Bearing Fruit in Season

Bearing Fruit in Season 

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Mark 11:12-25

The New Testament in a Year sermon series

Rev. Brian North, Westminster Presbyterian, Chehalis, WA

October 30th, 2011

This morning we’re taking a look at what some people say is the most difficult story in the gospel narrative, and another related event from the life of Christ that while not as difficult, still is troubling for some. The reason they’re so difficult to figure out is that they seem out of character for who Jesus is. But there’s a reason Jesus does this, and a lesson to be learned here for all of us. With that, I invite you to open your Bibles, or grab a blue pew Bible, and turn to Mark 11:12-25. It’s on page 47 of the pew Bibles. This is God’s word to you and me today:

Mark 11:12-25

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it.

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
But you have made it a den of robbers.’

And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.’

So, there are two events here: the fig tree, which is the particularly difficult event, and the scene in one of the outer courts of the temple. And there’s a common theme between them of “not doing what is supposed to be done.”

Now, what makes this so difficult is that Mark very clearly says it wasn’t the season for figs. It’s a few weeks early. We know this because Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples just a few days later, right before his death, and Passover is typically in April some time, and occasionally in March.¹ And so: It seems very unreasonable for Jesus to hold the tree accountable for something that wouldn’t be expected of it. None of us are going to walk out into our yards or gardens when we get home and expect to find roses or rhododendrons blooming. And you certainly wouldn’t kill the plant on account of it not having flowers. If you’re like me, you’re really good at killing plants accidentally…I do that all the time. The last thing I want to do is kill a plant intentionally….except weeds. Ironically, they’re about the only plants I’m good at growing. But that’s another story. Jesus kills the fig tree intentionally, in spite of it being too early for the fruit. So what’s the deal?

The deal is that rather than telling a parable to make a point as he so often does, Jesus is acting out a parable right before the very eyes of his disciples. Jesus never uses his power to satisfy his own needs or desires. He didn’t turn stones to bread, he didn’t jump from the top of the temple to let the angels catch him, he didn’t use his power to escape from his enemies. And he didn’t kill the tree simply because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs when no one would expect them.

Instead, He is making a point to his disciples, and the point is this: Jesus desires for his people to bear fruit, and there is no season that is an exception to this. That’s the first thing we learn from this. Now, he could have approached the tree the previous spring, when they were in season, and if the tree didn’t have any figs, he could have killed it then, and no one would have been surprised; But that wouldn’t have made the point nearly so profound. Jesus is saying with this enacted parable that bearing fruit isn’t something to do just in certain seasons. It’s an on-going thing.

Now, there is one bit of Biblical background that will help us to connect the dots and understand this, and it is that: The fig tree was a symbol of God’s people, the Israelites. For instance, in Hosea 9:10, we read, “When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.” Another prophet, Jeremiah, writes in 24:5, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Like these good figs, I regard as good the exiles from Judah [the southern portion of Israel], whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Babylonians.’” Both of these compare the people of Israel to a fig tree.

Additionally, Jesus himself tells a parable of a fig tree that Luke records for us in chapter 13: Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down’” (Luke 13:6-9). Given the larger context of the Old Testament and Jesus’ other teachings, interpreting this parable as a critique of the Jewish people is the only logical conclusion. Then, notice that this parable is left unfinished. It’s a story without an ending, and leaves us hanging. What happened? Is there fruit born after the one more year? Does the tree remain barren? Jesus doesn’t say. Rather: It’s as if Jesus is completing the parable with the withering of the fig tree in today’s passage. Put it all together, and it’s clear that Jesus is saying that he expects His people, his disciples, to bear fruit. And not just during certain seasons. The season for His followers to bear fruit is year round. Unlike a tree, there is no dormant season for the life of one who follows Jesus.

Whether your season of life is young and single, married with children in the home, approaching retirement, retired but active, or you struggle to make it out of your home because of age or health issues, Jesus’ call on our lives is to bear fruit. That’s the first thing to take away from this.

The second thing we learn here is that: Having the look of bearing fruit is not the same as actually bearing fruit. From a distance, the tree looked like it might be a candidate to bear fruit. It had nice leaves on it and looked like it might have fruit. But it didn’t. Jesus is saying with this event that we can look like fruit-bearing followers of Christ, but that isn’t enough. Actually bearing fruit is what matters. In our churches, we can have church buildings, we can even have worship services, pastors, all kinds of committees, a robust budget, and more. In our personal lives we can have a library of Christian books, we can study our Bible daily, listen only to Christian music, and sit in church every Sunday…But if we aren’t bearing fruit, then it’s all completely useless. Jesus doesn’t judge by how we look or how busy we are with Christian stuff. Being active doesn’t mean you bear fruit. A hamster can run on a wheel all day, and stay really active. But he’s never going to go anywhere as long as he’s on that wheel. You can have the greatest looking car in the world…but if you don’t put it in gear and drive it, it will deteriorate over time, and not do what it was designed to do. I’m reminded of the pastor who felt that one of the points of his sermon just wasn’t as strong as he thought it should be, and so he wrote in the margin in the appropriate place: Speak louder here! That point in the sermon needed to look better because it wasn’t fruit-bearing. So looking like we are bearing fruit is not the same as actually doing it. And Jesus calls us to actually bear fruit.

