EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodically authorized minister. The journey together these past four years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on Sept. 21, 2022.
This week's gospel: Luke 13:6-9
The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’”
The message:
Lucky for you today, you get to receive a second gospel reading as well. … We’ll call it a bonus gospel reading, or the “Daily Double” as you “Jeopardy” fans might be familiar with … and I’ll throw it in for free …
The Gospel of Luke 13:6-9 tells us of “The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree." It reads:
6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the man working the vineyard, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not, you can cut it down.’
This past Friday evening, I had the honor of presiding over a prayer service for a man named Rodney W. Oistad.
He was the father of one of my best friends when I attended Fertile-Beltrami High School. … He also was a longtime coach and teacher at the school as well.
The prayer service was held in Fertile at Concordia Lutheran Church, the church where I spent most of my teenage years playing hide and seek with the pastor so that I wouldn’t have to attend confirmation class.
For you confirmands in attendance today … don’t even think about it. … I invented the game; you won’t win.
Out the back door of Concordia Church in Fertile, about 50 yards down the alley was the house where I lived during my high school years. … And directly across the street was the school I spent six years at.
It all was a bit of a surreal experience, standing at the front of the Sanctuary in the church I tried hard not to attend, presiding over the funeral of the teacher and coach and friend’s dad who drug me through my school years while I could see through the double doors at the back of the church that very school.
I don’t really even know how to describe it, but Faith family, those are moments that stick with you … forever.
So, a week ago today, when my friend Tim called to tell me that his father had passed, and asked if I would be involved in the service in some way. I said, of course … I’d be honored to participate however the family wished, given how much their dad did for me.
And as I began to prepare for the prayer service, it was “The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree” that immediately came to mind as I was reflecting on the large impact that Mr. Oistad had on my life.
It’s no understatement to say that he was very much like the man working in the vineyard in Jesus’ parable.
It was because he was willing to take the time and invest in me … that years later I turned out to be who I am now. And I don’t say that lightly.
I’ve shared enough of my early years with you that it likely won’t come as a surprise that Mr. Oistad’s earlier occupation as a juvenile probation officer came in real handy when his son first drug me home.
As the new kid at Fertile-Beltrami High, I wasn’t your typical friend Tim had grown up around. … I may have been a tad more rough around the edges than the usual kids Tim drug home to the Oistads’ house.
But that didn’t mean that Mr. Oistad turned me out.
Rather the opposite, actually, he spotted a kid that needed someone to care. I’d say, in fact, rather than turn me away, he doubled down in his efforts to mentor me. … And, it was largely through his, and a few other teachers’ efforts, that I made it through high school.
So, it probably comes as no surprise to you all that’s why the older I grow, the stronger my passion for youth mentoring becomes, including our confirmation classes … and even our Sunday schoolers.
This passion for mentoring was shaped thanks to the handful of adults -- including Mr. Oistad -- who stepped in at seemingly the exact moment I needed their guidance at various stages of my life.
Looking back now, however, given what’s taken place in Shelley and my lives the past half dozen years, I know all of those adult interventions absolutely were divine intervention. … All of these mentors coming into my life at the exact right time.
As a kid who grew up parented by a single mother, it’s no surprise that I often sought out men to take the place of my absent father.
Or, rather, I should say in many cases, these men found me. … After all, given the path I was heading down in my early years, it’s likely that I displayed a number of the signs of an at-risk youth.
And one of those men was Mr. Oistad.
Unfortunately for “Young Devlyn,” this meant Mr. Oistad had ample opportunity -- in school and out -- to lay some hard truths on me, even when I wasn’t ready to receive them.
However, an “Older Devlyn,” who now has four children in their teens and 20s, realizes that I could never thank Mr. Oistad enough for what he did for me all those years ago.
The divine opening for Mr. Oistad was that he had known my father because their professional paths had crossed.
As I had mentioned earlier, before he became a teacher, he was a juvenile probation officer. And my father was a police officer. … Ergo, I can only assume their paths had crossed a few times.
Mr. Oistad artfully used that connection with my father to gain my trust, as I was a young teen who was more than a little skeptical about any adult wanting to help.
Once he had his opening, Mr. Oistad eventually opened my eyes to the fact that a person’s past actions and current circumstances didn’t fully define a person’s life. … An eye-opening experience for a young teenager.
And so, when I say that his years of guidance altered the course of my life, I do mean it. … He saw a barren fig tree when so many other adults looked right past me.
I can count on one hand the number of teachers and coaches in my school years that possessed the same skill Mr. Oistad had for identifying those kids who were on the margin and needed a little more care … a little more manure spread on them, so to speak.
Whether they knew it or not, a great many of the other adults I encountered when I was young really did just see me as a barren fig tree wasting valuable growing soil. … But not Mr. Oistad.
This is not to cast aspersions on those other adults who surrounded me. They maybe just had a different skill set. … But Mr. Oistad … he could spot the kids in trouble.
So, how is this applicable to us … sitting here today, 30 some years after I graduated high school?
The gospel lesson is this, Faith Family: God calls us to be more like that worker in the vineyard … than the owner of the field who had lost his patience with the barren fig tree.
This parable begs of us to think about those in our lives, in our communities who we might be ready to write off … those whom we might think of as barren fig trees.
And it urges us to hold off on cutting down those trees for just one more year. … It urges us to apply a little more manure and spend a little more time with that tree … because you just never know … maybe 30 years later that barren fig tree just may find his way to his true calling as a pastor.
Thank you, Mr. Oistad. Rest in peace.
And that is the Good News for this Sunday, Sept. 24, 2002. … Amen.
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