He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.'"

So he said to the man working the vineyard, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?'

"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.

Luke 13:6-9

We Are the Hands and Feet

by Jeremy Demarest

You might read this passage and think, “Wow, this is a tough one… does 'God want to cut me down' like Johnny Cash says?”

I’ll start by saying, no, God does not want to cut you down. God is a God of love who wants great things for you, wants you to thrive.

To me this passage is a story, first and foremost--a story in which God is saying, “I planted you, and yet you have not come behind me to tend to what I have planted, you’ve got to work with me on this.”

And even then, in this story the tree is given another chance, given grace to grow. However, unlike in this story, our God gives us infinite chances, grace upon grace.

God created us, and wants good things for us, but that comes about with some effort on our part. It’s not a one way street; it’s a relationship that must be tended to.

At a previous church where I worked, we had a statue of Jesus, and along this statue's life, one of the hands broke off. It became a beautiful saying at that church: God is there, but we must be his hands and feet to go out and do good work in the world.

To me that saying sums up this passage. God is there, and God created us, but we play a part in how we grow. We must be the hands and feet of God in this world.