Sometimes, Scripture is straight-forward and easy to understand. Other times, not so much. Today, we have this curious story about a fig tree that has always perplexed me. It is one of the Bible readings that I would gladly ignore. Why did Jesus curse that tree, telling it that never again will anyone eat of
its fruit. Generally, this story has been interpreted as a parable, with the fig tree
without fruit representing those people of Ancient Israel who opening rejected
Jesus and his proclamation of God’s kingdom. When Jesus went to them, looking to see how they responded to his Good New, he
found rejection and bitterness. In a way, they became like the fig tree, their minds and hearts had withered
up. Perhaps what happens next in the Gospel reinforces this interpretation of the
fig tree story, as we see Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers in
the Temple area and Jesus driving out those who turned God’s holy space into an
opportunity to make money and achieve personal gain.
When I taught at Greenville Weston High School in Greenville in the Mississippi
Delta, it shocked me to see the cynical and sarcastic attitudes I saw in many
of the students. We can close our minds
to the goodness of God and the goodness of God’s creation, instead
concentrating on the bad things and the problems we see around us. We can see the glass half-empty, or we can see it half full. We can sit back and complain about when we see in our parish, our school, our
work, and our family. How are we part of the solution? How are
we contributing to God’s kingdom? How are
we opening our hearts?
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