Mercy for the Fruitless
“Leave [the fruitless tree] alone for one more year, and let me dig around it and put on manure.”
Here we have the Fig Tree Diptych of the Russian-American religious painter, Alexey Pismenny. The left image illustrates the context of the first half of this week’s Gospel passage: in the background are miniatures of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mixed with the sacrifices, and the eighteen men on whom the tower of Siloam fell; while in the foreground, Jesus intercedes for mercy on behalf of the fruitless fig tree, as we read in the parable. Interestingly, Pismenny juxtaposes this episode with another “Jesus and fig tree” story, this one coming from Mark 11 / Mat 21, when Jesus curses the fig tree outside of Jerusalem, symbolic of Jesus’ affirmation of his rejection by the Jewish authorities. The miniatures in the background depict Jesus driving the moneychangers from the temple, and a mountain being removed into the sea.
These things took place as examples for us.
— The Holy Apostle St. Paul (1Cor 10:6)
Third Sunday of Lent
Texts for this Week
Prayer
Heavenly Father, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you: Look with compassion upon the heartfelt desires of your servants, and purify our disordered affections, that we may behold your eternal glory in the face of Christ Jesus; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
Fredrick Faber was one of the Oxford Movement Fathers who swam the Tiber with John Henry Newman. One of the things he brought with him into Romanism is a conviction that all Christians (even Roman Catholics) should sing hymns after the rich tradition of John Newton and Charles Wesley, and this prompted him to take up the pen as a pioneering hymnographer of Roman Catholic hymns in English, almost a full century before Vatican II made it “cool.”
Faber beautifully provokes us to consider the “wideness” of God’s mercy: “the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.” Indeed, for “there is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood.” After Faber’s spirit, generations of hymnals (to say nothing of the churches that produced them) have experimented with just how broad they can push this “wideness.” To be sure, the depth and breadth of the love of God cannot be measured out; but we do well to keep our eyes fixed on its source and center. We know this extraordinary and limitless grace because Jesus died for our sins and it worked!
If you want the hymn rolling around in your ears and your heart, Nate Macy’s contemporary version is built off the tune NETTLETON, most frequently associated with the well-known and well-beloved hymn, Come thou fount of every blessing.
