The Dead Tree

When we moved into our Marion home 18 months ago, I noted that the two trees in our front yard didn't look very healthy. Both were ash trees about 30 years-old. What should have been good shade trees were now nearly bare branches. Last spring I had hoped to see a change, but sadly, the trees' leaves came and went quickly. Last week, I paid a man $325 to come remove the trees from our front yard. Now, we have no shade.

I've been thinking about those trees and about what happened to them. Trees that grew from little seedlings to 30 feet, only to become sick and die. Trees that were grown to serve a purpose (provide shade to a yard), but became useless after a time.

Is there a spiritual metaphor here? Yep.

Jesus talked about trees often -- the gospel writers all record tree stories. One of these examples is in Luke 13.

Then [Jesus] told this parable: "A man had a fig tree, planted in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it, but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, 'For three years now I've been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven't found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up
the soil?' "'Sir,' the man replied, 'leave it alone for one more year, and I'll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.'"

What was the lesson of Jesus' story? Perhaps the tree represents the religious leaders of his day; men who were planted and mature but were bearing no fruit. These men are of no use to Jesus, and so He commands that they be "cut down," presumably so that another tree could be planted in the same soil and bear more fruit.

That's exactly why I cut my own trees down -- they were no longer producing fruit (in my case shade), and now I will plant another tree in the same soil that has the potential to provide more shade.

In a spiritual sense, do we know any unfruitful trees -- religious people who are taking up space in a church, but are not being very fruitful? Are you and I like that?

Its easy to become complacent, to put our faith on autopilot and just keep doing the same thing week after week, year after year. Our fruit yield diminishes -- maybe dries up completely -- but we don't notice because it happened so gradually.

The Apostle Paul says in Acts 20,

"I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me -- the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."

This is just one of several times that Paul equates our Christian life to a race. Paul recognized the value of running until the race was completed -- being fruitful until the day of his death. We would do well to follow Paul's example and emulate his attitiude that our life means nothing unless we are fruitful to the end.