“Call the world if you please,
‘The vale of Soul-making.
Then you will find out the use of the world.’” [1]

A new priest in a small Midwestern town spent the first four days making personal visits to each of the members, inviting them to come to his first service. The following Sunday, the church was all but empty. He did this for three weeks, with the same result. Accordingly, the pastor placed a notice in the local newspapers, stating that because the church was dead, it is everyone’s duty to give it a decent Christian burial. The funeral would be held the following Sunday afternoon, the notice stated. Morbidly curious, a large crowd turned out for the “funeral.” In front of the pulpit, they saw a closed coffin, smothered with flowers. After the pastor delivered the eulogy, he opened the coffin and invited his congregation to come forward and pay their final respects to their dead church. Filled with curiosity as to what would represent the corpse of a “dead church”, all the people lined up to look into the coffin. Each “mourner” peeped into the coffin then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look. In the coffin, was a mirror so that they could see their own reflection.

The use of the world is soul-making, according to the romantic English poet, John Keats. He refers to it as a vale, or valley, that is fertile with growth. God’s purpose for the world is to make souls and the valley to which they are cultivated is the church. In that valley, from the beginning as it described in the Bible, we find three trees. One is the Tree of Life, one is the tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil, and the last is a simple Fig tree. Each are referred in the Book of Genesis as Adam and Eve are told to eat of the first and not of the second. They did not obey, ate from the second, and then turned to the third, to take its leaves to hide their nakedness, their shame, their outward appearance of choosing death over life. ‘Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons."[2] Could it be, when they ate of the wrong tree, their sin was revealed, as if they were looking into a mirror?

Our Lenten journey takes us into the valley where we yearn to behold the fruit that gives life, yet tempted to take what we are told we cannot have. St. Paul addresses the fall of man, his road to death because of his choice of sin and immorality. Even though the people who followed Moses into the wilderness ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink, many were struck down in the wilderness.[3] Twenty-three thousand in a single day, he says. They preferred to eat the fruit of idolatry and sexual immorality that hung low from the Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil. Paul says we must not put Christ to the test and eat of its fruit. This reveals the true purpose of the trees in the valley. They are all intended to test, offering life or death, to make, the soul. We either choose to take the life of Christ or we slither into the image that prefers to stare at the image of self.

In the account of the fig tree, there are three attestations of it in the Synoptic Gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Both Matthew and Mark are eye-witness accounts of Jesus’ disciples watching Jesus see a fig tree that bears no fruit and curses it to die.[4] There is no evidence of how long Jesus knew the tree was fruitless and he cursed it to die when it was in the winter, out of season. Yet, in the parallel account of Luke, Jesus refers to the fig tree as a metaphor in a parable. He tells the story of an owner of a vineyard who sees there is no fruit on his tree for three years and tells his gardener to cut it down. The gardener requests that it be given more fertilizer. The master says, “well and good, but if it does not grow, you can cut it down.”

Your soul belongs in church, the vale of where choices are discerned. We listen to the historical witness of both triumphs and failures. We boldly confess our sin, affirm our faith and pray for others. We eat the same spiritual food and drink the same spiritual drink, but how much life we receive from it, is tested by how much we are tempted to peer into the coffin. We are no different than Adam and Eve, Moses, the disciples. We have choices to make and our life will cease if we no longer allow Jesus to visit. Death will surely come, but will you bear fruit? Will you, will this church, pass along the message of salvation in Jesus Christ alone, or will we only live to see our own image.

“Call the world if you please,
‘The vale of Soul-making.
Then you will find out the use of the world.’”

[1] John Keats, “The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats” (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1899), p. 369.
[2] Genesis 3:7
[3] 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
[4] Matthew 21:18-21, Mark 11:12-14, Luke 13:1-9