MONDAY OF HOLY WEEK

Reading: Mark 11,1-26

In chapter 11 of St. Mark’s gospel, we’ve come to the last stage of the journey. There’d been the time teaching, preaching, showing by example, his miracles making love real and present. Now, comes Jerusalem.

This was not a sudden or reckless decision of Jesus. His whole life had been building up to this point. The people were looking for a king who would shatter, and smash and destroy and make them the conquerers of the world. Jesus knew it, and he came simply, humbly, into Jerusalem, riding a donkey. When he rode in that day, he claimed to be a king, but a King of Peace, a King of Forgiveness, a King of Love. His action was a contradiction of everything that was hoped for and expected by the masses of people.

One of the most dangerous things anyone can do, is to go to people and tell them that all their accepted ideas are wrong. Anyone who tries to remove a people’s hopes and dreams, even if they are misguided, is in for trouble. But that’s what Jesus is doing. As he rides into Jerusalem, Jesus is making a last appeal of love.

Then this story of a fig tree, divided into two parts with the cleansing of the temple in between. It’s one of the most difficult stories in the entire gospel because it just doesn’t seem real or true. It’s the kind of story that is told of other wonder-workers, but never of Jesus. Jesus had always refused to use his miraculous powers for his own sake. He wouldn’t turn stones into bread. He would not use his miraculous powers to escape from his enemies. He never used his power for his own sake. And yet we have this story.

Mark even acknowledges that it’s not the season for figs and so Jesus’ action seems unreasonable and unjust! But, if we take this story as an enacted parable, then it’s prophetic, symbolic, dramatic actions may be able teach us something.

First, Jesus is challenging promises, without fulfillment. The leaves on the treat might promise fruit, but there was no fruit there. The whole history of the people of God was preparing for the coming of God’s chosen one. The whole promise of their national record was that when the chosen one came, they would be so eager to receive him. But when Jesus did come, that promise was tragically unfulfilled. Sometimes as true today as it was 2000 years ago.

Second, this is the challenge of profession without practice, words but no action. The whole cry of the New Testament is that we can be known by the fruits of our lives. “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7,16). “Bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3,8). “It is not the one who piously says ‘Lord! Lord!’ who will enter into the kingdom, but the one who does God’s will” (Matthew 7,21).

Unless our faith makes us better people, makes our homes happier, makes life better and easier for those with whom we are brought in contact, it is not faith at all. We cannot claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, and remain entirely unlike the Master whom we profess to follow and love. The whole challenge of this fig tree is that uselessness, invites disaster.

We can understand better this cleansing of the temple if in our heads we understand the layout of this great structure. The temple covered the top of Mount Zion and was over 12 hectares in size. It was surrounded by great walls almost 400 meters in length. The outer court was the Court of Gentiles, into which anyone might come. The next was the Court of Women, and then the Court of Israelites, and the innermost was the Court of Priests. The incident in the gospel this evening took place in the court of the Gentiles.

But little by little, the Court of the Gentiles, a part of the Temple, had been almost entirely secularized. It had been meant for a place of prayer and preparation, but by the time of Jesus, there was a completely commercialized atmosphere of buying and selling which made prayer and meditation impossible. And even worse there was the sheer exploitation of the pilgrims who had come to the temple.

You see every Jew had to pay a temple tax, about two days’ wages for a working person. The tax had to be paid in a particular coinage. When the pilgrims came with all kinds of foreign money, they went to an exchange and often had to pay several other “fees.” Doves were a part of the sacrificial system, but the dove had to be without blemish. Now, doves could be bought cheaply outside the walls, but the Temple inspectors would be sure to find something wrong with them, so worshipers were advised to buy them in Temple stalls, at prices 10-15 times greater.

Jesus was angry at the exploitation of the pilgrims, the authorities treating them not as worshipers, not even human beings, but things to be exploited for their own ends. The exploitation of one human being by another always provokes the wrath of God, but even more so when it is made under the cloak of religion.

Jesus was angry at the desecration of God’s holy place. The sense of the presence of God in the House of God, had been lost.

And finally, Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56,7) Yet there were so many walls and so many barriers. It may well be that Jesus wanted to remind them, and us, that God loved not only one people or one faith, but God loves, the world. You see, Jesus was getting ready to teach us about a new Temple, the temple of his body. The old Temple is being cleansed.

And then we conclude with three rules for prayer, good guidelines for this week we call holy.

The phrase about removing mountains was a very common Jewish phrase. It was a regular vivid phrase for removing difficulties. It was especially used of wise teachers. A good teacher who could remove the difficulties or obstacles which his learners encountered was called a “mountain remover.” Prayer is a power which can solve any problem, remove any mountain, and make us able to deal with any difficulty. Sounds simple, but, it involves two things:

First, prayer must be made in faith. We must be willing to openly, honestly, humbly, come before God. Not always easy. Sometimes our problems are that we want to find a way to do something we should not even think of doing, being disciples of Jesus. Second, its a very common thing to ask for people to ask for advice when all they really want is approval for some action, they’re already determined to take. It’s useless to go to God for guidance, unless we are really willing to listen, change, be transformed, and act, on God’s will.

Second, prayer must be filled with expectation. It’s a universal fact that if you try something, and you BELIEVE you will succeed, you will often will. When we pray, it must always be bursting with faith-filled hope and expectation. God wants more for us than we can even imagine.

And third, prayer must be of love. The prayers of bitter, angry people cannot penetrate the wall of their own bitterness. If we are to speak with God, there must be a bond. There can never be any intimacy between two people who have nothing in common. The principle of God is love. God is love. If the ruling principle in our hearts is bitterness, anger, resentment, we have erected a barrier between ourselves and God. We first must ask the Lord to cleanse our hearts. Then we can speak to God, and God can speak to us, and the temples of our lives will be transformed and renewed.