Monday | Leaves Without Fruit: The Danger of Empty Religion

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today is Monday of Holy Week and we'll

be looking at Mark 11 which is about the

fig tree and the temple jesus's

interaction with the fig fig tree

bookends his actions in the temple and

scholars call this a Markin sandwich

which is a literary device seen

throughout Mark that has two unrelated

stories one story bookending the other

to shed significance on the middle story

listen to Mark 11 12 on the next day

when they left Bethany he became hungry

seeing from a distance a fig tree and

leaf he went to see if perhaps he could

find anything on it and when he came to

it he found nothing but leaves for it

was not the season for figs and he said

to it "May no one ever eat fruit from

you again." And his disciples were

listening then they came to Jerusalem

and he entered the temple area and began

to drive out those who were selling and

buying on the temple grounds and he

overturned the temples of the money

changers and the seats of those who were

selling doves and he would not allow

anyone to carry merchandise through the

temple grounds and he began to teach and

say to them "Is it not written my house

will be called a house of prayer for all

the nations but you have made it a den

of

robbers?" And the chief priests and the

scribes heard this and they began

seeking how to put him to death for they

were afraid of him because all the crowd

was astonished at his teaching and

whenever evening came they would leave

the

city as they were passing by in the

morning they saw the fig tree withered

from the roots up and being reminded

Peter said to him "Rabbi look the fig

tree you cursed has withered." And Jesus

answered and said to them "Have faith in

God 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 is

going to happen it will be granted to

him therefore I say to you all things

for which you pray and ask believe that

you have received them and they will be

granted to you and whenever you stand

praying forgive if you have anything

against anyone so that your father who

is in heaven will also forgive you your

offenses but if you do not forgive

neither will your father who is in

heaven forgive your

offenses this passage begins and ends

with the fig tree which on its surface

is a curious story which makes Jesus

look odd and cranky why look for figs at

a season why take your frustration out

on a plant if Jesus was hungry he could

have manifested figs on the tree so what

is the significance of the story jesus

was behaving like an old school prophet

creating a symbolic reenactment of God's

judgment like Ezekiel who God told to

lay on his side for 390 days to quote

"bear the sins of Israel."

Jesus performed this same kind of

prophetic symbolism and we can make

sense of it by looking at Micah 6

and7 in Micah

Micah 6:2

6:2 it says "Listen you mountains to the

indictment by the Lord because the Lord

has a case against his people."

