Though a connection between the two may not be readily apparent, a burning bush and a barren fig tree ground this week’s readings from the Old and New Testaments. In Lent, we journey with Christ through the wilderness – the wilderness being long associated in our tradition with temptation, trial, and asceticism, but also closeness to God, liberation, and God’s merciful grace. How are we to balance or understand these two seemingly paradoxical religious realities in this season of penance, abstention, and reflection? For people who are transgender, non-binary, and queer, Christian concepts of penance and repentance can take on harmful meanings. Amidst political and social oppression, I would like to invite you into a penance that is about discovering and understanding God’s unwavering love for us. 

The revelation of God to Moses in the desert, the ancestral God of Abraham, comes at a very particular moment in the Biblical narrative. Moses, now a shepherd for his stepfather’s flock, has left behind his princely privilege and has escaped the suffering of his people in Egypt. Upon Mount Horeb, Horeb meaning “dry place,” the Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush. As the familiar story unfolds, God proclaims Godself to Moses and, after some inquisitive and somewhat self-deprecating humility on the part of Moses, charges Moses with this prophetic and liberatory purpose of leading the Israelites out of Egyptian oppression. God proclaims to Moses:

 “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:7-8 NRSV). 

Harkening back to God revealing Godself to Hagar in the wilderness (Genesis 16:7-15), this is the second time in the biblical narrative that God is revealed to a person, and people suffering oppression and exile in the wilderness. We’ll return to this point later, but keep in mind here that suffering, closeness to God, and liberation seem to go hand in hand. 

Our reading from Luke opens with news of violent political oppression wrought upon Galileans at the hands of Roman governor Pilate. Jesus, addressing the crowd, gives us a theodicy, or an explanation of evil and suffering, of sorts. In verses 2-5, Jesus invites us to consider whether those who suffer political persecution are more sinful than those who do not: “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” Jesus gives us a resounding answer: No. He even extends this “no” to deaths and suffering from natural disasters and other seemingly random losses. Yet, following each instance of either political violence or disaster, he maintains the necessity of repentance. Rather than explain this, he gives us the Parable of the Fig Tree. 

The Parable of the Fig Tree is notably different in the Gospel of Luke compared with other instances in which the imagery of the fig tree is evoked. In Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, the budding of the fig tree is used as a prophetic metaphor for the coming of God’s Kingdom. Mark 11 and Matthew 21 contain instances of a hungry Jesus searching for fruit to eat and cursing a fig tree for its barrenness. In our reading today, however, the barren fig tree takes on a sense of hope amidst its inability to yield fruit. As Phillip Berrigan writes in his article, “Barren or Fruitful: A Sign for the Times. A Commentary on the Parable of the Fig Tree”: 

“As for Luke’s treatment of the fig tree – it is a sublime statement about God’s mercy. Christ emerges not as one who curses the unfruitful fig tree, but rather one who pleads for another year from God, for further cultivation and fertilizing. Luke’s narrative becomes almost a paraphrase of Isaiah’s description of the Suffering Servant of God, “A bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench (Is. 42:3)” (160).

Berrigan then goes on to synthesize the gospel accounts of the fig tree in an empire-critical context. He writes: 

“Consequently, we have two views of the unfruitful fig tree from two gospels. Both point to attributes of God – the justice of God and the mercy of God – and the saving intervention of God in history. Mark’s ‘now’ of apocalypse or unmasking exposes the temple/state’s service of death, its grinding of the poor, its servility before empire. Luke’s judgment is one tempered by further time for repentance, further opportunity to reject the death of sin and injustice – further mercy.” (150-1).

Amidst the suffering from the oppression of the Roman Empire, Jesus refuses to deem those who suffer and perish, from political persecution or disaster, as somehow “deserving it more” than others. In Christ’s view, everyone who does not repent will perish. Those who do not repent are like the barren fig tree: cursed and thrown out. Yet, our Gospel reading leaves time for those who do not repent. Like the recognition of the Israelites’ suffering in Exodus, God, the vineyard’s caretaker, finds the barren fig tree and promises to bring it to fruition.

Affirmations: There is Still Time

After reading this week’s readings, close your eyes, place your hands on your heart, and breathe deeply for as long as you need. Repeat to yourself. 

• There is still time for me to live more fully.
• God loves me as I am.
• There is still time to love myself as God loves me.
• I am not suffering because I am sinful. 
• There is still time for me to live the life I deserve. 
• God loves who I am becoming. 
• There is still time for me to live beyond the constraints of empire. 
• I am more than what this world currently says I am. 
• There is time for me.

Reflection Questions

• What goodness and grace is my suffering pointing toward?
• Is my suffering calling me into community, or into isolation?
• Where in my body can I find both pain and grace?

The 2024 horror movie I Saw the TV Glow provides an artistic and cinematic expression of the horrors of gender dysphoria and how, in a world that denies transgender lives the ability to live in their fullness, this creates within us a sense of alienation, like we’re watching our lives play out before us on TV. Without spoiling the movie, one of the protagonists escapes this feeling by following their intuition that something is not right or that they aren’t living the life they should be. Their exodus is initially painful and full of uncertainty. At one point, fearful that they’ve made a mistake, they cry out for God to save them. The turning point in their discovery of their identity and living out their full life was understanding the nature of why they were suffering, embracing that this suffering pointed to something else, and following it into a new life. They return to their old life with the intention of helping their friend – reminding them that “There is still time.”