eggs, and at the same time shed the pollen she picked up from her previous home, another fig on another tree far away. The flower is now pollinated, and can develop into the fruit, the fig itself: purple, full of seeds, luscious. Lots of naughty parasitic wasps also close in to lay their eggs in it, but that hardly matters, for the fig is now fertile. Just before it’s quite ripe, its skin toughens up, and nothing else gets in. Summer comes: all the good wasp eggs hatch, and out come the larvæ – tiny little blind wingless males, and females, which look much like any other minute insects. They mate; one of the males digs a tunnel out of the fruit. The males, who have no wings or innards or anything else, then all die, but the females escape, and fly away to start the miracle again. This is amazing stuff – and I’m not making it up, you know. It’s all Gospel truth. 4. LENT III 11 th March 2007 HE STRANGE LIFE -CYCLE of the fig and the wasp make them so dependent on each other T they’re virtually one life-form. So figs are not vegetarian food: I mean that most fig-wasps live and die within figs, and every ripe fig is crammed with tiny dead wasps by the score, and thousands of eggs. Its those wasps that give fresh figs their pleasantly crunchy texture, and make them so deliciously full of animal protein. Americans and Englishmen don’t eat many fresh figs, but they love them mushed up into fig-paste and baked in a pastry casing – what are called fig newtons in this country, fig-rolls in England. The Food and Drug Administration, bless it, permits every pound of fig-paste to contain up to 6000 insects; so you could almost regard a fig newton as a slice of wasp pâté . Whether this makes you more inclined to eat fig newtons, or less, is a matter of sensibility. Anyway, that’s by the by. The aspect of figs I want to talk about is not their meatiness, but the aspect Christ dwelt on in this morning’s Gospel: their unreliability. Because of their complicated life cycle – their total dependence on another species – figs are notoriously hard to cultivate. It’s easy to get a fig-tree to grow; it’s murderously difficult to get one to produce decent fruit. No one can control what wild wasps get up to, so no one can depend on figs. It’s the most recalcitrant and unpredictable of fruit-trees. And for that reason, the Bible talks about figs and fig-trees a lot, culminating with today’s Gospel. Of course the ancient Hebrews were great connoisseurs of figs: proverbially, a man who holds a newly ripe fig in his hand can’t help gobbling it up at once; he is smitten by its glorious beauty, … the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up. Equally, none of Jeremiah’s visions is so tremulous with disgust as that moment when the Lord proffers him very naughty figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad .1 But it wasn’t just that the Hebrews liked literally eating the things. They also liked them as metaphors. The fig-tree is a perfect image for mankind – for God’s unreliable children. God looks after us as carefully as He can, and He wants us, He expects us, to produce fruit – that is, the delightful things we were created to produce: love, joy, courage, kindness, faith, self-control, patience. Do we produce these things? Yes, on occasion; but not reliably, not predictably. If you plant an apple tree you get apples; if you plant a fig-tree you get nothing, perhaps. When God created the stars He got light, when He created the birds He got swiftness and song, When He created the mountains He got strength. He created us and He gets nothing, sometimes: no faith, no joy, no love, no self-control. 1 Isaiah xxviii 4; cf. Hosea (ix 10 ) and Nahum (iii 12 ). Jeremiah xxiv 2. Confession 5. That’s the point when the Bible compares humanity to fig-trees. The House of Israel is a fig-tree which simply won’t produce what it was made to produce. That’s why Christ carefully goes through the rigmarole of cursing a fig tree during Holy Week. I won’t have time to explain that Gospel during Holy Week, when we’ll be so busy thinking about many other things: which is why I mention it now. 2 And in today’s Gospel, Christ takes up the old familiar metaphor about humanity and fig-trees. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon, and found none. – surprise, surprise. We know why that is: the right wasp wasn’t in the right hole at the right moment, so the fruit dropped off when it was only a third grown.3 But this man isn’t bothered about wasps, simply loses his temper, as fig-tree-owners must often lose their tempers: he calls his head gardener and bawls: Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? This must also happen an awful lot: you get weary, July after July, of looking for fruit on your tree, and finding nothing but coarse leaves. In the end you simply want the beastly futile thing chopped down and burned. But the head gardener is a sensible, patient fellow, as head gardeners are, and soothes his angry master. Oh sir, he says , let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it, and dung it: And if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. Sometimes the New Testament is simply more subtle than the Old. In today’s Lesson Moses’ attention is captured, our attention is captured, by the spectacle of a bush, way out in the backside of the desert, roaring away in flames, and yet unconsumed: an uncreated Voice roars out of the fire; Moses groans and covers his face. No one could call this a delicate revelation. But in this morning’s Gospel Christ makes the slightest, most elegant little nod toward something His disciples saw by the side of the road every few minutes as they walked along, talking to Him: something so common it must have been virtually invisible to them, as a leafless trees are, at this season, virtually invisible to us.

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