God then goes on to mention the Exodus

and how he saved Israel over and over on

their journey to the promised land then

God poses a question what does this

righteous God expect in return in verse

seven and 8 it says "Does the Lord take

pleasure in thousands of rams in 10,000

rivers of oil he has told you mortal one

what is good to do justice to love

kindness and to walk humbly with your

God he then spends the rest of the

chapter describing the injustice the

violence and the idolatry of Israel all

of which was deserving of punishment

then in Micah 7 there is this theme of

the prophet looking for fruit and

finding only

fruitlessness the prophet Micah says in

verse one "Woe to me for I am like

harvest of summer fruit like gleanings

of grapes there is not a cluster of

grapes left to eat nor an early fig

which I

crave." Notice that last line not an

early fig which I crave you can hear the

echo of the early fig of Micah in Mark

11 mark uniquely points out that it was

not the season for figs but since the

tree had leaves it was possible for

there to be fruit on it like the prophet

Micah Jesus was hungry for righteousness

and looking for the fruit of it in the

temple and he was looking for it in his

own timing jesus came to the temple late

in the day so late in fact that he

turned around and left possibly

signifying that it was too late to

reform the temple and pass time for God

to pass judgment on it as he did in

Micah

6 well the next day Jesus finds a tree

in a fruitless condition and curses the

tree the King James version preserves an

interesting detail from the Greek it

says "And Jesus answered applees in

Greek and said unto it no man eat fruit

of thee hereafter forever." It's as if

the leaves on the tree communicated

fruitfulness but in fact wasn't fruitful

so Jesus responded to the tree with

judgment and the disciples heard

it after cursing the tree Jesus enters

the city and goes to the temple he

drives out the money changers and

merchants he stops vessels from being

carried through the temple grounds and

overturns tables and seats of those who

were selling doves which was the

sacrificial animal for the very poor

this is commonly referred to as Jesus

cleansing the temple but was it a

cleansing why would Jesus cleanse

something that he himself was replacing

and knew would would be destroyed

it was more of a disruption than a

cleansing this is what he did he stopped

the normal operations of the temple

money changers helped pilgrims exchange

their money to pay the required temple

tax merchants sold unblenmished animals

for sacrifices the vessels or

merchandise around the temple with

sacrificial elements

jesus explained why he stopped all of

this necessary activity in Mark 11:17

Mark 11:17

jesus quotes from Isaiah and Jeremiah

and says "Is it not written my house

will be called a house of prayer for all

the nations but you have made it a den

of robbers." The first reference is to

Isaiah 56 where God invites foreigners

to come worship in his house of prayer

and in the same breath God promises to

quote "gather the dispersed of

Israel." The second temple was meant to

bring restoration to Israel and to fill

their purpose as a people of being a

light to the

nations but that is not what was

happening jesus's two main critiques of

religion in Israel is that it was

hypocritical and exclusionary and

because of that their religion wasn't

bearing fruit instead of the temple

being the center of God's justice and

mercy Jesus described it as a den of

robbers and that's the reference to

Jeremiah 7 where the Lord issues a

powerful condemnation against

hypocrisy in Jeremiah 7:8-11 it says

Jeremiah 7:8–11

"Behold you are trusting in deceptive

words to no avail will you steal murder

commit adultery swear falsely offer

sacrifices to ball and follow other gods

that you have not known then come and

stand before me in this house which is

called by my name and say "We are saved

so that you may do all these

abominations has this house which is

called by my name become a den of

robbers in your sight behold I myself

have seen it declares the Lord jeremiah

11 ends with a declaration that due to

the lack of justice and righteousness in

Israel it says the land will become a

sight of ruin so imagine this the crowds

had celebrated Jesus their as their king

the day before and now he was applying

the condemnation of Jeremiah 7 to the

temple and to the people and that's why

the priests and scribes responded to

Jesus by plotting to kill him jesus was

calling out their complacency and

corruption the scholar Timothy Gambas

points out in his commentary on Mark

that the temple had come to represent

the tragedy that God's people had taken

perverse comfort in their identity as

God's people to excuse their

disobedience this hypocrisy was holding

Israel back from fulfilling its vocation

of being a light to the nations instead

of the temple becoming a symbol of God's

free invitation of mercy and worship it

was the place organized around excluding

all outsiders and foreigners remember in

Acts 21 when Paul was arrested in

Jerusalem his opponents had seen him

walking around the city with an Ephesian

and so they accused him of bringing

Greeks into the temple grounds that's

just an example of how the temple was

not fulfilling its purpose and Jesus

condemned it just like he condemned the

fig tree and if this point was not clear

enough the next

morning Jesus and the disciples passed

by the fig tree again and see it

withered from the roots up and Jesus

told them "Have faith in God truly I

tell 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 is going to

happen it will be granted to him

remember how we looked at Micah 7 to

hear the echo of early figs that Jesus

was looking for in a tree full of

leaves micah 6 and 7 is about God's

judgment on Israel's sin but the second

half of Micah 7 describes God's desire

and vision of mercy and restoration for

Israel micah 7:18 says "He does not

Micah 7:18

retain his anger forever because he

delights in mercy he will again take

pity on us he will trample on our

wrongdoings yes you will cast all their

sins into the depths of the sea."

So what does Jesus mean by having faith

to throw a mountain into the sea he had

just cursed the temple and condemned it

the place where the people flock to

experience God's mercy and forgiveness

without the temple and the place where

God lives with his people how would they

have hope and

reconciliation jesus encourages them to

have faith pray and not doubt god is

willing to cast all their sins into the

depths of the sea because he is faithful

and he delights in

mercy god is willing to bring communal

restoration to his people judgment in

the prophetic tradition is always follow

is always followed by the hope of

renewal but renewal comes with an

obligation to please God and obey him

jesus was using this living parable of

the fig tree to point to an end of one

thing and the beginning of another he

replaced the temple as the center of

forgiveness and replaced it with the

community of disciples who would embody

God's mercy and that's why the apostle

Paul later describes the church as the

new temple and house of God's

spirit jesus said "Whenever you stand

praying forgive." That's a high calling

it points to what it means to be a

community of righteousness i think it's

immature and worldly to look at what

Jesus did in the temple and think we are

excused to be aggressive and overbearing

with our convictions christians get into

a lot of trouble for that instead

disciplehip in in the New Testament is

defined by humility gentleness and

kindness let your gentleness be evident

to all

and people have said to me "Jesus was a

real man because he turned over tables

when he needed to." But that's not the

lesson here the point of this passage is

that we are not to hide our sins behind

our religion and behind our identity as

a church member when Jesus entered the

temple he saw priests using the temple

system to enrich themselves juxtaposed

with the poor thronging to merchant

tables to buy the cheapest animal they

could to participate in atonement

rituals he also saw a compromising

alliance with empire as the chief

priests were collaborators with

Rome you know as followers of Christ we

have to be aware of these things as well

nationalism or political idolatry and

the deceitfulness of wealth those things

choke out the word and make us

unfruitful again the point of Jesus

disrupting the temple is not to show

that we need to forcibly advance the

kingdom push over tables and whip people

if necessary the point is that true

religion does not neglect the practice

of mercy in our daily lives which is why

Jesus emphasizes forgiveness at the end

of this passage we're not just supposed

to seek God's mercy but be God's mercy

in the world because Jesus sees those

two things as inseparably

linked we can recognize in church

history how cursed it is for communities

to rely on the status of being

recipients of God n God's mercy but not

givers of it so in this passage Jesus is

laying down the standard of maturity

before his disciples and he is of course

not expecting immediate and complete

transformation because that's not how

character works we are blessed in Christ

and grow into our blessings when I think

of the concept of blessing as the

opposite of being cursed like the fig

tree was cursed I think of Psalms 1 and

it talks about how the blessed person

delights in God's law and meditates on

it day and night

they are like a tree planted by a stream

that yields its fruit in season and

whose leaf never

withers and that's an interesting image

to see alongside the withered fig tree

jesus wants us to be blessed and

fruitful he has no desire to curse his

community of saints because God is our

father and we are his chosen and his

beloved and his spirit lives in the

church we have freely available to us

God's presence mercy forgiveness God's

joy his delight and his wisdom and if we

pray for those things we should believe

as if we have already received them

because in fact they are abundantly

available to us in Christ Jesus our Lord

one thing you can meditate on today is

what are some spiritual mountains in our

community that seem too big to move out

of the way jesus is providing us a

prophetic message because he wants us to

have hope we can pray to God about what

we need more hope for

today amen

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