I wanted to devote a post to these chapters, thinking that if I didn't I would not be able to adequately cover the topic. The result, though, was that I had a little longer to think about chapter 5 and the prophet Zenos' allegory of the tame and wild olive trees. The story is this: A rich man - known here as the lord of the vineyard - has an olive tree that he loves. It must have been productive and been around for some time for him to like it so much. The tree begans to decay and die, even after extra care is give to it, so the lord trims branches from the tree and grafts them into wild olive trees. The lord grafts wild olive branches onto the tree itself as well. This meets with success for awhile and produces good fruit initially, but then the wild branches or roots take over and the fruit becomes bad. Eventually the natural branches of the tame olive tree are grafted back onto the natural tree and good fruit is again produced.
That's a thimble sized summary of chapter 5, which has almost 7 pages - 77 verses. I have always skimmed through this chapter, getting distracted by the nourishes, pluckings and grafts of the chapter. In closely examining the chapter, though, I found some really good insights. One thing I realized is that to truly understand the allegory I had to think of the host of Israel; not just them but of all humanity as well.
I should note that in reflecting on chapter 5 I realized that there were phrases that appeared continually, such as: "Lay up the fruit", "preserve the tree", "it grieveth me to lose this tree", "nourish round about it", "pluck off the branches", "burn", "planted" or "grafted", "end draweth nigh", "go down and labor". Each of these concepts were repeated multiple times.
First thought was on the value of the tree. The lord loved the tree. It was valuable to him for several times it is mentioned that the lord would "...lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself" (Jacob 5:13). The lord continues, showing that he was loved the tree for more than it's food stuff value: "...it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof." (ibid). Indeed, the lord, at the point that he felt nothing more could be done to save the tree and it's value, becomes emotional: "And it came to pass that the lord of the vineyard wept, and said unto the servant: What could I have done more for my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:41). If we think of the lord of the vineyard as God, and Israel (or us all) as the tree in the vineyard, it's easy to see: The Lord loves us. He blesses us because He loves us. He wants our lives to produce good things and return our fruit of love back to Him. He goes to great lengths to put us into growing circumstances. The Lord is grieved and weeps when he loses one of His children to the decay of Satan's deceit.
With this in mind, the lord of the vineyard took steps to preserve the tree. Each time the lord and his servants labored, they first dug about it and nourished it (sometimes they dunged it, which a gardener knows is the same thing, although it is funny to think of the word dung being in the Book of Mormon). The lord of the vineyard talks about the labor that is involved; he has his servants doing the labor, but not without him. Now think about our Savior and His servants. I believe that he is constantly laboring for our welfare, not just mystically wishing good fortune and happiness on us, but physically laboring for our welfare. He always has made efforts for our benefit, probably in ways we can't even understand. Think about the culmination of His life on earth: Truly a great and terrible labor for us. I believe that he not only sends His servants (the angels both of His realm and His earthly angels) to lead us, guide us, and to care for us. Leadership in itself is a great deal of labor. He intercedes on our behalf as well; kind of an ambassadorship to our Father in Heaven on our behalf. Diplomacy can be hard labor as well. I also believe that there are other labors He performs on our behalf that we don't understand or even know about, too (ok, that's not church doctrine, just Don speculating, alright?).
We need to relieve the Lord's efforts by being His good servants in taking care of our part of the vineyard - a.k.a His kingdom on earth. To do otherwise increases His burdens as He performs His labors to bring His children back to him. We need to respond to the care He gives us by growing in righteousness continually. To do otherwise increases His burdens as He performs His labors on our behalf.
A few words about plucking and grafting. The lord of the vineyard tries to save his tree by taking branches off of it and grafting it onto another tree and by taking branches from other olive trees and grafting them into the natural tree. Think about how Israel's troubled history - at times they have been righteous, at other times, not so much (as we read in the Old Testament). Israel has been scattered throughout the world and can be found in almost every society. According to this story, the scattering was done to preserve the good of Israel. If Israel had remained a righteous people, would they have been scattered? Think about the people of the City of Enoch; they didn't get scattered, right? For us personally, sometimes we get "scattered" as well. Things happen in our lives that seem bad or scary at the time. In the end, though, we learn, grow, and adapt if we cling to the Lord. The Lord certainly knows what we are capable of and allows things to happen that would shape us into better beings if we keep our testimonys sharp and our knees bent.
Finally, it struck me that the lord of the vineyard plucked off the bad branches and threw them into the fire to be burned. I hardly have to make any comment on that, do I? But is that always the case? Do people who sin always get burned? Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but we must remember that the Lord has His own timetable and isn't governed by our clocks. The point is, eventually the Lord will reconcile all of our books and will reward accordingly. An interesting side-note to this: The lord of the vineyard indicates that the end draws near... end of what? The chapter doesn't say; perhaps the end of the lord's life? Maybe his creditors are catching up to him? Not sure, but the chapter says that in the end all will be burned - good and bad. I think we should learn from this that eventually we all will have to settle our spiritual debts. We would do well to live so that our spiritual accounts are in favor of the Lord.
Don
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