A Barren Tree and a Barren Temple

Why did Jesus pick on the poor fig tree?  Especially when it wasn’t time for figs to be ripe?  Well, Mark tells us Jesus was hungry (Mark 11:12).  Apparently, then, Jesus became “hangry?”  He saw the leaves and went to see if by chance this tree fruited earlier than usual.  Then, when it didn’t, Jesus arranged for it never to bear fruit—ever again.

I don’t think so, for lots of reasons.  For one: Jesus often knew things that most didn’t—like what people were thinking (Mark 2:8; see John 2:24-25).  Surely then he could have known he’d find no fruit on that tree at that time of year.  For another: On occasion Jesus commanded the elements of nature, stilling storms, multiplying loaves of bread, turning water into wine.  Instead of cursing the tree, why not grow fruit on the tree?  Indeed, that would go well with what he says about having faith that could “move mountains,” which is one of the take-aways from this episode (Mark 11:23).  Finally, this is a curious incident for the gospel writers to include in their account of Holy Week, if it’s only about hunger and disappointment at finding no figs.  Curious, unless there is more going on.  I agree with scholars who suggest there is more.

I understand this as an enacted parable about one tree at the beginning of Holy Week that helps us see more clearly what will happen on another tree toward the end of Holy Week.  Consider some of the reasons.

The prophets of Israel often portrayed God’s word through dramatic acts.  Ezekiel laid on his side (Ezek. 4); Jeremiah wore a yoke around his neck (Jer. 27); and Isaiah walked around naked and barefooted (Isa. 20).  Such portrayals vividly and memorably “declared” the Word of the Lord to the people. 

Further, God’s covenant people, blessed to be a blessing, called to be a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation, and a light to the nations, had been likened to a vineyard planted by the Lord (Ps. 80; Isa. 5) and Jesus in his teaching had used the Fig Tree as a symbol of the People of God (Luke 13:6-9; compare Jer. 8:13).  As such, God called the people to account for their lack of fruit—despite being planted and nurtured by the Lord.

Finally, all the accounts of Jesus and the fig tree are in the context of Jesus “cleansing” the Temple.  Mathew tells of Jesus’ cleansing the Temple immediately after his reception into the city on Palm Sunday (Matt. 21:1-13).  The following morning, on the way back to the Temple, Jesus curses the barren Fig Tree and it immediately withers from top to bottom (Matt. 21:19-20).  Then once he enters the Temple, the Chief Priests and Elders demanded to know how Jesus has the authority to act as he has—not least the day before in the Temple (Matt. 21:23-24ff.) 

In contrast, Mark tells the fig tree story so that it brackets his cleansing of the Temple.  So, Jesus first curses the barren tree, then enters a barren Temple and cleanses it—denouncing what it had become and declaring what God intended the Temple to be.  Then the Disciples see what happened to the barren tree Jesus cursed as they leave the barren Temple he has just cleansed.   

In other words, Jesus was not “hangry.”  The Fig Tree and what happens to it prefigures the Temple and what will happen to it—immediately when Jesus “cleanses” it and later when it will be destroyed by the Roman army (see Mark 13:1-2).   Jesus illustrates the judgment that awaits a barren Temple by “judgment” upon a barren tree. 

Commonly, readers of the gospel express a bit of sympathy for the Tree.  After all, the gospel notes it was not the time for fruit and still the Tree is judged!  Yet, even at this point, there is more going on.  It was the time or the season for the Temple to bear fruit.  God had patiently dealt with the people and their leaders, bearing with them and forgiving them, but now they reject and kill the Messiah God has sent for them.  If, then, Messiah pronounces judgment on the barren tree out of season, how much more upon the Temple when its season has come?  If the tree, woe to the Temple!

The trouble with the Temple, Jesus’ said, was its leaders had made it a “den of thieves” or “the headquarters for rebellion against God,” and thus were robbing God of harvest-fruit.  (The word for “thieves” here had this note of insurgency and rebellion packed into it, compare the parable in Mark 12:1-11).  Jesus’ cleansing signaled a new kind of Temple that would bear fruit as a House of Prayer for the nations, a center for gathering the nations into the presence of God at last.

Before that can happen, however, Jesus must encounter another accursed Tree at week’s end.  In this Tree the corruption of the Temple and its barrenness plummets to its worst expression as the Holy One assumes and accepts its curse for us all.  (Indeed, as the Law declares: cursed is everyone who hangs upon the tree—see Deut. 21:23, Gal. 3:13-14)!   But, then, having suffered and succumbed to the curse, that same Holy One tears apart the Heavens (Mark 15:37-38) and opens the floodgates to shower the world with the blessings of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).  

Therefore, consider this:

  • The Lord God of all so loved the world and us that he bore the curse that rightly fell to us—including His people then and today.
  • In so doing, the Lord holds the world and his people accountable for the barrenness of their lives, in order to remove it once for all.
  • Then, the Lord builds the true Temple, the community of loving intercessors whose prayers connect the needs of the outcasts—near and far—with the resources of heaven.
  • This is who Jesus’ followers are: that community rising up and flowing forth to the ends of the earth.

 

 

LENTEN LAMENTATION

At the end of this week followers of Jesus will bring to completion their Lenten observance.  They will have named and denied their self-life, shouldered the weight of costly self-sacrifice with Jesus, and come to the Garden and the Cross.  They will remember Jesus’ loud cries and tears at the cup handed him, and then his wailing from the cross: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?”  At the end of next week, we will follow Jesus into extreme “lamentation.”

His people—the historic People of God—had learned to lament.  When death stalked their children, when drought scorched their crops, when pestilence enshrouded their villages, cities, and nation, when enemies threatened, besieged, defeated and displaced or destroyed them … they lamented:

“Why?”

“How long?

“When?”

“Help!”

“Now!”

“Stop!”

“Listen!”

“Please!”

This Holy Week all of us to some degree inhabit places of lamentation.  Pandemics work this way. The whole world seems under siege, fears the worst for the most vulnerable, and struggles to see beyond the woes looming largely before us.  Inside and outside the followership of Jesus many of us catch ourselves lamenting.

“Why?”

“How long?

“When?”

“Help!”

“Now!”

“Stop!”

“Listen!”

“Please!”

Naturally, we want to know “Why?”  But is there an explanation that answers our “abandonment,” that would make it okay to struggle on alone?  Is there a rationale that mitigates the pain, the loss, the deep dark pit that would swallow us? (As we plummet into the darkness, would it help to go down with an explanation?)   And in the absence of an “answer,” are we then re-abandoned?  Aren’t we just worse off, though nothing has really changed?  So, we cry even louder, “Why?”

Of course, we want to know “How long?” and “when?” and then demand, “Now!” (with or without, “Please!”)  But would it really comfort us to know how long, when every second we suffer feels eternal?  Would assurance that it will be only a few more “eternities” (AKA “seconds”) really help us in our painful never-ending now?

We know from scripture, tradition, and experience that our cries matter, or they should, that there must be a space where attentive ears are poised to listen and a heart is soft enough to break with ours.  So, we lament, “Listen!”  “Stop!” “Please!”  But is there a word we could hear that assuages our lament?  Would it help if heaven thundered back, “I hear you!”  Perhaps.  But once the rumbling stilled, wouldn’t others, maybe we ourselves, surmise it was just “thunder”?

So, on and on we lament our way through the week we now call “holy.”  In view of a global pandemic visiting every village, town, city, state, province, region, nation, and continent.  Visiting by infecting victims who often become aware only after they have perhaps acted as agents of the attack, not least upon their nearest and dearest.  Visiting by quarantine, by sheltering safely, by self-isolating strategy—in places where these are even possibilities.  And from those places we lament.  But in other places where the only option is a life immersed with others, totally dependent and interactive with others, life not really viable on any other terms.  In those places come cries of lamentation.  And for those places—we join them in lamentation.   We lament the most imminent and pressing scourge now upon us, which then heightens multiple other scourges and contagion chronically with us.  Indeed, we lament all these.

