A busy week…

So many things go on in Holy Week, it's easy to lose sight of some of them.

We have the entry into Jerusalem. We have the riot in the Temple, when Jesus overturns the tables of the moneylenders. We have the Last Supper, the agony in the garden, the arrest and trial – two trials, actually – of Jesus, and we have his passion, death and resurrection. And, in the meantime, his teaching activity continues – he delivers several parables during the week, as well as the well-known "render unto Caesar" teaching, the "which is the greatest commandment?" teaching, and more besides.

It's understandable, then, that in our Holy Week liturgies and commemorations we focus on the central events of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and pay less attention to some of the more minor happenings.

Today I want to focus on one of the less-discussed happenings – the cursing of the fig tree. The story is short, and easily told. In Mark's version, it comes in two parts:

The next day [i.e. after the entry into Jerusalem] as they were leaving Bethany he was hungry. Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, he went over to see if he could find anything on it. When he reached it he found nothing but leaves; it was not the time for figs. And he said to it in reply, "May no one ever eat of your fruit again!" And his disciples heard it" (Mk 11:12-14)

What is the meaning of this difficult-to-understand parable? Image from "The Brick Testament" www.thebricktestament.com

At this point the story breaks off. Jesus goes back into Jerusalem and enters the Temple. The incident with the moneychangers takes place.

The next day Jesus passes the same fig tree:

Early in the morning, as they were walking along, they saw the fig tree withered to its roots. Peter remembered and said to him, "Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered."

Jesus said to them in reply, "Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it shall be done for him. Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your transgressions."

Matthew, the only other gospel to tell this story, runs these two parts together, and places them the day after the riot in the Temple.

Can it be right to curse at all?

Now, on the face of it, the cursing of the fig tree is simply a sign pointing to God's response to our faith — believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. But it seems to me that a curse is not the best way of illustrating this. Does God really give effect to our curses, if we frame them as prayers? Can it be right to curse at all?

The fig tree, after all, was doing what God had ordained that fig trees should do. If it was bearing no figs, that was perhaps because there had not been enough rain that year. Or because someone else had already passed by and picked all the figs. Or – now that I come to think of it – because fig trees don't fruit at the time of Passover; they fruit in the autumn.

On this view, the fig tree is destroyed in a fit of caprice or petulance, which is hardly edifying.

But in fact the last point is the key to understanding this. Fig trees don't fruit in March/April. If this event happened at all, it happened at another time, but the evangelist has placed it here in order to make some point.

In both Matthew and Mark, the story of the cursing of the fig tree is placed so that it follows very shortly after the entry into Jerusalem, when the crowds greet him with palm leaves and shouts of "Hosanna!" And it's also placed in close proximity to the riot in the Temple; as we saw, Mark has Jesus curse the fig tree just before this episode; Matthew places it just after. All of this is significant.

In scripture, the fig tree often symbolizes Israel. And barren or blighted fig trees stand for the condition of Israel after she has turned her back on the Lord. We see this for, example, in the writings of Hosea. At first the Lord delights in Israel. (Like grapes in the desert, I found Israel; Like the first fruits of the fig tree in its prime, I considered your fathers – Hosea 9:12). But within a few verses, the Israelites start worshipping false gods, whereupon the Lord takes a different tone. (Ephraim is stricken, their root is dried up; they shall bear no fruit – Hosea 9:16).

So what we are being told here is not something about fig trees; it is something about Israel. The welcome that Jesus has just had in Jerusalem is not, despite the palm leaves and the Hosannas and the cloaks spread in the road for him to ride over, pleasing to God. It does not display faithfulness to the covenant.

What the crowd in Jerusalem welcomed was not the real Messiah, but the Messiah that they wanted. They wanted a Messiah they could use, a Messiah whose judgments would be blessings to Israel and curses to all her enemies.

What they got, in fact, was Jesus the prophet – a prophet who was to pass negative judgments on Israel, as exemplified in the riot in the Temple. This shouldn't have surprised them; criticizing Israel's infidelity is pretty much what the prophets always did. But they still weren't ready for it. What Jesus did and said in the week after his entry into Jerusalem met with so much hate, and so much bitterness, that the people who greeted him at the beginning of the week were calling for this crucifixion by the end of it..

As the Old Testament makes clear, Israel was dear to God's heart; a chosen people. But for what was Israel chosen? The Jews themselves often misunderstood this. They thought of God as their exclusive property. They tried to bring in God's glory and hold it to themselves, as something that would give then an advantage over their neighbours by, for instance, assuring victory in battle.

In reality, they were established as a holy people for one purpose: to bring the incarnate God into the world. The glory of Israel was Jesus Christ, who came into the world not for the sake of one small nation, but for the whole world.

Why would Jesus, in prophetic utterance, judge the fig tree as barren?

But, if Israel fulfilled its purpose in Jesus, why would Jesus, in prophetic utterance, judge the fig tree as barren? I think the judgment is of Israel's idolatry of itself, at least at this time in its history. They viewed themselves as separate and special before God in a nationalistic sense. They knew, but did not appreciate, that they were chosen to bring God's glory to the whole world. Deep down, they thought they were chosen for their own sake, and God's glory would be theirs alone.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus sought to overcome this misunderstanding. He went beyond the boundaries, literally and metaphorically. He ministered to the outcasts, to gentiles, even to the hated Samaritans. He was willing to teach, help, and heal anyone who would come to him and listen. He preached to the people of Israel; he told them that the purpose of their covenant was love, not glory. They were to love God and neighbor, and their neighbor was everyone, especially the poor outcasts who they otherwise despised. The belief Jewish people held, the belief that Israel was a special nation which has exclusive claims to God had to come to an end; it founds its end in Jesus' judgment of the fig tree.

But what Jesus said and did was not only about Israel. The Jewish people were special. You could say, of all people, they had the best excuse for hoping for divinely-ordained national glory. If Christ's judgment on their claim shows how fruitless that view is, we must see how much more fruitless it is for us. Maybe the curse on the fig tree is a judgment of all such exclusive claims. Christ came to restore fallen humanity, to overcome self-seeking divisions. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus". Any claim to exclusive favour from God, whether by a nation, an ethnic group, a state or, dare I say it, a church, has already been judged, and it will find that its fruit is the fruit of the barren fig tree.

Photo Credit:
The background abstract image for today's reflection is sourced from stock.xchng – photographer: Craig Jewell, Brisbane, Australia . Click on the Vermeer image for the orginal source.

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Peregrinus can be contacted at: Peregrinus <peregrinus@catholica.com.au>

©2008 Peregrinus

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