Second Chances

Gospel: Luke 13: 1-9

An orchard farmer has a lot at stake in the outcome of one of her trees.  To have a tree not bear fruit is a loss of production, but it also means time and space wasted.  Making the decision to cut down an unproductive tree is one the farmer does not really want to make, for it means replacing it with a new tree that will take even longer to come of age and bear fruit for her.  So the orchard farmer will try anything to help that unproductive tree to bear fruit.

Such is the image of God that Jesus gives us in this parable.  Each of us is a tree in God's orchard, and it is our task to bear fruit with lives of mercy and loving kindness.  When we fail to do so, God's first reaction is not to cut us down and throw us away.  It is to continue to provide us the nourishment we need to bear fruit.  That is also God's second reaction, and third, and fourth.  God will continue to be present to us, working with us, until our dying breath.

For our part, we must consider our response to God's continual love for us, and we must consider how it is that we deal with other human beings.  Do we regard other people as expendable, deplorable, illegal, unredeemable, executable, deportable?  Or do we see people as children of God, an image of Christ, a temple of the Holy Spirit - full of potential, worthy of love - just as God sees them, just as God sees us?  Let that be our reflection point today.