Ornamental Fruit

RCL Year A  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented
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After Bekkah and I had been living in our home here in Kingman for a few weeks, she noticed that one of the trees that we had in our backyard had some fruit on it. Now we’re not totally oblivious to our trees. We have figured out most of them before that and the tree with the fruit looked like a tall bush that hadn’t been trimmed in a while, so we didn’t even bother to see if it was one of the several fruit trees that we have. Well it turns out that this ‘bush’ wasn’t a regular bush but it was a pomegranate. I’ve never owned a pomegranate before so I didn’t realize that’s what kind of plant it was, but as soon as we realized that it was a pomegranate I looked for how it was watered and noticed that it had no water going to it. I grabbed one of the hoses and dragged it to the tree and started watering it. Some of the fruit had been pecked at by birds, some were dried out and cracked, and others were small, so my hope was that by watering the tree it would produce large delicious pomegranates. I love them and so I was really hoping they would soak in the water and survive this season.
In my excitement for having delicious pomegranates I started looking them up online and examining color and size and trying to figure out how mature the tree might be, etc. In my research I soon discovered there are different varieties of pomegranate tree, which was a small surprise but there are so many varieties of oranges, lemons, and avocados that it made sense to me that there would be different varieties of pomegranates as well. I also quickly discovered that one variety of pomegranate is an ornamental pomegranate. I took my iPad over to the tree and with a website open on it that showed comparisons between a standard pomegranate tree and an ornamental one I started examining our tree.
My heart sank as the evidence became irrefutable that my wonderful pomegranate tree was in fact an ornamental one. I was devastated at the discovery. I ignored the tree for a while but a week or two later one of the fruits looked like it was fully grown and I convinced myself to pick it and crack it open to see what the fruit looked like inside. That little bit of hope inside me at the possibility that I and the internet were wrong quickly faded away as I stared at the fruit and all I saw was white staring back at me not the beautiful deep red that you normally see when you open one up. I was either an optimist at that moment or a glutton for punishment because I pried a few pieces out and popped them into my mouth. I had done my research and the fruit is edible it’s just described as not being very flavorful, so I wasn’t endangering myself physically. Emotionally though, I dug a deep wound. The fruit didn’t taste bad, but it also didn’t taste good. I took the pomegranate and threw it into the garbage and I haven’t looked twice at the tree in the backyard.
What is the point of an ornamental fruit tree? Why would I spend time and effort taking care of a fruit tree that doesn’t produce fruit that you want to eat? Isn’t that the point of fruit? To eat it? I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that tree, there’s still part of me that hopes that maybe next year with enough care and water it will turn into a fruit bearing tree. Wishful thinking, I know.
Jesus is still in the temple teaching the crowds as well as the chief priests and elders by talking to all of them in parables. While what he has been saying the last few weeks have been directed at the leadership of the temple, his teachings are for everyone to hear and take to heart what he has to say. As you might have guessed Jesus uses a great deal of imagery about a vineyard, and this week we have the image of a landowner who leases his vineyard out to some tenants to care for and harvest the grapes. This landowner put a lot of time and effort into getting this vineyard and the land ready for the tenants. He (and possibly his family and slaves) planted the entire vineyard, they put a fence around it to protect it, he bought and put in place the wine press so that they could make wine out of the wine grapes, and he even built a watchtower so that they could be ready for any kind of potential threat from man, animal, or nature. This landowner truly cared about what he provided for the tenants that leased this vineyard from him. He wanted his tenants to succeed in their endeavor to grow the grapes and produce probably both table grapes and definitely wine grapes to make wine. He wanted them to produce good fruit.
The problem is that the tenants are completely the wrong kind of tenants you want to have leasing your land. I’ve heard stories of some bad tenants from people I know but this story has got to take the cake. Now we don’t know if the landowner took the whole harvest or part of the harvest or what was his due, but the tenants not only refuse to listen to the slaves sent to bring back what was owed the landowner, but they were beaten, outright killed, and stoned which most likely lead to death. Then they did it again to another set of slaves and finally they kicked the landowner’s own son out of the land and once he had been kicked out he was then killed also. The thought behind killing the son was perhaps the father had died, the original landowner and now they had the chance to kill the son and inherit this vineyard as their own. The parable officially stops there, but the chief priests and the elders finish the parable by answering Jesus question about what will happen to the tenants when the landowner comes. The answer and complete the parable by telling Jesus that the owner and father will kill them all and put up new tenants in his vineyard.
Why will the owner do this? Because they have produced no fruit. The tenants are so focused on being selfish about what they get that they don’t care about what others think or what their actions might do to affect others. They are selfish and fruitless. They are ornamental fruit. They do the work that was asked of them but when they are asked to actually be productive and do what was asked of them they stand around looking pretty but are unable to do anything that is meaningful or helpful. In fact, they are the exact opposite. They are counterproductive and they produce bitter fruit.
The fruits that the chief priests and all the leaders at that time were so busy being selfish and looking ornamental that they kept rejecting the Son that the Father had sent. God had sent Jesus and they were still continually rejecting him, and as we know he will be kicked out of the vineyard, Jerusalem, and then he will be taken up and killed. Jesus is not only telling them that they are ornamental and fruitless, but he is also foretelling of the way in which he will die.
Ornamental fruit is useless and that pomegranate tree in my backyard really frustrates me, especially because I thought it would produce good fruit. The whole point of fruit is for someone or something else to enjoy it. The only benefit a fruit tree gets out of producing fruit is being able to spread it’s seeds. The fruit tree doesn’t benefit from the nutrients or the sustenance that the fruit provides us or other animals. The fruit itself is a selfless act it is there for the sake of others to live and thrive off of. That is the point of fruit bearing. This parable Jesus tells is here to teach us to be good fruit that is available to benefit and help others. To nurture and care for others. Good fruit cares for not itself but for giving life outside of itself.
We are all called to bear good fruit, tasty fruit. We are called to welcome Christ into our lives to be that good soil that helps us and guides us to bear good fruit and the purpose, again, of good fruit is to be shared with others. Our faith, our fruit, is meant to to benefit not just ourselves, but it is meant to be shared so others may see what made this good fruit and so that they too may move from being ornamental to good fruit.
We have Christ in our lives. We have heard his calling and we welcome him into our lives. May we be so bold as to share that good news, may we share the fruits of the kingdom. God has already spread upon us every good thing we need in this life. We have been blessed, we have been loved, we have been promised everlasting life with him in heaven. Spread those seeds, share that good news, live that out because that it what good fruit does. Be the fruit, be the tenant that is welcoming and loving, just as you have been welcomed and loved. Live out the fruits of the spirit and be a blessing a a fruitful follower of Christ.
Amen.
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