Fruitlessness and the Fear of God

The last thing I remember, before I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed a dream, was reading Jesus’s parable about the barren fig tree:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, “Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?” And he answered him, “Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” (Luke 13:6–9)

Suddenly, I slid into my dream where I held a staff and traveled a narrow path. For several days I crossed river and road until, famished, I approached a fruit tree. Delighted at the sight of green foliage — God’s advertisement of fruit — I reached my hand among its branches . . . in vain.

I tried another side and another branch: leaves. I made my way around the whole tree, and even climbed it to see whether food dwelled outside the reach of hungry animals like myself. But no. Nothing. Only leaves.

“What a worthless tree,” I mumbled in my disappointment.

“What a worthless fellow,” the tree snapped back.

Fruitless Tree

Unaccustomed to speaking trees, I fell from its crown. The tree’s deep groans escorted me to the ground, as did the branches that fell with me like Lucifer’s angels.

“You can talk!” I exclaimed after I hit the ground, one part amazed, the other part embarrassed.

“You can hear!” barked the tree. “Tell me, is it your usual business to harass innocent strangers and then insult them for their trouble?”

“It is not,” I said, bewildered to be answering a tree. “But my stomach protests with hunger, and you are a fruit tree, after all. Where is your fruit?”

“Young man, my roots drew from this earth decades before you first climbed a branch to steal what you never produced,” the tree said haughtily. “If wisdom did not mention it already, let me now: Speak mindfully to your elders, and don’t presume to ever judge another’s fruit.”

“But do you not see that there is no fruit either to eat or to judge? I simply ask because I care about your soul.”

“Yes, yes, you are the second person to come to me this week — searching for fruit, questioning my profession, dressing your censure as ‘concern for my soul,’” the tree said with an impatient rustle of its leaves. “I will say, at least you did not declare that I ‘use up the ground,’ nor did you threaten to return next year to evaluate my fruit again. Every year this traveler comes judging, inspecting. His companion had to intercede to spare me his hot displeasure. Down with me, according to him, if I fail to meet his satisfaction the next year.”

“Better a wingless bird, a finless fish, or a heightless mountain than a mocking, fruitless fruit tree.”

“Do you not tremble,” I asked, “whether that was the Great Master of the vineyard? Has he no right to come and uproot you if you refuse to live as he has called you? You are his, on his land, owing all to him, no? Furthermore, you are bound, are you not, to be in fact what you profess? If a man be a doctor, he must, in fact, doctor. If he is a Christian, he must walk as Christ did. Better a wingless bird, a finless fish, or a heightless mountain than a mocking, fruitless fruit tree.”

“I do more than is required of me,” declared the tree, “and certainly more than others do. Upright enough, healthy enough, I grow upward to the heavens and color the blue with green leaves. I sound music as the breeze rustles through my many arms. My leaves feed hungry caterpillars below, and my branches shelter birds above. I am plenty useful in my own way. I have no doubt the King will commend me when I address him most affectionately as ‘Lord, Lord’” (Matthew 7:22).

Evergreen Tree

“But a fruit tree ought to be more than a provider for caterpillars,” I protested. “And as far as you doing more than others, I cannot agree with that for a moment. Just along this path I came across a tree by a stream that yielded me fruit in its season (Psalm 1:3), as well as a grapevine in the vineyard offering the most succulent grapes. Both met my need right perfectly.”

“Ah, so young in seasons, yet so old in opinions,” the tree said with a yawn. “Yes, let’s review these two others that you seem so taken with. First, the tree planted down by the river. I’ve heard the accolades of how evergreen it remains, no matter the winter. I will not deny it has borne fruit for many a traveler along the way, such that songs sing of it as ‘blessed’ (Psalm 1:1). So, sure. It can give some idle vagabonds such as yourself a free meal. But have you noticed its terrible isolation? Oh, how horribly it sets itself apart!”

“But doesn’t it set itself apart because it seeks after God, rather than worldly things?” I countered.

“Huh! So it claims, but at what cost?” said the tree. “It refuses most ardently to fraternize with people unlike itself, it rejects counsel that doesn’t meet its lofty standards, and worst of all, it cannot take a joke. Its otherness is so tedious that I, a fruit tree myself, cannot abide its company for very long. And consider how it always is mumbling the Lord’s teaching to itself. Oversaved is my description, since you pushed me to it. It is in this world, but not really of it — and this can hardly be its purpose. Why is it still here if it imagines its native soil to be elsewhere? My motto has ever been, ‘Home is just beneath your trunk.’”

Fruit of the Vine

“And what of those branches yielding fruit of the Vine?” I asked.

“Oh, my dear fellow, you must not know,” said the tree. “To think that anyone would want to be that miserable vine, no matter how much fruit it bore! You must be ignorant of the rumors. Its owner is most watchful and abusive. He walks around with a knife, they say, looking for branches to snip and leaves to cut. He makes it his business to be lopping and hacking and cutting away — who could possibly desire such a life? If ten grapes emerged where one arm or hand or eye was cut off, I for one should never make the exchange (Matthew 5:29–30).”

“But surely,” I interrupted, “you desire to bear good fruit? Surely, as the Master of the orchard comes by, you wish to yield that which is to his pleasure? Could there be any greater honor than for a fruit tree to offer its fruit to the King and the King’s people? He doesn’t need it, of course, but to be who he made you to be — and for that to be enjoyed by the Lord — is that not your very purpose?”

“Ah, now I see you plainly enough: You cannot even pronounce grace,” said the tree. “You worship Moses, with his laws and warnings and foreboding skies. I live under the sunshine of mercy. My overseer does not insist on a holy life and a holy way, for this would be to try to merit our salvation. Thus, your idle concerns do not move me; I am rooted in the opinion that God is not overly scrupulous concerning what you might call repentance, holiness, or good works.”

“But I have heard it said that faith without works is dead,” I said, my distress growing by the minute (James 2:17). “Anyone who does not abide in the Vine is thrown away and withers (John 15:6). We are not saved by our works, it is true. We bear fruit through our abiding in him. But a faith that doesn’t bear fruit? Can that faith save him? (James 2:14).”

“Grieve for me all you like, threaten to wither me, curse me, cut me down — these are the empty threats of the law from which I am most decidedly set free,” the tree said, its leaves quivering in agitation. “I shall not bend my branches to any legal religion. Show yourself your faith by your works all you want to your own boasting, but I shall show you my faith by my faith. I need nothing but leaves; my Master shall bring all that is required. Your cursing and complaining is the voice of the enemy, not that of everlasting mercy.”

Wake Up and Live

I awoke in a cold sweat. What became of the ignorant tree? Did he finally “bear fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8)? Did he get cut down to his utter astonishment? Did he abide in the Lord and grow in holiness and love, or did he end his days presuming on grace, ultimately dying with an empty religion? Did he discover the glory of a useful life in the Lord’s service empowered by grace? Or was he horrified at the Lord’s return?

Reader, let us learn the lesson of Jesus’s parable: Lips of religion are nothing without a heart and life that follow. Joyfully abide in him and go forth bearing fruit, lest he return and find your branches bare.