Part of why we doubt God is the relationship of time and pain. Pain is in fact all about time. When there is no time, there is no pain.

In Luke 13:6-9 the master of the fruitless fruit tree is in pain. He has committed that which he values, the soil, the water, he resources, his attention, to the goal of his desire: fruit. The tree, however, is uncooperative. The tree is not bowing to his will. The obvious answer is the annihilation of the tree. In a conflict between the tree and the master the tree always loses. It may have a woody stem, but it is no match for an iron ax and at least it is good for fuel. The equation is simple. The end result predictable.

As in any good story something interesting occurs. Another one speaks on behalf of the tree, a Lorax of sorts. This Lorax intercedes for the tree. Why? I can think of no other reason that that he loves the tree. The intercessor and the master both seek fruitfulness, but the Lorax has a love for the tree itself, the bark, the angle of the limbs, the leaves, and longs to see it bear fruit.

This is a story of pain. The fruitlessness of the tree causes pain to both the owner and the Lorax and both willingly commit to future pain on behalf of the tree. The master does so in terms of tolerance, forbearance, patience. The Lorax in terms of all those things plus labor. Both commit to travel through time and into pain on behalf of the fruitless tree.

What can we say of the tree? Why does it not bear fruit? A modern farmer might test the soil and seek a mechanistic solution to the problem. In deed the approach taken by the laborer will be practical. He will give it more water. He will fertilize the soil. But we all know this isn’t simply a story about a tree, it is a story about us. The fruitlessness is a troubling mystery for the master and the laborer. The tree SHOULD bear fruit. It is a fig tree, it has soil, it has sun, other trees are doing just fine. There is a problem with THIS tree! The tree should not be incapable of bearing fruit. Does the tree have a will, deciding it wishes to NOT serve the master or to accomplish what all of its genetics have made it capable of accomplishing? Fruitlessness is a mystery, a damnable mystery, an anomaly, and a temporary one.

The master and the laborer both take on pain on behalf of the tree. The tree likely does not understand the pain assumed on its behalf.

We all know that this isn’t simply a story about a tree and a couple of guys hungry for figs. The fig tree is Israel, the people of God and it has not born the fruit it was intended to produce. This way of story telling comes right out of the Old Testament, especially Isaiah 5. It is the story of us as individuals, the story of the people of God through time, and the story of the entire world. The master looked for justice but got bloodshed. He looked for righteousness but got cries of distress. The master sought joy, but got sorrow and there is no one else to blame but the fruitless tree.

We moderns have issues with God. The most common “issue” we have with God is his inaction. Why doesn’t God intervene? Why does God let all of this pain and bloodshed happen? We hear this a lot. Most of us think it too, sometimes a lot.

We have a dual problem though. This issue is reversed so often in our reading of the Old Testament. We read the Bible and we come to two interesting conclusions. First, that all these old stories are just a bunch of hooey because they are filled with God’s intervention. That’s simply ancient, ignorant people talking. People who didn’t have the “enlightened” position we possess to understand that fruit trees always produce fruit if you get the soil right. We certainly know better than they did, the poor unfortunates. We also are angry at this image of this interventionist God. He was never intervening as we so clearly know he should have. If he was any God worth worshiping at all his interventions would have looked totally different. Philistine spears would have turned to feather boas and Babylonians and Levites would have joined hands to sing “I’d like to give the world a Coke…” Certainly that’s how God should intervene.

The irony of course is that we are consummate interventionists who presume to be able to dictate to God the details of intervention yet all of our intervention has by no means eliminated the bloodshed and cries of distress. In fact a good amount of the bloodshed and cries of distress are a direct result of our interventions.

This picture from Jesus shows us a couple of things.

The master and the laborer suffer on behalf of a dumb tree. Like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah the Lorax pleads the cause of the tree thought the tree deserves it not. Unlike Abraham this intercessor will also endure pain on behalf or the tree. Out of nothing but his love for his bark and its leaves it will labor longer on behalf of the tree in hope of fruitfulness.

The master and the laborer will willingly enter into time and pain, in fact a time of pain on behalf of the tree. These are not unmoved movers. They are moved and voluntarily endure on behalf of a plant that could be used to heat a room.

Their patience, however, does have an end. It would not be right for the master to wait forever. If the tree never produces it is in fact NOT a fig tree, it is an emblem of rebellion and disease. The joy of the master will not permanently be thwarted. The master’s pain will not be indefinite. It may be long, but not forever.

The real story is of course, however, the love of the Lorax. That love is the tree’s only hope. That love will move the laborer to do for the tree what the tree cannot do for itself. The tree cannot change its place in time and space. The tree cannot change the light energy of the sun.

Like many of Jesus’ stories the story ends unfinished. Will the tree produce fruit? We have a sense from the rest of Jesus’ stories that in fact the answer is left for us to give.