“Why?”

“How long?

“When?”

“Help!”

“Now!”

“Stop!”

“Listen!”

“Please!”

But, toward the end of the week, as our weakened and hoarse cries falter and fade, Another Voice joins ours and takes up our cries with us and for us:

That Voice, prostate in the dirt, mingling tears and blood with the dust, sickened and sorrowed, knowing fully the worst that can and will come, from the midst of the gloom, calls in anguish: “Really?  Seriously?  This is the only way? …  Ok, Ok.”

Then, torn and hung between heaven and earth, nailed down, tied down, dropped down, stretched taut, ripping and gasping, gathering breath and voice to cry out with us but also for us: “Why have you abandoned me?”

 

Moments later, having fully lamented, we hear:

“Abba, forgive …,

“into your hands, Abba … ,” and

“Abba,  it is done!”

 

Every Holy Week in the church’s history, the friends of Jesus follow him into lamentation, and are surprised to learn Jesus has followed them into their anguish and voices the same protests and pleas they do!

Then …

What an answer or explanation, a reason or purpose or time-line could never do, a Presence and Power with us wondrously does.

 

For Palm Sunday

Loving Lord God,

 

We welcome you this coronation week, for you are the Lord, The Maker of Heaven and earth, the Lord enthroned above the heavens, approaching our world to reclaim it and us as your co-regents, hand-crafted, in-breathed, then regally commissioned!

We welcome you, our only Loving Lord, strong and mighty,

 

Laying aside your glory, stooping to our level, arming yourself
With the weapons of Your warfare, Holy Arms lifted, ready to
Orchestrate the battle fought once for all.

 

We welcome your majesty, rejected, denied, betrayed, scorned, mocked, beaten, shamed, crucified, and executed.

 

We shrink from the sight, from the horror of what they did to you, And, then, at the recognition that “they” are us.

 

We are the ones who fell short of the Glory, who embraced the lie, who subjected the whole creation to futility, ran from the light, and lost our Way, our Truth, and our Life. Yes, we are the ones.

 

We are the ones for whom you came, loved, suffered, and died, in order to put away our sin, our rebellions, our unfaithfulness. We are the ones, over and over again.

 

We welcome you, Loving Lord, King eternal, enthroned above, now to ascend another throne, at the end of the week, another throne from which a lesser-than-God could never rise up.

 

But you are not lesser-than-God, except by consent, for just a moment, lesser-than-God but no less Love entering in, encountering all that wars against God and God’s designs, embracing the full brunt of it all and, wonder of wonders, exhausting its force and power, undoing the unthinkable demise–first of You, and then by your mercies of us.

 

We welcome you, Loving Lord, King eternal, we open the gates and our hearts, wage the battle fought only by surrender until the war ceases in our hearts, our homes, our communities, our nations and our world,

 

In the Name above all, we pray, amen!

God is STILL on the Throne! ?

It is common for people of faith to respond to tragedy and threat by affirming: “God is still on the Throne!”  I take this to mean that whatever has happened or is happening has not defeated God, nor surprised God, and has not called into question God’s ability or willingness to help.  What has happened is not a problem for God.

But, when we say this, it is often precisely because it is a problem for us.  We are surprised.  We feel threatened if not defeated.  And, we do not (yet) see anyone doing anything about it, such that it calms our spirits.  So, it can help to declare our faith: God is still on the throne.  That is, God is no less God than before, no less aware, and no less at work to rescue and save the world than before.  Still on the Throne!

