The Lesson of the Fig Tree

"Whoever says to this mountain...." - Mark 11:23
"From the fig tree learn the parable...." - Mark 13:28

Jesus' long march to Jerusalem, during which he instructed his followers in the way of the cross and nonviolence (see "Embracing the Way of Jesus," August/September 1987), takes Mark's story from the margins of Palestinian society to its center. Jesus prepares to enter Jerusalem (11:1) not as a reverent pilgrim coming to demonstrate his allegiance to the temple-state but as a subversive prophet challenging the foundations of state power.

This is Jesus' second campaign of direct action. In the first campaign in Galilee (1:20-3:35; see "Binding the Strong Man," March 1987), Jesus confronted the dominant order with his powerful symbolic actions of exorcism (l:21f.) and healing (3:1f.). Now Mark narrates Jesus' showdown with the temple itself and its stewards, the Jerusalem clerical establishment. Like the first, this campaign will cause polarization and rift and culminate with Jesus' withdrawal to reflect further upon the Messianic mission (13:1f.; see 4:1f.).

The Jerusalem narrative commences with Jesus' two most dramatic symbolic actions. The so-called "triumphal entry" (11:1-10), a misnomer, is carefully choreographed political street theater designed to repudiate Messianic triumphalism. The heady image of Jesus marching to the rapturous cries of peasants (11:7f.) whose cries escalate the acclaim of the beggar Bartimaeus (10:47f.) into a full-blown revolutionary chant ("Blessed be the kingdom of our father David," 1 l:9f.), would have been loaded with political significance for Mark's original readers. Beginning the parade "near the Mount of Olives" (11:1) brought to mind the final apocalyptic battle between Israel and its enemies spoken of by Zechariah (Zechariah 14:1-5). Moreover, it recalled the victorious military procession of Simon Maccabaeus, the great guerrilla general who liberated Palestine from Hellenistic rule some two centuries before; according to 1 Maccabees 13:51, Simon entered Jerusalem "with praise and palm branches...and with hymns and songs."

Mark uses these images of popular Messianic ideology, which equate national liberation with the rehabilitation of the Davidic temple-state, precisely in order to subvert them. This is accomplished by the odd story of the "commandeering" of the colt, which constitutes half the parade narrative (11:2-6).

Mark is consciously reorganizing the symbolics of this parade around a different Zecharian image that is expressly anti-military: The liberator of Zion comes "meek, riding upon an ass" (Zechariah 9:9f.). This king, who has already disassociated himself from Hellenistic power politics (10:42f.), enters Jerusalem quite unarmed, as befits a "nonviolent siege." And when this Messiah finally appears in the temple, it is not to defend but to disrupt.

The composition of the famous "temple cleansing" is another Marcan "sandwich": the action in the sanctuary (11:15-19) is framed by the curious tale of Jesus cursing the fig tree (11:12-14, 20-25). The masterful symbolism of the latter interprets the dramatic feat of the former, which we will look at first.

JESUS COULD HARDLY HAVE been surprised or indignant at the existence of this marketplace per se, as some suggest. The modern reader must understand that such commercial activity was an entirely normal aspect of any cult in antiquity. Indeed, the temple was Jerusalem's dominant economic institution, upon which most of the city depended. The issue for Jesus was rather the political economy of the cultus. The highly profitable temple commercial interests were controlled by the high-priestly families; even the conservative Josephus referred to the high priest Ananias (47-55 C.E.) as "the great procurer of money."

Jesus singles out two street-level representatives of these financial powers: "moneychangers" and "pigeon sellers." The moneychangers presided over currency exchange and transaction. (Greek or Roman money brought by pilgrims had to be converted into Jewish or Tyrian coin before temple dues and tithes could be paid.) With revenues pouring into cosmopolitan Jerusalem from the Jews all over the Mediterranean world, such banking interests wielded considerable power.

The pigeon sellers are those who trafficked in the staple commodity by which the poor met their cultic obligations. It is true that many rabbis of the time acknowledged that cultic demands were especially hard on the poor and in some cases tried to ease the burden by advocating lower prices and subsidies. Jesus, however, is not interested in reforming the purity system; he has already repudiated it for the marginalization of lepers (1:40-45) and women (5:25-34).

