And He (Jesus) began telling this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it, and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard-keeper, 'Behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down! Why does it even use up the ground?' And he (the vineyard-keeper) answered and said to him, 'Let it alone, sir, for this year too, until I dig around it and put in fertilizer; and if it bears fruit next year, fine; but if not, cut it down.'" --Luke 13:6-9

Hans Egede set sail for Greenland in 1721 full of passion and adventure. Like many a missionary before him, his zeal for spreading the Gospel outpaced his preparation...he had little idea of the obstacles he would face. For nearly twelve years, the efforts of his mission made little progress, hampered by a difficulty in mastering the tongue of the Inuits, the Eskimos inhabiting the land. But Egede suffered from another malady not altogether uncommon among Christians even today...a stern demeanor that played out as impatience with the very people he sought to serve. Absent this evidence of compassion, and at a loss to even express the love of Christ in the language of the Inuits, the mission seemed doom to failure. Indeed, the mission was recalled to Denmark in 1730 by the King.

Still, Egede remained, begging for more time to break the frozen hearts of this icy land, maybe not fully realizing his own heart had not yet melted. Then in 1733, a smallpox epidemic swept through the area, an epidemic carried to the Inuits by Egede's own mission. In short order, nearly two-thirds of the population would be ravaged by the disease, and it would claim Egede's wife. Only then, in the face of his own role in spreading this disease...only then, in heroic acts of ministering to the sick and dying...only then, did the missionary and his mission field begin to experience the evidences of a heart softened by the love of Christ.

"Give me one more year..." the vineyard-keeper asked, and in so doing set the tone for how each of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ ought to respond to our culture. The vineyard-keeper is not alone. We hear echoes of his entreaty throughout Scripture...from Moses, pleading with God for the rebellious Israelites; from Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomorrah; from Barnabas, pleading with Paul to be patient with Mark...

"Give me one more year..." says the vineyard-keeper. And what? Does he ask the owner to do more? No! Perhaps realizing he's not done all he can to coax the fig tree to bear fruit, he seeks time to do what should have been done before...to break up the hard soil around its roots and to give it the nutrients it needs to grow.

The "hard soil" around the "fig trees" in our workplace may be hard because it lacks any evidence of the compassion of Christ from us.

 

The "hard soil" around the "fig trees" in our families may be hard because it lacks any evidence of the compassion of Christ from us.

 

The "hard soil" around the "fig trees" in our culture may be hard because it lacks any evidence of the compassion of Christ from us.

 

Like Hans Egede, we sometimes find ourselves railing against the very people God sends us to serve, frustrated by our inability to get them to see things our way, when in fact its our own hearts which need melting.

The language of our faith is receding from our culture, and we find ourselves at a loss to express the Gospel message in terms that make sense to colleagues, coworkers, even friends and family who no longer know Scripture intuitively. The essence of our faith sometimes recedes from us, hiding the love of Christ with a stern impatience, dare we say indignation, that causes us to see the people God places in our paths as adversaries.

God grant us more time to reach the people who've yet to meet His Son. Not more time to pass laws, not more time to protest slights to our faith, not more time to bemoan the absence of fruit in our culture. All of those things have a place in our lives, but not the most prominent place. The preeminent plea on the lips of His people should be for a melting of our own hearts, a chance to break up the hard soil with compassion, and to teach people that the One whom we serve loves them also.