I think it would be more helpful to adjust the emphasis or stress to say:  GOD is on the Throne.  Everything depends upon “God.”  Upon what sort of God sits enthroned.  Upon how God rules and fights and achieves victory.  On the one hand, whatever the threat—let’s say a menacing pandemic and whatever havoc it brings, it could never unseat God—as though a rival had pulled off a successful coup of the Kingdom of God.  No, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords reigns constantly and everlastingly.

What matters most is who and how God is and what and how God acts in our world.  When we get and keep these in mind our spirits can calm, and hearts settle into deep ongoing trust.

Who and how God is—creator, sustainer, lover, healer, provider, protector and guardian of all creation.  God is love and God is holy.  God is almighty—powerful enough to create everything in the beginning, and powerful enough to re-create everything by raising Jesus from the dead and thus defeating the pandemic death and evil that has threatened all created reality from nearly the beginning and from time to time ever since.

What and how God acts—by reaching for, stooping low, and in Jesus ultimately emptying self to enter the world to reveal, restore, and renew the good plans God has had for all people.  God acts to establish a Kingdom and Governance that corresponds to who and how God is. God acts from within the world God has made, and God will redeem and heal.  What and how God is and God acts has at least two consequences for us in the face of pandemic threat.

First, within creation itself, even in its fallen and broken condition, God has embedded and encoded properties and processes which can reveal much that has gone wrong and provide insight for its remedy and correction.   When the current pandemic has been analyzed adequately so that a vaccine can be made, and treatments developed and offered—it will trace back to the God who is on the Throne.  In fact, God has not abandoned the world, but God has created it in such a way that potential disasters can be understood and remedied if not averted.  Of course, there will be experts in the sciences, executives in multiple spheres of endeavor, and leaders at every level who played their parts and who may well step forward to claim the credit.  But their wisdom, training and expertise work because God made and loves the world a certain way. The healing and corrective remedies will come only because God created and sustains and blessed the world in this way.  God is on the Throne.

Second, in the meantime, God continues to act everywhere and all the time in other ways that fully correspond to who and how God is.  God entered the world in Jesus our Lord.  Through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, enthronement over all, and gift of the Spirit God has formed a Body, a here and now presence in the here and now world, tasked with the ongoing mission of Jesus.  In other words, God has agents of Royal Governance positioned, embedded everywhere who speak, act, and react as Jesus would if Jesus were there.  Thus, Jesus is there fully embodied, prepared and at work.

In the face of our current pandemic we affirm God is on the Throne.  We can have confidence that long before the twisted and deadly pathogens could have formed, the basis for understanding and treating them was already there, waiting to be discovered and stewarded in healing ways.  From our present position, as we wait in this hope, we are the people God has placed as Kingdom agents who bring Jesus’ love, touch and healing wherever we can, whenever we can, and however we can.

All because this, our God, is on the Throne!

 

For the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Loving Lord,

We would worship you today in Spirit and Truth,

Which is good because we cannot gather with

Others, as has been our practice from ages past!

But though we remain un-gathered, still we “gather,“

Virtually and truly with myriads of the unseen hosts

From before, from now, and also from hereafter,

To celebrate your holiness, to delight in your love,

And to declare your presence with us now and ever!

 

We gather in “un-gathered” assemblies to hear again

Your call to follow the love and holiness you have

Embodied in your one and only Son, our one and only

Lord and Messiah, Jesus!  We consider again his call

To deny the self-life and enter in to the cross-life,

All the way to a dying and rising with him that promises

Rebirth for the world, its nations and tribes, us and all,

A re-assembling of all earth’s un-gathered healed whole!

 

Loving Lord, as we—un-gathered-gatherings—assemble

Before, with, and in your presence, let our prayers bring

Assurance to all near and far who serve the sick, that

Their attentive and trained touch becomes for the stricken

Your touch that tenderly and powerfully arrests viral attack,

And, let the cumulative impact of their multiple touches

Gather together sacramentally to become streams of mercy

Flooding our dying deserts with Edenic blessing and fruit.

 

In the name above all names, amen!