The cultus only compounds this exploitation by demanding that second-class citizens make reparation for their inferior social status. Jesus rejects the entire system - symbolized by his "overturning" (the verb can also mean to "destroy") the stations used for both victimizing and profiteering.

Mark next reports that Jesus "forbade anyone to carry any 'goods' [pertaining to cult operations] through the temple" (11:16), suggesting some kind of barricade or ban on further activities for that day. Is it reasonable to believe that Jesus really accomplished this feat? After all, Jewish security police and a Roman garrison stood close by to protect the orderly function of the temple; hence some argue that what Mark reports could only have been accomplished by guerrilla military action. But we must remember that Mark is narrating symbolic action; we are told only that "business as usual" was somehow disrupted, with no report of an armed clash.

Perhaps it must suffice to say that Jesus "shut down" the temple no more - and no less - than a modern nonviolent blockade "shuts down" the Pentagon, or the fall of a Plowshares hammer on a missile "disarms" the war machine. That is, symbolic direct action at a concrete political site signals an intent toward an end. The eventual demise of these institutions will be accomplished in God's time, but this assumes the ongoing militant nonviolent resistance of God's people.

Jesus' bold action obviously required strong justification, and this is forthcoming in his "teaching," which cites two great prophetic traditions (11:17). Jesus first appeals to Isaiah's vision of what the temple ought to represent: a refuge for all peoples (Isaiah 56:7), especially the foreigner and the dispossessed (Isaiah 56:3,6). The "house of prayer" on the "holy mountain" is to be a place of joy for the "outcasts of Israel" and "others besides those already gathered" (Isaiah 56:7-8).

But Jesus then invokes Jeremiah to illustrate what the temple has in fact become. The metaphor "den of thieves" comes from one of the bitterest attacks upon the temple state in Hebrew prophecy (Jeremiah 7:11). This oracle warns against "trusting in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the Lord'" and insists that the legitimacy of the cult is contingent upon justice toward the alien, the orphan, the widow, and the innocent (Jeremiah 7:4-7). If idolatry and exploitation flourish, the temple will be destroyed, as was its predecessor (7:9-15). To Mark's Jesus, this ultimatum now obtains, and he will shortly give an object lesson about how the temple exploits the poor.

We return now to the symbolic discourse of the fig tree. On his way into Jerusalem, Jesus curses a tree which is unable to relieve his "hunger," because it is not the "time" for figs (11:13f.). The next day, after the temple action, the disciples find that this tree has withered "to its roots" (11:20f.).

In the semantic background of the Old Testament, the fig tree was a symbol of peace, security, and prosperity in Israel's past, present, and future salvation history. The blossoming of the fig tree was a metaphor for the visitation of blessing upon the people by God; conversely, the withering of the tree or its fruit was tantamount to judgment (see Jeremiah 8:13; Isaiah 28:3f.; Micah 7:1; Joel 1:7, 12).

Above all, Mark seems to have had in mind Hosea's judgment oracle: "Because of the wickedness of their deeds, I will drive them out of my house....All their princes are rebels....Their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit" (Hosea 9:15f.). Jesus' curse then is a political parable: the "princes" who profit from the "house" must be "driven out"; "fruitless," the temple-state is destined not for restoration but will "dry up." But the temple represented the very heart of the Jewish social order; what could take its place in the life of the people?

The Temple Mount
The universal conviction in antiquity held that the deity resided in the temple; to reject the "residence" was to provoke a fundamental crisis regarding God's presence in the world and the collective identity of the nation. Thus Jesus immediately exhorts his disciples to "Believe in God!" (11:23), the God who is not captive to the dominant order. The following sayings urge them to reconstruct their collective symbolic life apart from the temple-state; faith is a matter of social and political imagination (11:22-25).

The two solemn sayings declare that God's creative presence and activity to change the world depend upon such faith. What does Jesus mean by the mysterious mountain-saying (11:23)? The temple was known in Jewish circles as the "mountain of the house"; echoing Isaiah's promise that "every mountain will be made low" (Isaiah 40:4), Jesus assures his disciples that the temple-state is not invincible. To "be taken up and cast into the sea" recalls the symbolic action by which Jesus healed the Gerasene demoniac (5:9-13). As impossible as it may seem, the powers of colonial Palestine, represented by the Roman "legion" and the Jewish "mountain," will meet their demise.

