Mark for Lent 28
Today we have two stories of the cursing of the fig tree book-ended around the story of Jesus in the temple. Today’s reading concludes with a story about Jesus’ authority.
Jesus Puts a Curse on a Fig Tree (Matthew 21.18,19)
12When Jesus and his disciples left Bethany the next morning, he was hungry. 13From a distance Jesus saw a fig tree covered with leaves, and he went to see if there were any figs on the tree. But there were not any, because it wasn’t the season for figs. 14So Jesus said to the tree, “Never again will anyone eat fruit from this tree!” The disciples heard him say this.
Jesus in the Temple (Matthew 21.12-17; Luke 19.45-48; John 2.13-22)
15After Jesus and his disciples reached Jerusalem, he went into the temple and began chasing out everyone who was selling and buying. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and the benches of those who were selling doves. 16Jesus would not let anyone carry things through the temple. 17Then he taught the people and said, “The Scriptures say, `My house should be called a place of worship for all nations.’ But you have made it a place where robbers hide!”
18The chief priests and the teachers of the Law of Moses heard what Jesus said, and they started looking for a way to kill him. They were afraid of him, because the crowds were completely amazed at his teaching.19That evening, Jesus and the disciples went outside the city.
A Lesson from the Fig Tree (Matthew 21.20-22)
20As the disciples walked past the fig tree the next morning, they noticed that it was completely dried up, roots and all. 21Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree. Then Peter said, “Teacher, look! The tree you put a curse on has dried up.”
22Jesus told his disciples:Have faith in God! 23If you have faith in God and don’t doubt, you can tell this mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will. 24Everything you ask for in prayer will be yours, if you only have faith.
25-26Whenever you stand up to pray, you must forgive what others have done to you. Then your Father in heaven will forgive your sins. [a]
A Question about Jesus’ Authority (Matthew 21.23-27; Luke 20.1-8)
27Jesus and his disciples returned to Jerusalem. And as he was walking through the temple, the chief priests, the nation’s leaders, and the teachers of the Law of Moses came over to him. 28They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”
29Jesus answered, “I have just one question to ask you. If you answer it, I will tell you where I got the right to do these things. 30Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”31They thought it over and said to each other, “We can’t say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn’t believe John. 32On the other hand, these people think that John was a prophet. So we can’t say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize.”
They were afraid of the crowd 33and told Jesus, “We don’t know.”
Jesus replied, “Then I won’t tell you who gave me the right to do what I do.”
Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society
March 31st, 2006 at 8:49 am
Is Jesus finally cracking up? Is he suffering from “pre-traumatic stress syndrome”.
March 31st, 2006 at 11:03 am
What makes you say that Jesus is cracking up?
March 31st, 2006 at 11:14 am
Clues to Jesus exhibiting potential psychosis:
1. Expressing anger at fig tree for not bearing figs out of season - see http://godhatesfigs.com
2. Going ballistic with the money changers.
3. Exaggerating the power of prayer and faith.
According to Wikipedia
‘Psychosis is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state in which thought and perception are severely impaired. Persons experiencing a psychotic episode may experience hallucinations, hold delusional beliefs (e.g., paranoid delusions), demonstrate personality changes and exhibit disorganized thinking (see thought disorder). This is often accompanied by lack of insight into the unusual or bizarre nature of such behavior, difficulties with social interaction and impairments in carrying out the activities of daily living. A psychotic episode is often described as involving a “loss of contact with reality”.’
March 31st, 2006 at 11:29 am
I think we should be keeping a concerned eye on Jesus’ mental state as the story unfolds.
March 31st, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Okay, you do that. The thing I really like about the fig story in Mark is the way that it is ordered, as a bookend around the cleansing of the temple. It always used to jar with me that Jesus cursed a fig tree (same as the fact that I always thought that the pig farmer should be mad about his herd being possessed by demons and running off a cliff in one of Jesus’ earlier “healings”).
March 31st, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Do mentally disturbed people have a closer connection with God? The depiction of Jesus in this story may underline that. Mental illness and religious adherence may be related.
March 31st, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Kieren if you don’t mind my asking but if you don’t believe in Jesus being the Son of God then why are you on this site? And how can you use mental illness to explain His resurrection? How about all those people He healed and fed?
