Palm & Fig Tree Sunday

If we only get the "triumphal entry" on Palm Sunday, we only get half the story.

If we only get half the story, do we really get the story?

The story, well known in Jesus' day, was that the messiah, the Anointed One, would come to Jerusalem victoriously entering the city and go up to cleanse (or rebuild) the Temple. Israel's enemies would have been conquered and the Temple would again become the meeting place between YHWH and the people.

The story we often hear today is how the same people who celebrated Jesus on Sunday, crying "Hosanna!" turned on him and were shouting "Crucify Him!" on Friday.

It then somehow becomes a moralism about fair-weather religion.

But it's about Jesus and what he was doing, how he was doing it, and what he was trying to say.

Among other things, I think Jesus was turning people's expectations on their heads. Perhaps because their expectations were upside down to start, was Jesus hoping they'd get turned right side up?

He comes, as a messiah was expected, to Jerusalem riding on a young donkey. This is a politically symbolic act. He is claiming to be the deliverer of Israel. My guess is that when he tells the disciples to get the colt, they were thinking, "Is he doing what I think he's doing?" They knew what it meant.

So he rides in and heads up to the Temple. It's the next logical move in the story. But then, he just looks around at the Temple courts and goes back to Bethany. The story isn't supposed to go like that. What is he doing?

The next day, Jesus heads back into Jerusalem, up to the Temple and then proceeds to interrupt the activities of the Temple by overturning the tables of moneychangers and driving out the people who were buying and selling. "This is it," his disciples must have thought, "he's cleansing the Temple." A prime time to call people to open revolt and defeat Israel's enemies, right?

Right at that moment, when he's apparently taken control of the Temple courts (or at least some part of them), Mark says that he "taught them" saying ""Is it not written: 'My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations'? But you have made it 'a den of robbers.' " And then he leaves again.

What was he doing?

He was calling Israel to stop hating its neighbors and start being the light of the world.
Hear in this story:
-Isaiah's passage about the coming of the king on a colt that ends with YHWH being ruler over the whole earth, not just over Israel. The whole world would be the promised land.
-Isaiah's passage about the Temple being a place where everyone, foreigners, eunuchs, exiles–everyone–could come to "love the name of the LORD"—a house of prayer for all nations.
-Jeremiah's passage about Israel claiming special status as the keepers of the Temple, while they inflicted injustice on the poor and the foreigner, committing murder, perjury and adultery.

Jesus wasn't telling people that selling things in church buildings was evil. He was saying that the Temple was encouraging people to hate their enemies. The teaching from the Temple was fueling the violent insurgency against the Romans, the ethnic hatred against the Samaritans, and instilling a very unholy arrogance and claim of privilege.

Jesus' actions were an invitation and warning to the Temple system. "Be the light of the world, the touchpoint between heaven and earth, the house of prayer for all nations, or you will come under the very wrath of God with which you threaten your enemies."

To emphasize the point, Mark sandwiches the Temple incident with a strange encounter with a fig tree (a symbol of Israel, and of the Temple). The way of being Israel that they had chosen was a way that was not bearing the fruit it was expected to bear.

I hear in the Palm Sunday stories both invitation and warning. Jesus is calling his people to follow his 'way': to love (not hate or kill or abuse) one's neighbors and even one's enemies, to open up (not close off) paths for everyone to "love the name of the LORD", to welcome (not keep out) the foreigner, and to care for (not ignore or take advantage of) the most vulnerable.

If we do not follow the invitation, we risk coming under the judgment.

May we be found to be bearing much fruit.