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	March 2004
		A Quick Word by Paul Grayston
			How will it end? Luke 13.6-9 Do you prefer a happy ending or a sad ending; a comedy or a tragedy? In Jesus' parable about a fig tree we get to choose which way the story ends. It's a story about a certain fig tree growing in a vineyard. For three years the owner looks for figs. Finding none, he instructs that the fig tree be cut down, but his foreman speaks up on behalf of the hapless tree and argues for a one-year reprieve, that he might, as the King James picturesquely puts it, 'dig about it and dung it'. End of parable; or rather 'open-end' of parable, for we are left to guess the fate of the fig tree. Will the owner give it another year? If so, will it bear fruit or not? Will it live or be cut down? If the vineyard stands for Israel, then the fig tree which looms over the grapevines represents the leaders and rulers set over the people. It is the Sadducees, teachers of the law, kings and rulers in Israel who are found wanting and threatened with destruction if they will not turn to God. Crowd-pleaser Wouldn't it be nice if we left the story there, with those nasty people. Wouldn't it be nice if it were only aimed at all the high-and-mighty 'fig tree' leaders, who fail the Lord God and reject the Beloved Son he sends, like the wicked tenants in yet another vineyard parable. They surely deserve all that's coming to them! Jesus' parable must have been a crowd-pleaser. That is until those who heard it went away and reflected that maybe Jesus' commands to produce fruit, and John the Baptist's warning about 'the axe at the root of the tree' (Luke 3:9) applied just as much to them as to their leaders. What will happen? It would be nice if the fig tree story were only about far-off and long-ago Jewish leaders, and could not be applied to ourselves, or our Anglican Church, or to our parish, or our own life and ministry. It would be so much easier if we were not directed to 'bear much fruit' (John 15), and if our Prayer Book did not compel us to pray, 'May your word live in us and bear much fruit for your glory', and if we could be quietly left out of the story. Will the fig tree bloom and bear fruit at last, or will it, even after its reprieve, finally have to be cut down? The story is left unfinished, just as our story is still unfinished. Are we fruitful? Will we be fruitful? Will I? How will the Parable of the Fig Tree end, happily or tragically? We are all free to decide.