The story of the fig tree shows us that Jesus spoke with authority. So much authority over nature that only God could have such authority. He calmed the seas and when fishermen cast their nets, the nets emerged full even though all the fishermen were experts in fishing and knew they would not catch anything. Jesus did these things to prove to His followers who He really was in order to disprove theories that He was mentally ill as His family was trying to say about Him.
He cursed the fig tree for not having good fruit in order to show the truth about what God does to us when we do not use our talents and skills to fruition — He will cut off the bad branches or uproot those roots which will never bear good fruit.
Next, when Jesus spoke nature alligned itself with His words….not the other way around - Jesus spoke and things happened — well how many of us can claim such a thing? I can’t. He also wanted to show His followers to have 100% faith in what they pray for. So, He cursed the fig tree and He never went back to double check to see if it was actually cursed. He already knew and it was only His disciples who were surprised.
March 31st, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Frances,
I like to engage with people who disagree with my views, as I think I can benefit from the learning experience. Sure, I can discuss the same topics in other forums (and I have done this), but criticism and disagreement often leads to more interesting conversation than talking over the same topics with a group of people who hold similar views. Also, it was only recently that I found a couple of articles that expressed some other reasons why an atheist might be interested in Christianity or expressions of faith in general. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar06/Jensen07.htm and http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Mar06/Rigby28.htm. I find myself agreeing with some of the sentiments in these articles.
On the matter of believing the miracles of Jesus as literally true: why would you take them at face value? If someone told you stories about a miracles happening today, wouldn’t you be a little more skeptical, possibly downright disbelieving? I don’t see why a different standard should be applied to the Biblical narrative.
Cursing a fig tree to demonstrate authority over nature seems somewhat childish.
March 31st, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Keiren, if your motivation is to enage with people who disagree with your views, in order that it will be a learning experience then I would suggest you are going about it the wrong way. When you describe the people (who you are trying to learn from) views (faith/belief) as a mental illness - I don’t see an attempt to learn. I see an attempt to bait. smear and attack.
If your intent is to learn and engage and your motivation is sumarised in that paper you linked to then perhaps you need to rethink your methods.
March 31st, 2006 at 3:24 pm
On the matter of believing the miracles of Jesus as literally true: why would you take them at face value? If someone told you stories about a miracles happening today, wouldn’t you be a little more skeptical, possibly downright disbelieving? I don’t see why a different standard should be applied to the Biblical narrative.
Thbis is the exact discussion I was reading in a book this moirning - John Dickson’s “A Spectators Guide to Jesus” - it might be worth a read for you Keiren. If you want to email me off line I would be happy to send you a copy - my gift in the name of open eyed and open hearted engagement
March 31st, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Did I leave out the bait, smear and attack part? That too.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:00 pm
To expand on the above, these approaches (bait/smear/attack), are just some examples of conversational devices. Obviously not everyone uses them, and I might use them more than some other people. I don’t see there use as being illegitimate, however.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:12 pm
They just illustrate that your motivation is not to learn and engage.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:03 pm
I don’t think you can clinically disect peoples motivations as easily as that, Phil. With your adroit people skills you must realise that motivations can vary from time to time. People don’t continuously engage in academically serious discussion.
And back to the mental dysfunction analogy - do you mean to say you cannot any oddness with the reported behaviour of Jesus? Do you think your theological training has conditioned your viewpoint?
March 31st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Oh I know you too well.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:16 pm
If you have known someone well in the past, say 10-15 years ago, you can’t claim that that same knowledge is entirely applicable today. Are you making that assumption, Phil?
March 31st, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Dave, the more you post the more you prove my point. The knowledge is based upon 10 or 15 years ago and the demonstration of your comments that show you have not improved your relational skills at all.
A shame.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:31 pm
“Ultimately, this is our site. We pay for it, we maintain it and will continue to do so as long as it continues to amuse us. So, even though the above points are guidelines, we reserve the right to do pretty much what we please without warning or explanation”
Feel free to exercise that option any time you wish.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:32 pm
ok
March 31st, 2006 at 5:40 pm
“There were not any figs, because it wasn’t the season for figs.” (Setting: road to Dodge City)
Now we know that Mark knew that Jesus knew that all of his disciples knew - face it we all know that it was not the season for fig’s so this story (despite Kieren’s misunderstanding) is not about one particular plants reproductive system. What is it about?
