I’m not too familiar with baseball but a few years ago I tried to learn. I gathered from my little friend who tried to teach me that, three swings and three misses means you’re on your way to the dugout. Is that true? While I’m unfamiliar with baseball, I know about class quizzes because some years ago I was a classroom teacher. One reference gets you repeating the quiz; a second reference gets you repeating the class, and a third failure finds you out of the school. How many references should God allow before He comes with His judgment? How many more Lents do we need to reform our lives? How much longer must God wait before He sends His angels to root out evil and the wicked in our world?
The plea of the gardener in today’s Gospel is: “Give the tree one more year.” He thinks the tree needs extra care. The parable concluded with the plea and we’re unaware what happened at the end of that year. Maybe the tree went ahead and produced fruits, maybe not. Suppose the tree fails to bear fruit after one year despite the care given by the gardener. What would be the tone of the conversation between the Master and the gardener? Do you think the gardener would surrender, saying: “Well, our contract is for one year! We’ll stick to the terms; let’s go ahead and cut it down?” I wouldn’t think this wise, bold and keen gardener would give up that easily on that tree. Like Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah or like Moses pleading for the Israelites, the gardener would beg for two more years, five more years, and even twenty. The tree may bear fruit after all the petitions and extra care and then keep its life or it may remain like Sodom and share its lot.
Let us put it in the right perspective, or rather, in our own perspective. Let God be the Master, and we, the tree. We fail too often to produce the fruit God desires from us—fruits of love, godliness, forgiveness. We find ourselves all too often full of leaves, full of flesh, full of ourselves and lacking in understanding, compassion and forgiveness. We merely take up the ground and wallow in emptiness and wickedness while the Master keeps coming to look for faithfulness, perseverance and generosity. And He is asking today: “Why must we be taking up the ground?” But for His Son, the Gardener, He would have cut us off long ago. He tells His Father, to whom He adopted us: “Let’s give them time, more time to be the people He ordained that we should be.” Clearly, He refuses to give up on us; He is not yet done with us. He gives us chance after chance after chance; then, a last chance. Regrettably, some are already using up their last chance.
Why give us so many chances? Because God is kind and merciful, as we sang in today’s Responsorial Psalm. Pope Francis, while inaugurating the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, said that God’s name is Mercy. Forgiveness is an integral part of His nature, and knowing our proneness to failure, He constantly ministers forgiveness to us; not three time, not four, but seventy times seven. Yet, while His mercy may extend for all time, we are limited by time and may be using up the time left to us to accept it. Because He is the “I AM” his interest is what we are at the present; how we are availing ourselves of the graciousness of His mercy, “right now.” Notice that He didn’t say “I was” or “I will be.” God is not interested in our past misdeeds (or even good deeds) and our unfulfilled confessional promises to amend our lives in the future. He wants us to start now to love, to be kind and generous, to be faithful and persevere in faithfulness.
Should we continue to postpone repentance and reformation? We ought to hear the words of Jesus as He warns: “But I tell you, if you don’t repent you will all perish as they did!” Sobering words! Chances do not last forever. There will come that one that’s called “the last chance.”
Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo