The Parable of the Peach Tree

In His teaching, Jesus used many everyday examples and images taken from the peoples’ daily life e.g. fishing, farming, vineyard keeping/orchard management, etc. His parable of the fig tree, or reference to a fig tree, is found in several passages e.g. Matt 7:16, Matt 21:19, Luke 6:44 and reference is made to the fig tree by the apostle James in his letter [James 3:12]. The Master used the experiences of routine living to teach profound spiritual principles, benefiting those ‘willing to hear and see’ and thus learn.

Proverbs 6:6-8 tells us to “go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise; which, having no chief, officer, or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest”. Learning via observation is one of the most basic and simple forms of ‘education’ requiring simply an alert eye to what may be happening around us and seeking to draw beneficial wisdom principles from what is observed. You will not find a ‘parable of the peach tree’ in the scriptures but I observed one in my back yard.

Each spring I await the emergence of blossoms on my sole peach tree, knowing that the number of blossoms determines the number of peaches that will likely develop on the tree. Of course, I am third in line to harvest those peaches, behind the birds and squirrels, humbly acknowledging that God does indeed provide for the ‘birds of the air’ as well as those tree-climbing furry critters. One spring I observed a broken branch on the peach tree that was hanging down but still partially attached to the trunk. It likely would have fallen to the ground but for it having dropped onto a branch below it that was bearing its weight. I intended to get my pole saw to cut off the broken branch but when I observed that the branch had several peaches developing on it, and that the branch was not withered but was attached sufficiently to the trunk to draw nourishing sap, I changed my mind. Though the branch was split and weakened, it was still sufficiently attached to the trunk to receive nutrients and thus survive and continue to attempt to bear fruit. But I also observed that it survived because the stronger branch beneath it was supporting it, and in essence bearing it up so that the weak and broken branch could still bear fruit. The split and weakened branch bore fruit because it remained sufficiently attached to the trunk to draw life-giving nourishment AND because it was supported and borne up by the stronger branch beneath it. This image struck me as a clear example of the life of a bondservant of Christ: though each of us is ‘broken’ by sin, and damaged by the sometimes strong winds of a corrupt culture, and perhaps negative parenting or life experiences, IF we remain attached to, and draw nourishment from the source of all life, the Lord Himself, it remains possible for us to bear fruit, BUT we are also called as bondservants to receive and give support from and to other followers of Jesus, to help each of us bear fruit for the Master gardener. Jesus said He is ‘the vine and we are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit for apart from me you can do nothing’ [John 15: 5].

Paul instructs the believers at Rome: ‘now we who are the strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength, and not just please ourselves'[Rom 15:1] and again in Galatians 6:2: ‘ Bear one another’s burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ’. To ‘bear’ means to support, to carry, or to endure. Paul says mature love ‘bears all things...endures all things‘ [I Cor 13:7]. We can support others in a host of very practical ways, e.g. helping with house cleaning or maintenance, meal preparation or provision, running errands, etc. We can also provide emotional and spiritual support through being available to just listen, or counsel, and pray with and for them. Sometimes we may just be called to ‘endure’ or tolerate another person’s irritating ways or character weaknesses day after day. Apparently doing these kinds of things along with an almost unlimited host of other creative ways is an expression of ‘bearing one another’s burdens’ and thus a fulfillment of the ‘law of Christ‘. If I were to ‘anthropomorphize’ my peach tree and ascribe human qualities to it, that stronger branch might be tempted to complain of the burden of having to support its weaker and broken fellow branch laying on top of it. But as an observer, I would say to that lower branch: ‘your support, your burden bearing, your enduring, has enabled that weaker and broken branch to still bear fruit for the Master gardener, so ‘hang’ in there!’

As you journey through life, would others describe you as a ‘burden-lifter’ or are you complaining, resisting, even resentful that you are having to carry a burden not of your own making-a ‘load’, a condition, a weakness, a brokenness occurring in the life of someone else that somehow presses down on you and that you cannot readily escape? Regarding your own ‘brokenness’, are you so self-focused, so self-absorbed with your own woundedness that you have forgotten to carefully attend to your attachment to the vine, the trunk, i.e. Jesus, from which you can draw life-sustaining nourishment, and thus begin to bear some or even more fruit for the Master? Are you willing to acknowledge your neediness, and request the support of others to allow them to help you bear some of your burdens, thus living out and fulfilling the ‘law of Christ’?

CJS