The Barren Fig Tree

Today’s  Gospel reading, Mark 11¨11-26, is filled with symbolic meanings.  Jesus’ anger toward the barren fig tree symbolized his anger at the Jewish people, who had just sung Hosanna’s to Him as He entered Jerusalem.  (Karris, Robert, O.F.M., ed., The Collegeville Bible Commentary, New Testament, The Liturgical Press, 1988, p. 926) .  Jesus’ anger at the those who had turned  the Temple into “a den of thieves” was not only about violating holy, sacred space, it was also about their rejection of Jesus as the One sent into the world to save the world . The blood of the New Covenant was about to be poured out as expiation for the sins of the world—the Sacrifice of the Lamb of God was/is above any other sacrifice established by humankind and alone would restore Israel and us to the glory God intends for us. Jesus is the “Fuller’s Lye,” the One who purifies, glorifies, justifies and sanctifies us, not any external form of sacrifice. And, yes, the Kingdom God established through Jesus would last eternally. All other kingdoms, that of Herod and future kings,  will wither as did the fig tree.

What “kingdom” do I hope will last forever?  To what human structures have I sworn allegiance and lost sight of Jesus?

The Kingdom of God Triumphs

In today’s first reading, Daniel 2: 31-45, Daniel interprets Nebuchanezzar’s dream in which the Lord reveals to the king that all of the kingdoms of his world—and ours, by the way—will eventually be destroyed.  All are fragile.  All are temporary. Only one Kingdom will last and that is the Kingdom of Christ established on Calvary, when Jesus  offered atonement for  the sins of the world. It is on Calvary that we have been guaranteed forgiveness of our sins.  And how great the sins of the world are! How horribly ugly is sin—so ugly that Jesus was unrecognizable on the way to Calvary and on the cross. He looked like a worm, not like a Son of Man.  The blood of the New Covenant, unlike the blood of the Old Covenant, will never be shed again. Death will be no more. Jesus died once and for all to atone for our disobedience to the Father’s will.

At every Catholic liturgy the death and resurrection of the Lord is celebrated. God descends from heaven and we ascend to heaven in every Eucharist; our earthly liturgies become one with the heavenly liturgy in which Christ takes on Satan and evil, destroying them, triumphing over them every second of every day.  Acknowledging the heavens opening up and Christ descending upon our altars, we cry out:  “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!”  We recall Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem and being greeted in the very same way, palm branches laid at His feet and the crowd shouting: Hosanna in the highest.”  Before going to Calvary and before celebrating the Last Supper, Jesus entered the Temple and cleansed it. So, too, in the Catholic liturgy, Jesus, in Communion, enters the Temple of our bodies and cleanses them. Truly, the Kingdom of God has come. All other kingdoms will be destroyed, as Daniel prophesied to King Nebuchanezzar!

"Behold, I make all things new" (Rev. 21:5)

In  today’s Gospel, Luke 5: 33-39, the Scribes and Pharisees are again at odds with Jesus. Nothing Jesus does is right for them. This time, they confront him because his disciples do not fast or offer prayers like their disciples do.  The Scribes and Pharisees do not recognize that something New is taking place, that the Messianic Kingdom has arrived, that the Old Covenant is being replaced by the New Covenant.  As Jesus’ proclamation of the New Kingdom spreads by his healing of all who are brought to him with every kind of disease and demons are commanded to leave the area, and unjust practices are challenged,  the Scribes and Pharisees speed up their attacks on Jesus, trying to trick him, looking for ways to trap Him and find cause to put him to death.  They do not want their world of laws and rituals that have been in vogue for hundreds of years to be disturbed.  They do not want any change in their rituals or in their lives.  As Jesus says at the end of this Gospel: “…[N]o one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

The same scenario is occurring in the Catholic Church.  There are people among the laity, the clergy and women and men religious who vehemently cling to past rituals or traditions from of old, who do not want their lives disturbed by change of any kind.  The past, for some, is enshrined in gold.

How willing are you and I to accept the inevitability of change in  the Catholic Church, in the way we express our faith, in the externals of our religion, in ritual and sacramental changes; in short, in the way God works? How open are we to the changes that inevitably occur in our personal lives, our family lives, our religious community, our parish?