This passage from Mark’s
Gospel is a difficult one to process. What
do we do with Jesus arbitrarily cursing a fig tree for not having fruit when he
was hungry? And, what do we make of Jesus
telling his disciples that they have the power to command a mountain to be
removed into the sea if they believe in their hearts and don’t doubt at all? What about his telling them, “whatever
you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be
yours.” It sounds like TV preacher stuff that we all
know is spiritual abuse; i.e., “Lassie died, Timmy, because you didn’t have
enough faith and so your prayer couldn’t heal her.”
What
Jesus did to that fig tree seems to be such a bizarre example of the arbitrary
use of his God-power that the Lectionary (WCC 3-year) avoids this passage and its
equivalent in Matthew altogether. In
fact, and if I might arbitrarily use my preacher-power of exaggeration, it
appears that in this age of our awakening environmental consciousness the wider
church finds Jesus’ actions here embarrassing and that’s if you can find
someone who really believes he actually this for certainly, our lovey-dovey
Jesus meek and mild did not kill a fig tree for not having figs on it when he
was hungry just like he didn’t make a whip and angrily beat the temple venders when
he cleansed the temple. “Jesus don’t do
violence” we like to think. He wouldn’t
kill a fig tree and if he did anything at all about the venders it was to find
an usher and politely ask him to ask them to leave. At most, he just walked into the temple and simply
said to the venders, “Hmm. I see,” and
they cowered and fled.
Nevertheless,
regardless of how strange and disturbing this passage is we still have it and
we must still deal with it for in the storyline of Mark’s Gospel the cursing of
the fig tree, the cleansing of the Jerusalem Temple, and Jesus’ imperative to
his disciples to have faith in God and pray are the first things that Jesus did
after having been publicly declared to be the Messiah by the masses. These are Jesus’ first in state acts as God’s
anointed King to save Israel and usher in the Kingdom of God.
According
to Old Testament prophecy (Zech. 9:9ff), Jesus’ slow ride into Jerusalem on a
donkey was the way God’s anointed end-times Messiah, the Son of Man would come
into Jerusalem to establish his kingdom and restore double to Israel. It should have been that he rode into town on
the donkey and went straight to the temple and there take his place on God’s
throne, the Mercy Seat, the lid of the Ark of the Covenant and then the power
and wonderful reign of God would pour forth to begin making things here on
earth as they are in heaven. Yet, that’s
not what happened. Jesus rode into
Jerusalem and he did go straight to the Temple, but he didn’t take the throne
of the Mercy Seat. He simply looked around
and then went and spent the evening in Bethany.
It was not yet his time.
The
next morning he set out to return to Jerusalem and he was hungry. He sees a fig tree in leaf and goes over to
it only to be disappointed. Now, fig
trees are quite important with respect to religious symbolism. Even in Jesus’ day, in nearly all religions
that were known, the fig tree represented bountiful, blessed religion. If the fig tree is producing, then whatever
god it was a people served was blessing them.
This particular fig tree would have then been symbolic of the religion
that was going on at the Jerusalem temple.
Jesus sees this fig tree in leaf and assumes that it must be in fruit,
but it wasn’t. Mark says that it wasn’t
the season for figs, but fig trees bear fruit twice in a year’s time, in early
spring and late summer. So if it had
leaves, there should have been figs. I
think that was what Jesus thought. But
that tree had no figs. So, in what is
probably the first thing Jesus said since the donkey ride, he pronounces a word
of judgement literally to the fig tree and figuratively upon the corrupt
religion that the Jerusalem Temple had come to embody. “May no one ever eat fruit from you
again.” Jesus then carried through by
cleansing the Temple. That cleansing
probably only lasted only for a day and maybe just hours, but in the big
picture that word of judgement against the Temple bore its fruit in 70 AD when
the Romans levelled it.
Jesus’
next act as king after cleansing the temple of the venders was teaching the
crowds, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer
for all the nations'? But you have made
it a den of robbers." He was
working with Isaiah 56:6-7 which reads: "And the foreigners who join
themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and
to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and
holds fast my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them
joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will
be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all
peoples." Contrary to his actions,
we should be beginning to get the hint that his Kingdom of God reign will be
exercised through prayer.
Carrying
on, at the end of the day on their way back to Bethany Peter points out that
the fig tree has withered. In what are
probably his first words to his disciples since the donkey ride, Jesus answers,
“Have faith in God.” – note that throughout his Gospel Mark has consistently
labelled the disciples as having no faith.
Jesus then tells them of the integral relationship between faith and
prayer. “Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and
thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what
he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in
prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be
yours.”
Jesus’
is not teaching that if they have enough faith deep in their hearts that they could
even get God to uproot a mountain and cast it into the sea. Rather, Jesus is here speaking in what could
be called apocalyptic code – certain images represent certain things which one would
like to say catastrophic things about without getting into political trouble of
the treasonous nature such as is the Book of Revelation. The mountain is the Temple, God’s holy mountain
as per Isaiah. The sea is peoples and
nations, the chaotic state of human community out of which God will bring the
order of his kingdom. Jesus is telling
his disciples to pray and believe that Yahweh’s temple, the seat of his worship
and rule will be uprooted from Jerusalem and cast into the sea of humanity;
thusly becoming the Holy Spirit-filled church.
By the power of faith through prayer the seat of God’s worship and reign
is cast into us for we are the temple of God.
Jesus’ throne is in our midst.
God’s Holy Mountain is in our midst.
A few
years ago a former parishioner of mine was hospitalized. He had come very close to death for what
appeared to be inexplicable reasons. On
one of my visits to see him at the hospital he said to me, “It’s hard for me to
say this without getting emotional,” and he paused and then went on, “Prayer is
the greatest power we have.” He said
that sitting on the edge of the bed that quite easily could have been his
deathbed and he said it knowing that prayer was at the heart of his recovery. We
exercise faith, the reign of God, in and through prayer. Faith is our relationship with God and prayer
is our active participation in that relationship. Faith is rooted in being in the presence of
God, of being before the Father arm-and-arm united heart-to-heart with Jesus in
the Holy Spirit.
I’m
going to say something very controversial and maybe even hurtful. If so, I’m sorry. There is no true faith outside of being in
the presence of God; no presence of God, no faith. We can say we believe in God. We can even say we trust God to work things
out. We can say we believe Jesus died
for our sins and we’re going to heaven.
But, if there has been no being in the presence of God, no knowing the
steadfast love and faithfulness of the Father because of being united with the
Son in the Holy Spirit, then that faith is blind intellectual assent, not
faith. I knew my former parishioner
fairly well and what I believe he was saying is that his recovery came about
not so much because of his own being in the presence of God praying but more so
other people being in the presence of God praying on his behalf. Faith participated in through prayer is the
reign of God.
Jerusalem
in Jesus’ day was filled with a corrupted religion. Much of the Christian church today is corrupted
religion. Its an institution that exists
merely for itself. The reason was
they/we got out of the presence of God and in the resultant loss of faith
became something else. Friends, do not
underestimate the importance of your devotional life, of taking the time daily
to sit and welcome God’s presence to yourself.
If you don’t feel anything, so what, keep doing it. From time to time you will. Timothy Keller in his book The Reason for
God tells of a woman in his congregation and her experience of prayer. He writes that she “complained that she had
prayed over and over, ‘God, help me find you,’ but had gotten nowhere. A Christian friend suggested to her that she
might change her prayer to, ‘God, come and find me. After all, you are the Good Shepherd who goes
looking for the lost sheep.’ She
concluded when she was recounting this to me, ‘the only reason I can tell you
this story is—he did.’” Amen.
