A Place at the Table

Please pray with me. Living God, help us to hear

your holy word that we may truly understand.

And understanding, believe. And believing, follow

in all faithfulness and obedience, not only in

words, but in deeds that reflect your kingdom.

Amen. Our gospel lesson this morning is taken

from the Gospel of Mark, the 11th chapter, beginning

with the 12th verse. I invite you to hear God's

word for you. On the following day, when they

came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the

distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether

perhaps he would find anything on it. When he

came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for

it was not the season for figs. He said to it,

May no one ever eat fruit from you again. And

his disciples heard it. Then they came to Jerusalem,

and he entered the temple and began to drive

out those who were selling and those who were

buying in the temple. And he overturned the tables

of the money changers and the seats of those

who sold doves. And he would not allow anyone

to carry anything through the temple. He was

teaching and saying, And when the chief priests

and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for

a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him,

because the whole crowd was spellbound by his

teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his

disciples went out of the city. In the morning,

as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered

away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and

said to him, Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you

cursed has withered. Jesus answered them, Have

faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to

this mountain, Be shaken up and thrown into the

sea, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but

believe what you say will come to pass, It will

be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you

ask for in prayer, believe that you have received

it and it will be yours. Whenever you stand praying,

forgive. If you have anything against anyone,

so that your Father in heaven may also forgive

you your trespasses. This is the word of the

Lord. Well, today we are concluding our series

on the miracles of Jesus with the miracle of

the fig tree. This one is unique. It's the only

miracle where Jesus performs a miracle of destruction.

It's an odd one, isn't it? Jesus getting mad

and taking it out on a tree. It also happens

to be Craig's favorite miracle story, so he says.

Craig, this sermon is with special thanks to

you and, of course, to the rest of our worship

team, Bill and Taylor and Leslie and Bryant and

I get together every week to talk about upcoming

services. And this one, when we were talking

about the last of the miracle stories, I felt

encouraged to take this one on. So what they

didn't know is that I had an ulterior motive.

I actually do have a fig tree that doesn't bear

fruit. I've gotten quite cranky about it to the

extreme that tomorrow I'm having it cut down

on Labor Day. It's true. We installed the tree

in 2021. Year one, no figs. The person who installed

it chalked it up to it not having its root system

fully whatever happens to root systems. Okay,

year two, still no luck. Mind you, it was a large,

mature tree when it was planted. Huge root system.

No problem getting established. Year 2 .5, I

had it transplanted. I moved it from one location

to another in our yard where I believed that

it would thrive. Year 3, we went back to the

root system excuse. followed up with some thoughts

about birds and squirrels, and so I put a net

over it, you know, the kind you get from Amazon

to protect it from anything that might attack

all the fruit that you really think you're going

to get, but you're not ever going to get. No

luck. Now, according to the Gospel of Luke, where

there's another story about a fig tree not bearing

fruit, Jesus tells us to try a little harder,

forgive a little more, for at least one more

year. So I did one more year from last to this.

This is the fourth year of my sad fig tree, full

of lovely foliage all summer long and little

tiny nubs of nothing. I'm calling it quits. If

anybody wants to dig it up before the kid across

the street comes and hacks it down, you are welcome

to come over. I mean it. It's not unfair of me.

to expect figs in their season. Ecclesiastes

assures us that there's a season and a purpose

for everything under heaven, a time for this,

a time for that, a time for figs, especially

when they're due. For my tree, the time is up,

and I firmly believe that Jesus would agree.

Jesus has a documented problem with fruitlessness

in season and season out. He hoped, that by the

time he was reaching his final days, that people

would understand that. To punctuate his point,

he did away with a fig tree that was fruitless.

This morning, we're going to talk a little bit

about what it means to be fruitful as a Christian.

To be fruitful as a Christian is our job. It's

what we're supposed to do. It's a full -time,

full -on responsibility. It's defined in so many

ways throughout Scripture. In Paul's letter to

the Galatians, he says that it's love, it's to

show joy, it's to have patience, to be kind,

to be faithful, to be gentle, to have self -control.

How are you working on those things? I fall short

a whole lot of the time, but that's our job.