It is incumbent upon the community not only to pray for the transformation of the world, but to believe and act accordingly (11:24). So Jesus concludes with the central petition of what Matthew and Luke know as the Lord's Prayer (11:25; see Matthew 6:12,14; Luke 11:3f.). The house of prayer now abandoned, Jesus offers a new symbolic center, not an institutional but a moral site: the practice of mutual forgiveness within the community.

This is Jesus' final rejection of the temple-based debt system; the community of faith aspires to be truly a "priesthood of all believers," and hence a place "for all peoples." Sadly, the history of churches and communities has proven that it is exceedingly difficult to maintain this practice of forgiveness at the heart of its life.

JESUS' DIRECT ACTION IN the temple fulfills Malachi's apocalyptic promise, to which Mark alluded at the beginning (1:2) of his story:

I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.... I will be a swift witness against...those who oppress...the widow, the orphan,...the sojourner.... You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me. (Malachi 3:1, 5, 9)

The "messenger" (John the Baptist) did come, preparing the way for a "stronger one" (Mark 1:6f.), who on behalf of God did visit the temple. But because the hearts of the leaders had "hardened" (3:5), because they had turned the house into a "den of robbers" (11:17), he pronounced not blessing but curse (11:21) and took "swift witness" against an oppressive system through nonviolent direct action. This puts flesh on Jesus' earlier "strong man" and "divided house" parables (Mark 3:24-27). Jesus has put a ban on the strong man's "goods," for the "house" that is divided is the temple, its vocation betrayed by a political economy of exploitation; it "cannot stand."

None of this is lost on the Jerusalem clerical aristocracy, which understands that Jesus must go but is constrained from acting against him by fear of the unpredictable political allegiances of the masses (11:18; see 12:12, 14:1). Mark now turns to a series of conflict stories between Jesus and the political power structure itself. In three interrelated episodes, he repudiates both parties of the Jewish-Roman colonial joint rule in Palestine: the argument over John's baptism (11:27-33); the parable of the vineyard (12:1f.); and the dispute over Caesar's coin (12:13-17).

The Rulers and the Prophets
Jesus' thinly veiled parable of the vineyard is clearly allegorical. The "vineyard" image, taken from Isaiah 5, was a popular euphemism for Israel, "fenced around by the Law" as the rabbis were fond of saying (12:1). The "lease to tenants" however is Mark's little parody. His readers knew the Jewish ruling class also as the absentee-landlord class; they could thus revel in the role reversal of Mark's story, which portrayed reactionary leaders as rebellious tenants! In their greed they not only mismanage the vineyard but conspire to own and control it - the antithesis of the original covenantal ideology of gift and grace.

This parable indicts the ruling class in the murder of all those who have advocated the prophetic vision of justice. Hence, their opposition to Jesus (and before him, John) is not the exception but the rule; it is a systemic problem. The violence and counterviolence of the story are true to Isaiah's despairing cry: "The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.... The Lord looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed" (Isaiah 5:7). In conclusion, Mark cites Psalm 118:22 ("The very stone which the builders rejected"), further underlining the conflict between the Messianic mission and the would-be "builders" of the temple-state (12:10f.).

On either side of this parable are two conflict stories identical in structure. In each case Jesus is approached by opponents who challenge him regarding the question of political authority (11:27f.; 12:13-15). Jesus in turn poses a counterquestion (1 l:29f.; 12:16), in which he forces his antagonists to first state their own loyalties according to the fundamental opposition between divine and human authority: "Was the baptism of John from heaven or from humans?" (11:30) and "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" (12:17). Jesus' actions have made his allegiance clear; now it is up to the listeners to decide theirs.

In the baptism dispute, Jesus aligns himself with John in order to expose how the Jewish overlords have betrayed their popular mandate. The leaders cannot eulogize the martyr John, because they surely had consented to his murder (see 6:17f.); neither, however, can they publicly denounce him because of his enormous popularity (11:31f.). This, of course, is precisely their dilemma concerning Jesus; thus when they equivocate, Jesus walks away. But as just noted, the vineyard parable makes clear the true official policy toward prophetic dissidence.

