Why Jesus Hates Fig Trees

So in honor of this week set apart to observe all the things that surrounded Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection (Holy Week) I believe one of the most unsettling verses might just be the best way to enter into it!

In Mark 11 Jesus and his disciples stroll into Jerusalem. Jesus, who is riding on a peace donkey instead of a war horse, gets a kingly welcome with palm branches and coats thrown over the road and the people confess him as the continuation of the Davidic kingdom (11:7-10).  Things might just turn out okay!  Except, the very next day Jesus does something completely un-peaceable and unpredictable. He curses a perfectly good fig tree when he found it had all leaves and no fruit! What’s more is that he does it on his way to indict the Pharisees and the temple for desecrating what was supposed to be set apart for God. 

I have to admit, for a long time I never understood why Jesus would curse a tree for not having any fruit on it (while he was hungry mind you) especially since it wasn’t even the season for figs (Mk 11:12-14). My initial thought was, gee I guess Messiahs are prone to smite when their blood-sugar is low, but as much as I like to insist on this as a valid interpretation that is not what’s happening.  This is actually something more akin to performance-art of the prophetic genre. And like performance art, which seeks to rejuvenate art after artists have become dissatisfied with the traditional forms of art, Jesus too was dissatisfied with some traditions mucking up God’s expressions. 

Therefore, interpreting symbolism is vital to our making sense of this scene. Consider the idea that a “Fig Tree”, especially in Jerusalem, is no more just a tree than the Bald Eagle is just an eagle in Washington D.C. (or anywhere in the US).  It carries enormous symbolism with it. Fig trees were an icon of blessing, leadership, provision, but most importantly, it symbolized the temple and its structure which itself was a sign of justice and maintaining order. We should then conclude that the fig tree is thematically tied to the following temple scene and thus stands as a symbol for God’s judgment on Israel’s “out of season” religious leaders.

In Tim Geddert’s commentary on Mark, he makes the point that Jesus was no more punishing the tree than he was the temple as neither did anything wrong, but the religious leaders were being unfaithful to God and neighbor (12:40) so it became a prophetic symbol.[1] Upon entering the temple, Jesus’ suspicions are confirmed (just like with the tree) the religious leaders are “all leaves and no fruit”[2]  We should infer some things from the elements pointed out in Jesus’ condemnation to see what their out of season fruitlessness means.

Here is the temple scene for easy reference (so scroll on if you don’t need it):

¹⁵ 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; ¹⁶ and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ 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.”

¹⁸ 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 (NRSV).

In v. 15 we have money changers whose job it is to exchange currency so that foreigners could both pay the temple tax and buy sacrificial animals. These were promised to be ceremonially kosher and goods of convenience from temple dealers. The doves were the less expensive, but acceptable choice for those who could not afford a sacrificial lamb.[3] Jesus is asking in what way is this a place of worship? It clearly cannot be because it is commercialism and commercialism is enslaved to and worships Mammon.

So also, since Jesus points out that this is a house of worship for “All Nations” (compare vs.17 and Isa. 56:7) they have probably managed to exclude the Gentiles from worshiping. Whether the temple leaders organized it spitefully out of nationalistic smugness or just for selfish gain, Gentiles were only allowed to worship in the outer court where all the transactions were taking place. Thus worshiping God in such a noisy market for the Gentiles would have proved impossible.  To add to this, Geddert says that other sources affirm that profit-taking was commonplace and dealers could charge inflated prices (even on the doves) from those who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and had no convenient way to travel with sacrificial animals.[5]  The temple had been made into a burden for everyone, but those who profited.

In fact Jesus’ condemnation and cleansing of the temple means that it was so corrupted and failed that it could never be the completion of God’s eschatological promise (probably also the reason in Jn. 2:19, Jesus tells them to tear it down and he’ll rebuild it). The temple as it was had become a “dry withered tree” (Mk 11:20-21) with no future.  This scenario should make the reader exclaim, then where is the temple that is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision?

It is this question that we should reflect on from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  The fig tree is withered and can no longer draw and feed all nations, but there is the new Temple and he draws nations and exiles and captives and feeds them in the desert. The fig tree becomes the “lynching tree” of control, but this is the very tree that Jesus destabilizes and transforms into the communion table, the forgiveness tree, where bread and wine has been broken and poured out for all who will come.

[1] Timothy J. Geddert. Mark: The Believers Bible Commentary. (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001), 263-264.

[2] Ibid, 264.

[3] Ibid. 266.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.