So, I’m sitting in my office planning ahead to some of the sermons leading up to Easter and I went into a rabbit hole. I want to share it with you and reflect a little bit on the past couple of months.
Three places in the Bible make reference to sitting under a vine and fig tree. Those are 1 Kings 4:25, Micah 4:4, and Zechariah 3:10. In the first two they are images of safety, provision, and comfort for the people that God promises to deliver. In the third it adds to it and says each man will invite his neighbor to come and sit under his vine and fig tree.
In the world of the Ancient Near East, vines and fig trees carry a great deal of imagery that will be good for you to understand if anything that I am about to say will make any sense to you. So bear with me for a minute, I will get there.
Figs are safety
Seriously, consider for a moment the first fruit ever mentioned by name in the bible. The Fig tree has a larger leaf which our first parents used to cover up their nakedness. Of course this left a bit less to the imagination than was ideal so God covered them with skins instead (that’s a conversation for another day). But it wasn’t just for covering naked loins. The fig tree provided shelter from the sun, it was a place to rest in the heat of the day, and eventually this would come to be a place of prayer as we can see from the time Jesus first interacted with Nathanael. There was something happening when Jesus said he saw him under the fig tree.
Vines are wealth and connection
Vines are about fruitfulness. In all the ancient religions of the area as well as early Judaism, vines were about production of wealth. A good wife was compared to a fruitful vine (sorry ladies, but actually within the context of the time period that meant she brought good things to a man’s life). A fruitful vine meant a great harvest, flowing wine, and a warm winter. They are also about community. Jesus referred to himself as the vine and his people as the branches. The sense that we are all tied into him and thus connected to one another. The image of a vine competes with the twin terrors of our own day, poverty and loneliness.
Washington’s Dream
These three passages happen to be George Washington’s most cited Biblical references. (Go with me here, because I want to take you on the ride my brain just took.). George Washington, the man who wouldn’t be king, one of America’s founders, our first president , the General who led the colonies in a fierce war for independence from Great Britain, was also a homebody.
Washington loved his precious Mt Vernon. He often talked about his love for his home. Everything he did was to protect the safety and comfort of his “own vine and fig tree.” He believed in the biblical promise of everyone being able to one day rest under their own vine and fig tree. This is a biblical image that points us to what we Christians call “a New Jerusalem.” A day when we will rest under our own vine and fig tree (and according to Micah “No one will make us afraid”).
It is a grace of God that some of us get to experience that in this life. There may be nothing quite like the safety and comfort of a home that makes us feel safe. This is why homelessness is actually a problem by the way. Sure, it comes with health concerns, it comes with all sorts of social issues, it creates and exacerbates drug addiction and other ills; but at its very root, homelessness contributes to the inability to experience this incredible grace of God to rest in a place of safety and comfort “Under his own vine and fig tree.” This was something Washington prized even above the nation he fought to build.
In Bismarck I knew that comfort and safety “Under my own vine and fig tree.” My daughter named our home there “Emerald Abbey.” It was a good name because we had painted some green on it, and it felt like an abbey with all the reading that went on. (didn’t hurt at all that we were watching Downton at the time). I experienced a certain love of place there in Bismarck. So did we all. And we choose to leave that to move to Grand Rapids.
I’m not complaining nor am I living in regret. After all, I still own Emerald Abbey. (If you want to experience the beauty and joy it offers you certainly can! I would love to share it with you, check it out here! )
Furthermore, I am beyond certain that I will again create the feeling of resting under my own vine and fig tree at my new home here in Grand Rapids. But it will take some time. We need a spring and summer season to get some things done. We are already dreaming about the ways we will turn our new home into a vine and fig tree. But I also know that no matter how much beauty, life, goodness, comfort and safety I can bring to our new place, there will remain something that feels “not quite right.” There were things that were not right for us anymore at Emerald Abbey. There were reasons it was time to go. There will always be something lacking. Some weeds always seem to creep into the vine no matter how hard we garden.
Yet, God is good and gracious to his people and Washington’s dream was built on another dream. The dream of our maker and redeemer who has done so much to give us a vine and fig tree where we can rest. I will still ache to lay under my own vine and fig tree where no one can make me afraid. And I believe I will. I believe that the one who calls himself the vine has made me a branch. No matter the weeds, I know I am grafted into a vine along with many other branches and there is comfort, hope, and home in that promise.
Sometimes, especially in transition like now, I feel like like a wanderer, homeless, looking for a home (or my own vine and fig tree). But as Tolkien said, “not all who wander are lost.” Tolkien knew as well as anyone that there is a bigger vine, and a more certain fig tree than Emerald Abbey, or whatever we end up naming our place here. May that remain the one I long to rest under.
Soon, when we have made it a home, people will be invited to join me under my own vine and fig tree in Grand Rapids. In the meantime, you are invited to join me under the better and superior one. The one that is available for all those who wander. The one where you can find connection, belonging, fruitfulness and comfort. The one built by Jesus. He is far more inviting than I ever will be.