“Leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it.”
Luke 13:1-9
The Gospel this weekend brought to mind a Bob Marley song that I heard a lot when I was growing up. ‘I don’t want to wait for your love’.
The Owner from the Gospel reading says to his gardener: “Look, for three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down, why should it be taking up the ground?’ The gardener (God?) responds, “Sir…leave it one more year.” Similarly Bob Marley sings:
Like I said
It’s been three years since I’m knockin’ on your door
And I still can knock some more
Ooh girl, ooh girl, is it feasible?
I wanna know now, for I to knock some more
The controlling image presented in these two poems is really that of a lover who is endlessly patient. I rather like this image of God who waits for us, even to the point of suffering. If God waits for me, endlessly, and ‘can knock some more’ then surely, I can do the same for others in my life.