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Homilies on the Gospels

St Gregory the Dialogist, tr. Burke, 1960; selections

8. The Barren Fig-tree

He spoke also this parable: A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and I find none. Cut it down therefore. Why cumbereth it the ground? But he, answering, said to him: Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it and dung it. And if happily it bear fruit; but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down. And he was teaching in their synagogue on their sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years. And she was bowed together; neither could she look upwards at all. Whom when Jesus saw, he called her unto him and said to her: Woman, thou art delivered from thy infirmity. And he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight and glorified God.
Lk. xiii, 6-13.

Homilia XXXI in Evangelia.

Our Lord and Saviour speaks to us through his Gospel sometimes with words and other times with actions; sometimes he tells us one thing in actions and quite another thing in words, and sometimes he tells us the same thing in both. You have heard, brethren, of two things in the Gospel of today: the barren fig-tree and the deformed woman. And in both cases mercy is exercised. What he tells us in the parable he subsequently puts into action. For the barren fig-tree signifies the same thing as the cripple; and the fig-tree spared for another year is the same thing as the woman’s body made straight. The owner of the vineyard came the third time to the fig-tree and found no fruit on it, and the woman who was cured had been bowed together for eighteen years. The eighteen years during which the woman suffered her infirmity and the owner’s triple coming in search of fruit represent one and the same thing. Having thus made a preliminary explanation of today’s Gospel, let us pass on to an ordered exposition of all and each one of Christ’s words.

“A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit on it and found none”. What can this fig-tree mean, if not human nature? And does the woman bowed together not represent the same? It was skilfully planted like the tree, and well nursed, as was the woman; but having fallen, through its own fault, into sin it gives neither fruit of good works nor preserves its uprightness. It fell into sin wilfully because it would not bear the fruit of obedience, and thus it lost its uprightness. It did not deign to retain the image of God in which it was rooted and nursed, when it abandoned its original innocence. The owner came three times to the fig-tree looking for fruit, because God has loved the human race before the written law, while that law was in force and then when it was fulfilled by the new law of grace, waiting, admonishing and visiting it.

“And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: Behold for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and I find none”. He came before the written law when he gave man, by the light of natural reason, the capacity to judge how he should act towards his neighbour. He came at the time of the written law when he taught men his commandments. He came through grace, after the written law when, of his mercy, he appeared among them. But he complains that he finds the fig-tree barren three times in succession, for many perverse minds were neither corrected by the inspired law of nature, nor instructed by his commandments, nor converted by the miracles of his incarnate life. The vine-dresser must represent those who rule the church. The first man to tend the vineyard was Peter; we, however unworthily, follow him in that ministry as often as we labour in your instruction, in teaching, in reproving and in our prayers.

It should inspire us with great fear to hear the master’s words to the vine-dresser: “Cut it down. Why cumbereth it the ground?” Each one of us, as long as we remain on earth, are like the barren fig-tree encumbering the ground uselessly, if we fail to produce, each one according to his possibilities, fruits of good works. We are denying others who could take our place more profitably the chance of bearing fruit which we will not bear ourselves. Anyone who enjoys this world’s power, if he does not yield a harvest of good actions, is an obstacle to those of other men. Those who are his subjects are incited to wickedness by his iniquitous example, as by the shadow of branches without fruit. Above, the barren tree; below, the barren land: the shadow of the tree is dense, and the foliage permits no ray of sun to reach the ground. So, when a master’s life is wicked, his servants, who are his constant witnesses, follow his sterile example, and are deprived of the light of truth. Submerged in his shade they cannot receive the warmth of the sun, because they live estranged from God and are ill-protected in this world. These dissolute potentates are almost forgotten by God: on their road to hell, the only thing he asks them is why they oppress others. So that the master of the vineyard aptly says: “Why cumbereth it the ground?” The ground is unjustly encumbered by the man who tyrannises the minds of others, by him who will not carry out the good works proper to his position.

Nevertheless, we must pray for such people. For we hear the vine-dresser’s answer: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it”. What does this digging mean, if not to rebuke those souls which fail to give fruit? As often as we reprove someone for his sins, it is as if we were to dig, as is only right, about a barren tree. Listen, too, to what he means to do after he has dug: “and dung it”. What is meant by this dung, if not the remembrance of our sins? In several passages of scripture, the sins of the flesh are referred to as dung. So that God says through his prophet Joel: “The beasts have rotted in their dung”.¹ This signifies that those who live carnal lives end their days in the stench of their lust. Therefore, when we reproach such men with their guilt, forcing them to recall and think on their evil actions, it is as if we were to dung a barren tree, so that thus they may be mindful of their wickedness, and obtain the grace of pardon. So the tree is fertilised when we awaken our conscience with the memory of our perverse doings. When the soul is excited by penitence to bewail its former sins, and thus receives the grace to act well, it is as if the root of the heart is manured, rejuvenated, and returns to the fecundity of a good life. Lamenting what it has done, despising what it has been, its intention is set firmly against itself and it is enkindled with desires of amendment. The tree is fertilised back to fruitfulness, as the soul recovers new life through the consideration of its sins. But there are many who listen to the reprimands made them, and nevertheless will not do penance. So they stand green upon this earth, fruitless before God. Hear what the vine-dresser adds: “And if happily it bear fruit; but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down”. He who refuses to be fertilised here by means of our reprehension, in order that he may bear fruit, will be plunged into the next world where penance will no longer be of any avail. He will be cut down then for ever because here he stood green but unfruitful.