Lastly: Even the peripheral facets of life are there to bear fruit. We see this in the temple courts when Jesus overthrows the money changing tables. The reason he does this is seen in his statement, “But you’ve made it a den of robbers.” This is a quote from Jeremiah, just as the first statement about being a “house of prayer for all nations” is a quote from Isaiah. But clearly Jesus’ anger is that what should be a holy place has been turned into an unholy place. Now, the business being transacted was not in and of itself bad; in fact, it was expected, and equipped people to worship as people exchanged Roman coins for the Jewish coins used in worship, and bought animals for sacrifice. The problem was that they’d turned it into “a den of robbers”: price-gouging, unfair business practices, and so forth. It’s like last week when we talked about God being honored in his house. What’s happening here is not God-honoring.

And in turning this outer court of the temple into a “den of robbers” they’re essentially saying that this part of the temple isn’t as important. They would never, ever, ever do this in the center of the tabernacle, in the holy of holies. And so by their actions, what’s being conveyed is that this court, just isn’t all that important.

And so Jesus comes through and he’s saying, “Hog-wash” to that. Every part of it is holy. It’s all there to help people bring glory and honor to God. To treat some of it with less honor and less respect is, in essence, to treat God with less honor and less respect. Do we treat all facets of our church, and of our lives, as holy and precious, Christ-honoring, and bearing fruit for Him? Maybe some of us do well with some facets of our lives, or with some relationships…but maybe with others, we treat them as “less holy.”

This past Tuesday night, the Elders of the church met for their regular meeting, and that there was a lady who came to the church needing help. She had just been released from prison, and she didn’t have a car, or any money…no relatives close enough to help, no shoes on her feet…she didn’t have warm clothes, and it was expected to get down to 30 degrees that night. She said she had a home in Seattle – but no way to get there. It was late enough that all the agencies in town that would normally help someone like this, were closed.

Those of us around the table for the Session meeting could have dismissed her off-hand, and taken an attitude that we had “holier business” to take care of, that we had other trees to tend to in order to bear fruit through the ministries of the church. But we didn’t. Instead, a phone call was made to verify that she had a place in Seattle to stay, then several of us pitched in some money for a bus ticket, and then Robin Hall and Hareld Dills drove her to Centralia and got her on a bus to Seattle. We didn’t just dismiss the situation as a peripheral thing. We treated her with honor and did what we could. But if we’re all honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that we don’t always do that.

What facets of our lives do we just kind of dismiss as not worthy of giving over to God? Or, to put it in the same language as the fig tree: What facets of our lives aren’t bearing fruit? It might be the peripheral stuff in our lives…or maybe it’s the parts of our lives that are right at the center, rather than peripheral. Like the way we treat our children or spouse, or maybe you aren’t married but you’re living with someone as though we are. Those aren’t peripheral facets of life. If we’re honest with ourselves about our lives and about the Bible, you and I probably know what facets of our lives need to be turned upside down and cleaned out and given back to God. Whether they’re on the periphery or at the center, we have the opportunity to make every facet of our lives holy and pleasing to God, bearing good fruit for him.

Now, one final key question for us to ask is, “What does it mean to bear fruit?” At its core, “bearing fruit” means to be more Christ-like in our living, and helping others to do the same. Fruit is not looking nice. Fruit is not financial prosperity. Fruit is not skin deep. Fruit is not keeping busy with Christian “stuff” – though neither does fruit come from lethargy and slothfulness. Fruit is not “head-knowledge.” A fruitful life is a life that is transformed by the grace of Jesus, and helps others to live transformed lives as well. Biblically speaking, that’s what “bearing fruit” boils down to. And Jesus is saying in this lived out parable, and in the turning of the tables in the temple, that he wants His people to do more than look like they bear fruit, he wants us to actually bear fruit, all the time, and in all facets of life.

I want to close with a brief story that I hope will help to solidify all of this for us. There is a story told of a man who was born many years ago. When he was young people said, “One day, he will do something great.” As he grew older and did nothing, they said of him, “He could do something great if he tried.” Towards the end of his life they said, “He might have done something great if he had tried.” His was a life of untapped potential for bearing fruit for Christ. When we follow Jesus, we have the opportunity to do something great for him: To bear fruit. Let’s not let Jesus say about us, or about our church that “they could have born much fruit if they had tried.” Instead, may we lean more and more on Jesus every day, continually being transformed in our living, and leading others to a transformed life as well. And through that, may we always bear much fruit in every season of life, and in every facet of life, so that one day, instead of Jesus saying “May no one ever eat fruit from you again” we’ll hear instead, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Let’s pray…Amen.