Everyone knows that apathy, not anger, is the opposite of love, though frustrated anger can lead to apathy.

Complacency, not passion, is the opposite of discipleship, though frustrated passion can lead to complacency.

Complacency is the bane of today’s denominational Church.The western, American,denominational church is undergoing, as my colleague Len Sweet puts it, a “reproduction problem.”[1] It is failing to reproduce disciples of Christ who “bear the fruit” of the gospel in the “fields” of God’s global world. When you don’t bear fruit, you can’t produce “seeds” that continue to root and grow. A barren plant in your garden is a plant only taking up space, depleting the soil but not producing viable food. A barren church does essentially the same. Its building takes up space, but it is a non-productive entity, stunted in its ability to reproduce and refusing to feed the world.

This is how Jesus describes Israel in the first century. He’s directing his admonition however particularly at the religious elite, those who are in positions of power and status. The Jerusalem Temple and its influential Priests and Pharisees certainly demanded attention. At the center of Judaism, you couldn’t miss the Temple’s towering facade, but the sprawling structure was essentially barren of spirit. The Jewish people weren’t being fed. The rest of the vineyard was being stunted by the Temple’s nutrient-sucking needs. It was literally sucking the life and means out of many, especially the powerless. God’s covenant was not being organically reproduced in the hearts of its constituents. While the spiritually empty Temple elite enjoyed the succulent perks of money and power, the rest of Israel was denied the rich, spiritual food that it should have been granted, so that it could produce and reproduce. Taking up “space” in God’s “vineyard,” the metaphor Jesus uses for God’s world at large, especially the world of Israel and Judaism, the Temple had become a huge, imposing, but barren edifice, a life-depleting monster.

Now it’s the 21^st century, and it seems, we’ve come full circle. Western Christian denominational discipleship has become stagnant, its roots shriveled, and its soul depleted. Our buildings are still intact, but our disciples are failing to thrive. We are failing to reproduce. What looks like a church and acts like a church, is struggling to survive. As massive denominational structures cling to life, barren of fruit and seed, their churches gasp for Holy Spirit air. The Church is like a golem, big on presence, short on spirit. The Church has lost its passion.

In last week’s scripture, we saw Jesus lamenting for Jerusalem. Now, in our scripture for today, much the way Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorrah, Jesus the Gardener pleads with God for a chance to resuscitate Israel’s stronghold. Despite Jesus’ near constant struggles with Jerusalem’s elite, he loves Jerusalem, loves his Jewish faith, loves the symbol of the Temple, and loves God’s people. But he also knows, ultimately the Temple will fall. For its heart has become barren. And though God in Jesus can overcome barrenness, there must be an eagerness to conceive and a deference before God for healing. At the time, Jerusalem had neither.

Barrenness in the Jewish faith is the worst kind of status to have. Yet refusing to reproduce or multiply is different from an inability to reproduce or multiply. The scriptures are filled with stories of barren women for example, who desperately want to bear children and are unable. Engaging in urgent and persistent prayer, God answers their prayers and grants them children. Even Abraham is promised a plethora of descendants, should he adhere to the covenant that God has provided. Barrenness for those who long for the ability to reproduce is the worst possible fate they can imagine, akin to Sheol (Proverbs 30:16). Yet God has the ability to resurrect barren wombs, lands, and spirits, and to re-create in them a condition of fruitfulness and prolonged life (ie. Deut 7:13, Levit 26:9, Ezek 37, and others).[2]

Even “one bad apple” can be cast out, but a barren tree has nothing at all to offer.

From the beginning of time, God gave us a directive to “bear fruit and multiply” God’s covenant relationship with humankind throughout all generations, to be productive people of God’s beautiful garden vineyard. The more fruit we bear, the more love we seed, and the more people who proclaim God’s presence and glory! (Genesis 1:28). And yet, evil and sin can turn a fruitful land into a “salty waste” per Psalm 107:34.

The message in Jesus’ parable is clear. A plant that doesn’t bear fruit refuses to give life. What does not reproduce creates no future. It is a narcissistic, self-serving, expanding eyesore, thwarting life and thwarting God.

And yet, Jesus begs for one last chance to try to nurture it into a life-giving entity. Those who refuse to recognize him. Even those who want to kill him. For God is a God of not one more but many chances.

Jesus, master of resurrections, wants to try to “fertilize” the barren Tree of Life.

In a sense, Jesus’ parable today is teaching us not only about the dangers of an institution without a soul, but the amazing resurrecting power of a God who responds quickly and surely to faith and intercessory prayer.

Think of Ninevah. In an instant, the people turned to God, put on sackcloth and ashes, repented, and were saved from destruction. In fact, God’s mercy and love is so great, that Jonah was nearly beside himself in anger, because he SO wanted to see them destroyed for what they had done.

Think of Samson, who turned from his vow to God, distracted by the perks of the material world and the beautiful Delilah. In the end, through prayer and recommitment, God came to his aid, and his strength returned.

Think of David, who committed a horrible crime in order to take what did not belong to him. And yet, when he repented, God lauded him as the greatest King Israel had ever had.

The scriptures are filled with people who in a time of repentance and barrenness receive re-constituted hearts by the hand of God. That’s what God’s “salv-ation” healing is all about.

I imagine Jesus must have prayed continually over Jerusalem. And in the end, he could not save them. But he did save many others.

Jesus is our advocate today, just as he was in the days he walked the earth. He is a Creator and Artist of Fertilization. Just as God resurrected people, places, lives, and even Jesus from the dead, God can also re-fertilize your heart with life-sustaining faith and nourishing love, sating your hunger for truth and your need for relationship, so that you too become a healthy, fruitful, life-bearing gift to everyone around you.

A church that is barren has no future. And our churches today are in many cases victims of the soulless sprawling institutions that once gave them life.

But as people of God’s vineyard, we don’t need to be victims of a fig tree without fruit. We ourselves can devote our hearts to God, and in turn, we will receive God’s resurrection gift of fruit-bearing and seed sowing.

For we know from Jesus’ parable of the mustard that once seeding of the gospel begins, nothing can stop its growth and perpetuity, not even a barren fig tree.[3]

Jesus (God) is an artist of fertilization. He creates life from barrenness and fruitfulness from out of wastedness. This is the truth of every one of Jesus’ healings, and the reality of his identity as both Son and Creator.

Today and going forward in this barren time of Lent, may we all pray earnestly for God’s gift of fruitfulness and promise. FJesus has the ability to restore your faith, your hope, and your passion. Resurrection Day is coming. Will you be ready?

[1] Leonard Sweet, From Tablet to Table (Colorado Springs, CO: Tyndale House, 2014).

[2] Note those, such as Sarah, Rachel, Rebekah, Hannah, and others.

[3] The Hebrew word for “barren” means “to uproot or pluck up,” the opposite of “to plant.”