Thy Will Be Done on Earth as It Is In Heaven

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, March 23, 2025
Luke 13:1-9

    A modern-day parable of the fig tree:  a Pastor moved from a small apartment in Chicago to a beautiful parsonage with acres of land in rural Nebraska.  She planted a rhubarb plant that belonged to her grandmother on the side of the house.  She made sure it had the right amount of sunlight and shade, spread fertilizer around it, and watered it.  She knew that it would take about 3 years before it would really produce enough rhubarb to pick and eat, but she was willing to wait.  Unfortunately, along came the church property manager with her herbicide spray to keep weeds from growing around the parsonage.  She had never grown rhubarb and didn’t know that this plant was not a weed.  She began to spray the plant so that it would not bear fruit.  Thankfully, the pastor caught her in time and the plant was saved!  Everyone, including the property manager, enjoyed the rhubarb harvest once it had time to really grow.
    Yes, that pastor was me, and this parable actually happened with a very thorough and overly zealous church property manager who assumed my rhubarb plant was a weed! As we wrestle with our gospel for this morning, wouldn’t it be nice if Jesus’ parables included a decoder alongside them in the gospels? Like in the index, “gardener = Jesus,” “landowner = God’s people,” “fig tree = other people who do not yet have faith.”  That would be nice.  Jesus taught over 30 parables, and just like the disciples, Christians are still wrestling with what they mean.  They often are difficult to understand.  In his parables, Jesus often uses ordinary objects that people were familiar with, but because we are distanced from first century Palestine’s climate and culture, what may have made more sense to early followers of Jesus needs even more explanation for us.  Jesus tells parables to keep having us think about what God’s will and purpose is for our lives as we try to make sense of the world around us and how God is a part of all of it.
    As we look at this fig tree parable today, let’s look at it from the angle that we are the landowners who don’t really understand fig trees – fallible human beings who have the best of intentions but sometimes mess up.  Jesus is the gardener who really knows how to grow things.  A botanist friend of mine clued me in to this interpretation that the landowner doesn’t really know how to grow fig trees by telling me that it doesn’t make sense to grow a fig tree in a vineyard. A vineyard is for growing grapes, not figs.  The fig tree would be like a big misplaced weed taking the nutrients and sunlight the grapes need to grow.  And, very importantly, fig trees do not produce fruit until they are at LEAST 3 years old. It can take up to five years for a fig tree to grow figs, actually – before it’s a fully mature fig tree. Without the correct knowledge about how to grow fig trees, the landowner has the tree planted in the wrong place where it struggles to thrive and then is angry that it is wasting the soil, even though it biologically cannot grow fruit yet.  Jesus, the gardener, asks for time to fertilize the fig tree and care properly for it. He knows about fig trees and what helps them bear fruit. He has the patience that the landowner does not.  
Having insight into this parable, then, what is Jesus trying to teach us about US, not just how to grow a fig tree?  I mentioned at the beginning of worship this morning that we are focusing on “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done” this morning.  Jesus tells this parable after people come to him with a classic question about God’s will.  They refer to a few current “bad news” events:  a tower has fallen and killed eighteen people.  Pilate is persecuting Galileans and mingling their blood with pagan sacrifices.  Why do bad things happen to good people? Or is this a punishment for their sins?  We still ask these questions today.  Jesus calls us to repent for our sins – to turn back to God.  And he annoyingly does not directly answer the question about why bad things happen, instead he tells us this parable.  In turning back to God, however, Jesus calls us to have patience with others, and reminds us of our purpose – to strive to do God’s will and to bear fruit for the kingdom of God.  
    If it were up to the landowner’s will in the parable, the fig tree would not have a chance to bear fruit.  When we try to take matters into our own hands, we make mistakes.  We think we know more than we actually do.  It’s easier for us to see the problem with other people and not look at our own faults and weaknesses.  In our impatience and lack of understanding, we cut people off from growing in God’s mercy.  Perhaps the most difficult portion of the Lord’s prayer for us is this petition:  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”  We would prefer that our will be done, or at least that God’s will might perfectly align with our own.  Like parables, life is messy. We don’t always have clear answers or a clear direction forward.  Wouldn’t it be nice if God gave us more signs like “GO THIS WAY NOT THAT WAY” or “DO THIS NOT THAT?”!  What we can be clear about, however, is that we need to listen to Jesus the expert gardener more than our own thoughts and desires.  We need to recognize that the Lord’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts – his understanding is greater than ours.  And we need to trust that Jesus will help us grow into trees that actually bear fruit.
    Thanks be to God, Jesus is patient and believes that with his nurture, we CAN bear fruit!  Like the landowner, we want to rush things all the time.  We have a particular test done at the doctor’s office and before we have the follow-up visit with the expert, we get on WebMD with the test results from the online portal in medical-ese and figure out our own, usually scary, diagnosis.  We cut people off in traffic because where we need to go is more important than anyone else.  We throw things out rather than trying to fix them because that’s the easier, sadly sometimes cheaper and faster way in our disposable society.  We try to control other people to bend to our timeline and our will, even our own family members, instead of letting God give the growth in their own time.  Jesus’ parable and prayer, “Thy will be done,” encourages us to think of our relationship with God more like a gardener than a genie who can instantly grant us three wishes.  Persistence in prayer is the fertilizer of our faith.  Trusting in God’s will and God’s timing helps us hold on to the promise that we will be fruitful and we will see God’s work in the world, even though it may be longer in coming than we’d like.  The point of our prayer, “Thy will be done,” is not that if you pray for something and it does not happen, you did not have enough faith.  Rather, when you have faith, your prayers tend to be more in line with God’s will and desires.  
So let’s hold on to the image of the growing fig tree.  In prayer, we ask God to help us be fruitful Christians, sharing the Holy Spirit’s gifts of love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity and so on.  While we may not always know what God’s will is, sharing these fruits of the Spirit definitely is.  Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Amen.