Paul wrote that these gifts are given to us,

these fruits are given to us by the Holy Spirit,

born out of a life of prayer, truly believing

that God will respond to our prayers, not just

offering them out because we feel like it's the

time of the day or night to do so, but truly

having conviction that our prayers matter. These

fruits are sealed by our lives and service that

strives to make progress toward justice and righteousness

that Jesus intends for all people. There can

be nothing seasonal about it. So that when Jesus

looks upon you in whatever season of your life,

Jesus will say, well done. Labor Day is another

theme for this weekend. The worship team challenged

me to figure out a way to incorporate it, saying

it just can't be done, right? There are too many

services that we try to incorporate a secular

holiday, but this has been a national legal holiday

since 1898. Labor Day is to honor workers and

a worker's right to a fair workday and fair wages.

There was a woman who was born a few years after

the first Labor Day. Her name was Dorothy Day.

She was born in 1897 in Brooklyn. Throughout

her years, she lamented the depth of financial

desperation in the United States and worked hard

throughout the Great Depression to ameliorate

the plight of the poor. In 1932, she was covering

a hunger march in Washington, D .C. for some

Catholic magazines. While she was there, She

prayed that some way would open up for her to

even more strongly serve the poor and the unemployed.

Check this. The very next day, she met a guy

named Peter Morin who had a vision for a society

constructed of gospel values. They became soulmates.

They founded a publication called The Catholic

Worker and a movement of hospitality, houses,

and farming communes that spread throughout the

United States and even to other countries. Together,

they bore fruit that lasts to this day. The publication

is still put out there seven times a year. There

are still families of faith that live together

in the way that they conceived. Seth Godin, the

world -renowned author of all things motivating

and marketing and high -tech and good about business,

says that we are marketing our story, what we

support, who we are, with every step we take

down the sidewalk and every glance we make in

another person's direction, every season of our

lives, how we carry ourselves. what we write

in our blog, the choices we make, the things

that fly out of our mouths, all of those things

tell a story of who we are, what we know, what

we believe in. We live in a connectional world

in which people find value in the stories that

they find. They find value in things that resonate

with them. So the question that we need to ask

ourselves is what kind of story are we putting

out in the world? What kind of world are we perpetuating

with the stories that we communicate with our

actions and our voices and our affect? Is it

a story of humility? Is it a story of love? Is

it a story of bounty and generosity? Is it a

story of kindness? Is it a story that sparkles

like the children's shoes? Is it a story of self

-control? Is it a story, dear church, that communicates

that we care? Ultimately, we want our story to

be one that others can believe in, particularly

if we're wearing the cross of Jesus Christ. It's

the stories that we're putting out in the ordinary

moments of life that help people see the reflection

of Christ in your life, the Christ who is present

with us again and again, desiring to bind up

the brokenness, the woundedness of the world.

Ask yourself every morning that you look in the

mirror, is your story bearing fruit? At the end

of his journey, Jesus was all but fed up with

image builders. He was fed up with beautiful

trees that have lovely leaves far off in the

distance. He was fed up with profiteers, false

prophets. He was downright visibly disgusted

by the faithlessness of his day. He sure wished

he could see not only a tree bearing fruit on

and off season, He wanted to see people bearing

the fruit of the life that he was trying to share

with them. He demanded that we be faithful stewards

of his good news, of his good news of justice

and righteousness and peace day in and day out

through today. He's counting on us to break into

the difficult moments at hand, to be his fruitful

presence in the world, to address the needs of

humanity and strengthen the church together.

It felt like such a simple message that I decided

to peel away all of the extra parts and just

hit it straight on with you. Let it sink in.

Challenge your heart today. Ask yourself if the

way that you are living all the time, not just

when you want something especially good, is the

way that you're living less than fruitful. Does

your lack of fruitfulness... Particularly if

you have a bumper sticker on your car about your

church or a cross around your neck or you're

proclaiming something special at a special moment,

does your lack of fruitfulness, especially if

you're proclaiming Jesus with your words, keep

people away from the table that Jesus has so

bountifully set for the world? Remember, All

of our beings are a walking story of our lives.

Jesus calls us to be a walking story of his too.

It might seem like awfully hard work, yet we

know that when we know and believe in what we're

doing as the call of Christ, it will lead us

all to a harvest that's bountiful for all people

without a hint of seasonality. Let us pray. Lord

Jesus, every one of us wants to be fruitful.

We all desire a kind of seamlessness to our experiences

and our relationships in the world with you.

May we not be found fruitless, but alive in faith,

persistent in prayer, and ready to forgive. Make

us trees that bear good fruit for your glory,

so that in all we do, your name is honored and

your will is done. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.