Jesus' tax dictum (12:17) has been the long-standing object of misinterpretation by those who would impose "two-kingdom" doctrines upon it. As the rhetorical parallel with the baptism episode shows, the issue is not one of compatibility between the claims of God and Caesar, but conflict. During the time in which Mark wrote, the late days of the Jewish Revolt,the question of whether or not to pay tribute to Rome divided true Jewish nationalists from Roman collaborators. This episode is thus analogous to the historical situation of Mark's Galilean community, whose opponents (as here, Pharisees and Herodians) tried to "entrap" it according to this "test" (12:13, 15).

"Do we pay, or don't we?" (12:15). As far as Jesus is concerned, the question is not his but theirs; he forces them to own up to their collaboration by producing a coin. The image and inscription this coin bears become the center of the story (12:16). The image alone might have sufficed to settle the matter, since no true Jewish patriot (or Christian) would have used such idolatrous currency. (The revolutionary provisional government in Palestine minted its own coins.)

But Mark is particularly concerned with the inscription, which would have extolled Caesar as the "August and Divine Son." The word "inscription" appears only one other time in Mark: the writ of conviction posted over the cross of Jesus (the divine "Son") at the end of the story, which will read "King of the Jews" (15:26).

The choice between rival authorities could scarcely be stated more sharply. There are simply no exegetical grounds for reading the famous "render" statement as an exhortation to pay the tax. Jesus, who does not himself carry the coin, escapes the trap by challenging his antagonists to reveal their own political allegiances. It is this, not a neat doctrine of obedient citizenship, that provokes their incredulity.

Jesus and the Religious Establishment
Having repudiated the hegemony of the colonial arrangement, Jesus now is attacked by its ideological architects, the scribal class. The first sortie involves the Sadducees, the most conservative of the ruling groups (12:18-27). They intend to object to the doctrine of resurrection from the dead, that hope of radical eschatological transformation for which they, wealthy and privileged in this life, have no use. Ridiculing Jesus, they employ the rabbinic logic of reductio ad absurdum to a practice of which they approve - Levirate marriage (12:19-23). But Jesus diverts the issue from the alleged moral chaos in the afterlife to the assumed social practice, which objectifies women.

Sadducean support for Levirate marriage was concerned with the perpetuation of the patriarchal family system, in which the woman's status is restricted to childbearing, and offspring secure inheritance for the property of the household estate. Against this crude materialism of class succession and an instrumental attitude toward women, Jesus asserts the vision of a wholly new world in which patriarchy is overthrown: the woman will not "belong" to any of the men, because all are equal in status "like angels" (12:25). His otherwise strange closing argument now makes sense: The blessing of posterity given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will not be guaranteed by structures of male domination but by the power of the God of life (12:26f.).

Jesus then further undermines the hermeneutical authority of the ruling class as he goes on the offensive against the scribes (12:34b). He begins by finally addressing the question of Davidic Messianism directly (12:35-37). Here, "sonship" has nothing to do with genealogy, but with political ideology. The ruling classes assumed that Messiah would act to restore the Davidic temple-state to its full autonomy and power, which would only aggrandize their position further. But citing Psalm 110, Jesus argues that Messiah is not beholden to the old Davidic dreams of a renewed imperial project, since the politics of domination is itself the problem (see 10:37-45, where the allusion to "right hand" also derives from Psalm 110).

Jesus now instructs the crowd in critical thinking, warning them against the pretense of the scribes (as he did regarding the Pharisees and Herodians in 8:15). Mark's unsparing caricature of lawyers and ideologues portrays them as solely concerned with the maintenance of their social status and privilege - the antithesis of Jesus' call to be "last" and "servant" (12:38f.; see 10:43).

These are harsh words, but they get harsher. Scribal affluence is attributed to "devouring widow's houses under the pretext of long prayers" (12:40). This probably refers to the practice of legal trusteeship, in which the estates of deceased men were given to scribes to administer - the widow deemed unfit to run a man's affairs. In compensation the trustee received a percentage, and embezzlement and abuse were not uncommon. Thus Jesus is again criticizing piety as a mask for robbery.

This is confirmed by the final temple episode concerning the widow in which Jesus gives an object lesson in exploitation (12:41-44). Jesus' comments have long been trivialized as a quaint commendation of the superior piety of the poor, when in fact they are a bitter lament. Jesus sits "opposite" the treasury (12:41), the same stance he will shortly take toward the whole temple building as he utters judgment (13:3).

