Sermon Tone Analysis

What did that poor Fig Tree do to Jesus?

Mark 11:12-14

I know throughout the summer y’all have been looking at the different hard teachings of Jesus.

On the days when I’m most honest with myself, all of the teachings of Jesus are hard.

The path that follows Jesus wasn’t offered up as the easiest option.

I think the great German Minister Dietrich Bonhoeffer summed it up best when he said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

But tonight’s passage will be, I think, at least somewhat different from the other lessons you have looked at through the summer because it starts not with a difficult teaching, but an incredibly difficult action of Jesus to understand.

Jesus does something that, at least on the surface, is not in line with what we would expect from Jesus.

If you would like you can go ahead and open to .

Before we dive into the text though, I want to ask a few questions that help set up tonight’s study.

Think of a time in your life where you did not meet someone else’s expectations of you.

What was that experience like, to know you fell short of that standard?

Think of a time that someone in your life failed to meet the expectations you had of them.

What is it like to have someone fall short of what you know they can and should be?

The Power of Expectations

Whether we like to admit it or not, we carry expectations of ourselves and others.

Sometimes, these expectations are reasonable.

I expect my son to behave in the ways that he has been taught by his mom and I.

So when he rips a toy out of his sister’s hand, he’s fallen short of that expectation.

I spent 11 years in youth ministry.

I expected my students to carry themselves in a particular way when we were on trips, at youth functions, or together at our different gatherings throughout the week.

When those standards weren’t met, I had to say something.

But for the most part, when a standard is known, people generally do a decent job of meeting them.

Expectations have that power.

School was always a place of expectations.

I’m at the point in life where I’ve seen several different sides of the educational experience.

Clearly, I went to school once.

K-3rd grade at oliver elementary in Stamford, Tx, and then 4th-12th in the various schools in Graham ISD.

I was a decent student, but by the time I got to junior high and high school there were plenty of other things I’d rather be doing besides school, so I began to ask different questions about academic expectations.

Instead of wondering what I needed to do on a project in order to get a 100, I began to wonder how little I could do and still get a decent grade- and that definition of decent grade slowly dropped over the years from A to B, and then, at least in math, the devil’s subject, to “passing.”

I set that expectation for myself and then would figure out what each teacher’s expectations were to get there.

I also had the chance to teach Old Testament at East Texas Christian Academy while I was in Tyler.

And I discovered that there were lots of students exactly like me!

As soon as I assigned a project, I had kids asking what exactly an “A” project looked like and I had kids essentially asking what they had to do in order to get by.

They had expectations for themselves and they wanted to know where theirs and mine intersected.

Expectations certainly play a role in today’s text, far moreso than an intial surface reading reveals but we will deal with the different layers as we go.

Lets read our central text tonight, Mark 11:12-14

Fig tree and the temple

12 The next day, after leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

13 From far away, he noticed a fig tree in leaf, so he went to see if he could find anything on it.

When he came to it, he found nothing except leaves, since it wasn’t the season for figs.

14 So he said to it, “No one will ever again eat your fruit!”

His disciples heard this.

— CEB

Well alright.

So what we learn here is that it is perfectly ok, indeed if Jesus is doing it, holy, to get hangry (that’s hungry-angery for the uninitiated), and yell at a tree.

That officially makes my 2 year old a saint- no one throws hangry fits like she does.

This three verses have been the bane of so many commentators existences over the years because the action of Jesus here seem about as unlike Jesus as you could imagine.

This is a teacher who calls his followers to bless and not curse their enemies, a teacher whose miracles and teachings have all been used to improve the lives of his hearers, and whose own ability to miraculously produce large quantities of food and drink is attested to multiple times in the gospels.

And worse than that, Jesus is God-incarnate, right?

In numerous stories he is stated to know the thoughts of those around him, to know their intentions and motives, and to know the types of lives they have lived up until that point- see the woman at the well whose marital experience Jesus rattles off as if it were a well known catchphrase.

This is a Jesus who John’s gospel clearly portrays as present in God during the creation of the world, the word who created has become flesh, creator of everything including fig trees.

So how on earth does that Jesus not know that the fig tree down the road, during a time of year that is two months before the beginning of fig harvest, not know that there aren’t any figs on the tree?

Knowing that a tree that far outside of its season won’t have edible fruit on it doesn’t require divine intervention- it requires common sense.

What on earth is going on here?

Compiling Jesus work from all 4 gospels, before Jesus enters Jerusalem during this the week leading up to passover, he has turned water to wine, fed thousands, calmed storms, healed the leprous, lame, blind, mute, walked on water, raised the dead, and perhaps most amazing, taught well enough to keep people’s attention.

How does that guy not know there are no figs on the tree?

On the surface, this story doesn’t fit with what else we know to be true of Jesus.

Leave a mental finger here, we’ll come back.

First we are going to read what happens right before and right after at least to give us some context for this poor tree’s untimely demise.

When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives.

Jesus gave two disciples a task, 2 saying to them, “Go into the village over there.

As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden.

Untie it and bring it here.

3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.’ ”

4 They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it.

5 Some people standing around said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone.

7 They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it.

8 Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields.

9 Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna!

Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!

Hosanna in the highest!” 11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple.

After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.

So Jesus has just come into Jerusalem.

He got the royal treatment as he rode out of Bethpage and Bethany, down the mount of olives.

People are crying out Hosanna!

A Hebrew phrase that means “Please Save Now,” and then in the most anticlimactic way possible, Jesus arrives in center of the Jewish world, looks around in the temple as if he were a tourist, and leaves.

What was that?

He’s seen the temple before, he’s grew up a good Jewish kid who’s become a good Jewish man.

He’s been there regularly.

What was the point of going to the temple, looking around, and leaving.

What was he expecting to see?

What was he expecting to find?

And then he goes home.

Two miles in and two miles home so that they can admire ea building?

Take selfies in the courtyard?

Pick up a “Holy of Holies” coffee mug?

Well, that doesn’t help make any more sense of The Fig Tree.

Jesus just isn’t acting right.

Maybe the passage after will help us.

15 They came into Jerusalem.

After entering the temple, he threw out those who were selling and buying there.

He pushed over the tables used for currency exchange and the chairs of those who sold doves.”

16 He didn’t allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

17 He taught them, “Hasn’t it been written, My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?

But you’ve turned it into a hideout for crooks.”

18 The chief priests and legal experts heard this and tried to find a way to destroy him.

They regarded him as dangerous because the whole crowd was enthralled at his teaching.

19 When it was evening, Jesus and his disciples went outside the city.

Wait, what?