Once again Mark breaks a story in two around an interupting episode (remember the time Jesus told a parable about telling parables or the synagogue leader who needed faith interupted by a bleeding woman…who had faith) and the interupting episode gives an interetive framework.
Notice how Jesus says “THIS tree” I can imagine Jesus with a wink in his eye nodding to the thing he was really refering to as he says it - but what could it possibly be about if not figs.
“Jesus went into the TEMPLE” (Setting: Dodge Central)
We travel to the heart of the temple relgion/state authority. Jesus finds the temple is fruitless and damns it. Much to the annoyance of the chief priests and the ‘teachers of the Law of Moses’ so the plot to kill Jesus grows.
“If you have faith in God and don’t doubt, you can tell THIS mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will.” (Setting: road out of Dodge City)
Sure enough the tree has completely dried up, roots and all. How did that happen? Don’t the kings of this world draw their authoirty from controlling access to health and education and eccononic systems, or ritual cleanness, or social capital, or exchange or even ‘God’ - so what authoirty does Jesus have?
“Faith in God!” Once more Jesus shows he is on about a different approach. Trusting God and not any of these other sorces of power that we may be tempted to have sovereignty in our lives.
“You can tell THIS mountain to get up and jump into the sea, and it will.” Now we know that Mark knew that Jesus knew that all of his disciples knew - face it we all know that moutains of rock and soil don’t levitate through mind control. This story is not (despite Kieren’s misunderstanding) about geo-physic landscaping. What is it about?
Notice how Jesus says “THIS mountain” and not “just any old mountain”.
I can imagine Jesus with a wink in his eye nodding to the thing he was really refering to as he says it - but what could it possibly be about?
I’ll give you one guess which mount Jesus was standing on when he said it…
“As he was walking through the TEMPLE” (Setting: back in Dodge Cetnral) “the chief priests, the nation’s leaders, and the teachers of the Law of Moses came over to him. They asked, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”
So we are back to the issue of the opening confrontation between Jesus and the spirit of evil represented by those enamoured by the ‘teachers of the Law of Moses’?
And what do you do with people who refuse to see? Tell them a riddle that exposes their own blindness. And the one Jesus uses is … John the baptiser! Yes this story is turning full circle. The way Mark is bringing back his earlier themes and starting to tie them together is very satisfying narratively.
Yes our expectations were correct afterall, Act three is looking like it is about the confrontation betwen the entrenched religious / ecconomic / political authorities based in the temple at the heart of Jerusalem and the authority of Jesus who has prefered to identify with the fringes of society and proclaims a radically different picture of the soverignty of God. Mark has shown us in this passage through the twin signs of the damn fig tree and beach-going mountain that he believes Jesus’ faith in God has the power to beat the temple system — I wonder how that will happen before the book ends?
March 31st, 2006 at 6:09 pm
So one theme here is about complete trust and faith in God, as compared to letting other systems/people have sovereignty in our lives. Once again, isn’t this an extreme position? I would argue that no single entity/system should have sovereignty in our lives.
March 31st, 2006 at 6:26 pm
“Isn’t this an extreme position?” relatively speaking, yes.
“I would argue that no single entity/system should have sovereignty in our lives.” … and yet you worry what your family would say if you gave away everythying you owned to the poor.
March 31st, 2006 at 9:06 pm
“no single entity / system should have sovereignty in our lives” Hmm. Why not? Isn’t there a sense in which every time we make a decision on anything our choice is based on suppositions… on ethics, values, assumptions? Our world view, if you like, invariably has sovereignty in our lives. You may be able to pick values willy-nilly from any source based on personal preferences alone… but is this necessarily a superior guide to life than one based on… say… the teachings of Jesus? How can one know one’s own personal preferences are a reliable guide to anything?
If you can demonstrate your life is “gooder” than that of Jesus… your moral teaching higher… your love and compassion deeper… your integrity greater… your wisdom deeper… then I’ll follow you and your value system Keiran.
The greatest people I can think of, past and present… Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King… are simply following Christ’s example imperfectly, but more clearly than most of us do.