The Gospel continues: “And he was teaching in their synagogue on their sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years . . .” We have already said that the triple coming of the master of the vineyard in search of fruit, and the eighteen-year disability of this woman signify one and the same thing. In the book of Genesis² we read that man was created on the sixth day, and on the same day the work of God was ended. Six multiplied by three makes eighteen. So we see that those eighteen years, during which that woman suffered, represent man’s refusal, once he was created on the sixth day, to seek after perfection and his continuance in his weaknesses and sins before the old law was given, during all the time it was in force and after it was perfected by the law of grace, the new law. “And she was bowed together; neither could she look upwards at all”. Every sinner heedless of heaven, who thinks only of the earth, is unable to look upwards. Because he pursues earthly desires the rectitude of his mind is bent, and he sees only those things which occupy his thought. Think within you now, brethren, what occupies your thought? One man thinks of honours, another of money, another of his wealth and possessions. All these things are base and vile, and when the mind is busied with them it is deflected from the uprightness of its true dignity. Since it does not aspire to the things of heaven, like the infirm woman, it cannot look upwards.

The Gospel goes on: “Whom when Jesus saw, he called her unto him and said to her: Woman, thou art delivered from thy infirmity. And he laid his hands upon her; and immediately she was made straight”. He called her and made her straight, because he helped and enlightened her. He calls us, but he does not straighten us, when we are enlightened by his grace; but it cannot help us because we do not merit help. We often see what we should do, but do not put it into effect; or we attempt it, and give up, discouraged. Our mind sees the upright action, but our strength bows down under it, for it is one of the punishments of sin that by grace we can see what is good conduct, and yet our unworth iness holds us back from its pursuit. Habitual sin fetters the mind so that it is impossible for it to straighten up. It tries to rise but falls back, because it now commits unwillingly those sins which it committed wilfully for a long time. The words the psalmist uses of the human race can be applied aptly to this bondage of ours: “I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end”.³ Since man was created to contemplate heavenly light, but, in punishment for his sins, was cast forth into darkness of mind, he now feels no thirst for heaven, tends towards what is mean, desires nothing that endures but turns his mind to earthly things which cripple him and cries within himself saying: “I am become miserable, and am bowed down even to the end”. When man was expelled from the contemplation of heavenly things, if he concerned himself only with the necessities of the flesh, he would not have been bowed or brought low in everything. But since not only necessity deprives him of supernatural light, but illicit pleasure also oppresses him heavily, he is not merely bowed, but bowed to the end. So that another prophet rightly says of the evil spirits: “They have said to thy soul: Bow down, that we may go over”.⁴ The soul remains upright when it aspires to things of heaven and never stoops to things of the earth. When the wicked spirits see the soul persist in upright actions, they cannot pass over it. They pass over when they bestrew the soul with impure desires. That is why they say: “Bow down that we may go over”, because unless the soul itself decides to bow down to earth, their wickedness is powerless against it; they cannot pass over it because they fear its stubborn rectitude.

Let us never, my dear brethren, give entry to those evil spirits by stooping to things of earth and the satisfaction of human appetites. It should cause us shame to stoop to earthly things in this fashion, giving the enemy the chance of passing over us. The man who is bent down looks constantly at the earth; the man who gives his heart to the things of the world forgets the price of his redemption, because he looks for what is vile. Moses rightly prescribed that no hunchback could be raised to the dignity of the priesthood.⁵ And all those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ have been made members of him, our one High Priest: so God tells us through Peter: “You are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood”.⁶ The hunchback goes along with his eyes fixed on the ground: therefore he cannot be a priest, for the man who is intent upon earthly things is witness against himself that he is not a member of this High Priest. We may add that the people of God were forbidden, and rightly so, to eat fish without fins.⁷ Fish which have fins and scales usually leap through the water: do they not represent, therefore, the souls of the elect? Beyond any doubt, only those can cross over to the heavenly church who, upheld as it were by the fins of their virtues, leap upwards in their quest for heaven, although they may slip back at times through the weakness of the flesh. Since we discern already, brethren, the happiness of that divine kingdom, let us repent of the time wasted upon worldly matters: let us think of the woman and of the barren fig-tree. Mindful of all the evil we have done, let us fertilise our hearts once more, so that when we have enriched and given them new life by penance, they may bear fruit. And even if we cannot practise the highest virtue, God is nevertheless pleased by our desire of repentance. We shall please him merely by beginning those good works which will be a reparation for our wicked actions. Nor shall we lament our sins for long, for very soon eternal joy will wipe those passing tears away. Through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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