Ever class-conscious, Mark again points to the contrast between the large contributions placed in the till by the rich and the meager sums by the poor (12:42). The widow is broken by her tithing obligation - "she has put in everything, her whole means." The temple, like the scribal class, no longer protects the poor and widowed, but crushes them. His attack on the temple political economy and its stewards complete, Jesus exits the temple grounds for the last time in disgust (13:1-2).

There is an intentional symmetry between the disciples' awe at the temple edifice Jesus has just repudiated ("Teacher, look!" 13:1) and their earlier surprise at the cursed fig tree ("Master, look!" 11:21). Any central social institution is "bigger than life," but the whole Jewish universe was anchored to the temple. Thus, when Jesus predicts its utter destruction (13:2), it is no wonder that the disciples respond with terrified questions about the end of the world (3:4).

This in turn issues in Jesus' second great sermon, which alludes to events in Mark's own historical moment: the Jewish Revolt of 66 to 70 C.E. To those Jews who owed their allegiance to the temple-state, the terrible social and political upheaval of the war with Rome indeed portended an end; but from Mark's perspective, it represented the possibility of a new beginning (13:7f.).

Radically critical of both imperialists and nationalists, Mark's community refused to cooperate with either the Jewish guerrillas or the Roman counterinsurgency, a "non-aligned" stance which earned it persecution from both sides of the war (13:9-13). With the siege of Jerusalem by Rome imminent (13:14a), rebel recruiters were going throughout Palestine exhorting patriotic Jews to the city's defense. Only one voice could compete with their persuasive call to arms - the voice of the Master Jesus. This voice reiterated the counsel of the prophet Daniel, who, two centuries earlier during the Maccabean revolt, had urged the faithful to resist both the imperial beast and the illusions of militant nationalism (Daniel 7-11). Jesus calls for an abandonment of Jerusalem (13:14b-20) not because of cowardice but because of the apocalyptic conviction that the true order of justice cannot be established by the sword.

MARK'S APOCALYPTIC VISION looks for the end, not the mere recycling, of the politics of violence and domination. The second half of the sermon, in the language of high apocalyptic symbolism, speaks of the "true signs" of this end. The powers will be pulled from their "heavenly thrones" only by the greater nonviolent power of the Son of Man (13:24-27). At the end of the story, this power will be witnessed by the powers and some of the disciples (see 8:38f.; 14:62) - the true apocalyptic moment when the sun darkens and the power of the powers is broken: Jesus on a Roman cross (15:33).

The sermon ends with two parables. Returning to the fig tree image, Mark argues that the leafy (fruitless) fig tree is a sign of the "end-time" (13:28-32), which is to say, the world of the oppressive temple-state is coming to an end. Though we do not know when, we have been told how and are reminded by the second parable, in which Jesus commands us to stay awake and watch (13:32-37). These imperatives will reappear in Gethsemane (14:32-41).

In the apocalyptic parable of the householder, the "Son of Man" who claimed lordship over the debt system that oppressed the poor (see 2:10,28) is now revealed as the true "lord of the house" (13:35). The world has become Gethsemane; all disciples are called to "historical insomnia" in the struggle to overturn the reign of the powers with the way of nonviolence.

Mark's second campaign narrative speaks poignantly to those struggling to resist the "house rules" of imperial America. We are socialized to be obedient consumers, cooperative in the face of militarism and economic exploitation, and, above all, to be politically impotent. Against this, the gospel endorses militant, nonviolent action against the most formidable of "mountains" and calls us to careful discernment of the "end-time" (13:1f.).

What is the "lesson of the fig tree" (13:28) for us today, in the face of the historical ultimatums dictated by our nuclear overlords? It is the same: Our task is not to speculate as to the "times" (13:32), but to be vigilant in the nonviolent struggle for justice (13:33, 36f.). We must believe in the power of the "Son of Man," which alone can topple the powers from their omnipotent designs (13:24-26), and remember that the "Lord of the house" struggles with us to bring about the kingdom vision in our sad history (13:31).

Ched Myers was a regional program director for the American Friends Service Committee when this article appeared.