Is the Paris Climate Process a Barren Fig Tree? (Luke 13:6-9)

Climate Bible Study: March 2021

What is wrong with this drawing? Read Luke 13:6-9 and ask yourself what tool should be in the gardener's hand? ©Providence Collection/Good Salt

Toward the end of the COP25 climate summit in Madrid, civil society leaders hosted an off-site event. The topic was “Preparing for COP26 in Glasgow.” I was at that meeting. I could sense that, even though we were projecting our thoughts out one year into the future, and even though there were still two days left in COP25, all of us were processing our emotions at the failure of government negotiators to produce tangible results. We had all experienced some unique events at COP25, but none more shaking than the protest that took place on Day 9 INSIDE the COP grounds, a sit-down that actually managed to halt the negotiations for a few hours. Sure, groups like Extinction Rebellion were busy OUTSIDE the COP grounds, but INSIDE, we all had official “observer” status, which means that we were all credentialed by the UNFCCC and considered “part of the team” that is seeking to make progress on the successful implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement.  Led by indigenous leaders, Pacific Islanders, and a youth contingent, protestors were now demonstrating their willingness to place their credentials at risk, and those of their whole organization, as a signal that they were losing faith in the Paris Process. “So, we won’t be allowed back to another COP? Who cares?” I left the meeting of civil society leaders and e-mailed a colleague: “My sense is that if the nations don’t signal bona fide ambition on their NDCs [emission reduction targets] before COP26, civil society won’t be going to Glasgow to promote the Paris Process, but rather to burn the place down.” (Don’t worry: I didn’t mean the city of Glasgow is at risk, but rather that faith in what the Paris Agreement wrought, five years earlier, certainly was.) 

If there is such a thing as “hidden blessings” from the global pandemic, then possibly the postponement of COP26 might qualify for that list. If we had met as originally scheduled, November 9-19, 2020, the United States would not have been in attendance, and the outcome of her presidential election would have still been in doubt. Would the nations have been ready with new ambitious targets in those eleven short months? But now, the US is back in the Paris Agreement, and the Biden administration intends to announce on or near April 22, the US’s new NDC at what they claim will be “world leading” levels. But apart from America, there is the hope that the pandemic has taught all of us something about global crisis and the need for global cooperation to meet it. There seems to be a sense of wanting to re-set our campaigns, including our hopes for the future, to, in fact, “build back better.”  So, let’s build the Paris Process back better. 

Perhaps it is the annual nature of these COP gatherings that made a connection for me in reading what is called The Parable of the Fig Tree (Luke 13:6-9 NET): 

• Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So, he said to the worker who tended the vineyard, ‘For three years now, I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and each time I inspect it, I find none. Cut it down! Why should it continue to deplete the soil?’ But the worker answered him, ‘Sir, leave it alone this year too, until I dig around it and put fertilizer on it. Then if it bears fruit next year, very well, but if not, you can cut it down.’” 

This is an often-overlooked parable of Jesus; readers tend to prefer the more cinematic story of Jesus cursing and withering the fig tree (Matt 21, Mark 11). Some scholars suspect that since Luke doesn’t include that story, he has replaced it with this parable instead.  Commentators believe that the owner of the fig tree represents God himself, and that Jesus reveals to us that:

• God does indeed inspect what is transpiring in and among his creation; 

• God does indeed have a sense of time and progress and deadlines; 

• God does indeed care about fruitfulness, including the potential fruitfulness lost in depleted soil; and 

• God can indeed get frustrated and disappointed. 

Many readers are quick to turn next to the fig tree--”Is it a symbol of Israel?”--and speculate about judgement and repentance. Certainly, the verses before the Parable are the ones primarily used to help interpret the parable. “Unless you repent you will all perish as well!” Jesus tells the crowd (v. 5). It’s interesting though that the two examples Jesus uses of destruction--the Galileans murdered by Pilate in the temple, and the people in Siloam crushed by a falling tower--are seemingly people who died in their innocence. There are so many fascinating speculations about Luke 13:1-9 that it is easily to ignore the second agentive character in the parable, the one that we are implicitly called to emulate. What about the gardener? 

The gardener is Jesus himself, commentators opine. He is the one who every day for the past three years, and every day in the next crucial year, is in and among the fig trees. He observes them intently. He seems to possess a love for the plants. In this parable, what role does the gardener play? First of all, he is an intercessor. He actually pleads with God: please give it one more year. Like all good intercessors, he would not make his request if he didn’t already have some inkling of who his master truly is.  

• Now, dear friends, do not let this one thing escape your notice, that a single day is like a thousand years with the Lord and a thousand years are like a single day. The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Pet 3:8-9, NET) 

And the second thing the gardener is, is a faithful and skilled worker. Having gained another year for the fig tree, the gardener is willing to drop to his knees for more than just prayer. He has plans to dig a hole around the tree and is willing to put up with the “fertilizer” of it all. 

• Owner of this beloved and beautiful vineyard, please give the Paris Process at least one more year and in 2021please grant all your workers more love, commitment, and skill than we have ever possessed. 

I do want to make one more point that we dare not dismiss as a caveat. Passionate intercessor and skilled worker that he is, the gardener also says to the owner: “If [the fig tree] bears fruit next year, very well, but if not, you can cut it down.’” We remember that any one COP is not the totality of the Paris Process, and that the Paris Process is not the totality of making progress on the daunting challenge of climate action. Most of all though, we trust God. If he redeploys us differently in 2022 than he is doing in 2021, we will follow him who knows how best to promote the fertility of his soil. 

  
You are very dear to God,
Lowell Bliss
On behalf of the Climate Intercessors leadership team