So What Do We Make Of This?

So What Do We Make Of This?

Luke 21: 29 - 33

Matthew 21: 18, 19

March 8, 2026

Early on in youth ministry I learned the advisability of making sure that retreat, missions, and camping destinations were visited and checked to make sure that what the advertisements promised were actually matched in reality. Nothing like pulling into a hot and sweaty campground with 8 vans filled with high school students only to learn that the promised swimming pool was filled – not with cold, clear, sparkling water but with green sludge and mud.

One winter we were taking almost 60 people up above Montreal for an extended ski trip. As was my usual practice, I took our daughters with me when I went up to check out the ski resort. I was going to tour the housing and food arrangements while the resort allowed Ashley and Kristie to ski for free. Perfect! They could give me the review on the slopes while I checked out all of the other logistics.

The morning went quickly and soon the girls were supposed to meet me for lunch. I waited at the bottom of the hill and could look a long way up the final run to see the girls coming. Ashley – then a teenager, came down first. She skis like her mother; not terribly fast, but always very graceful. Then came the younger Kristie – all sticks and elbows – flying down the mountain.

There was this slight dogleg where the final run bent to the right. At the bend, there was a small tree, really not much more than a bushy shrub, that marked the bend. Ashley swooped around it easily. Kristie…… well, let’s just say that Kristie decided that she was going to cut close to the tree and then make a sharper turn.

She didn’t time it right, and Kristie ended up in a ball of skis, poles, and other assorted pieces of equipment right at the base of the tree. It almost looked like the tree had swallowed her up.  

I was probably another 500 yards down the hill. I could see Kristie, but I was too far away to hear her. So I watched Kristie ski into the tree shrub, get collected up in the branches, and then probably spend 10 minutes getting herself untangled from the branches and her equipment back on. I could tell she was okay. I wasn’t worried about her being hurt. But clearly Kristie was frustrated by how completely this tree, this big shrub had taken her captive.

Finally, Kristie got everything back on. She stomped her way clear of the tree and then, just before she turned her skis and headed down the run, Kristie spent probably 5 minutes, letting that tree shrub know what she thought of it. She had both poles whacking away at the branches. Top to bottom, almost all the way around the shrub, Kristie hit that tree with her ski poles. 

I laughed as Kristie skied the rest of the way down the mountain and pulled up to a stop next to Ashley and I. That tree would never make the mistake of capturing Kristie again, that’s for sure. The girls and I laugh about that to this day.

I am reminded of Kristie disciplining that tree shrub every time I read of Jesus cursing the fig tree. Only the Bible story is a much more serious matter.

It is Holy Week; the Passion of Jesus is beginning to unfold. On Sunday Jesus has entered Jerusalem as the crowds gathered with palm branches and shouts of hosanna, “Save us!” On Monday Jesus has cleansed the Temple, seeking to restore the Temple to a house of prayer. 

After returning to Bethany to spend Monday night, Jesus is again making the two mile walk from Bethany to the Temple where Jesus will be healing and teaching. Along the way, Matthew tells us, Jesus stops at a fig tree looking for morning breakfast.

It’s important that we spend just a little time talking about figs, seasons, and harvests. It is Passover, early April, at least 2 months before fig trees would typically be expected to begin bearing fruit. But this tree is fully in foliage, obviously an early bloomer, and so Jesus and his disciples would have been fully justified in expecting the fig tree to be bearing fruit.

You see, typically figs bear at least two harvests of fruit. The first growth of figs – a larger, but more acidic, less sweet harvest called the breba crop is not nearly as good to eat and comes in late May or early June. The sweeter, more desirable harvest comes 6 to 8 weeks after the first crop in late July and August.

Some have taken Jesus to task for expecting a fig tree to be bearing fruit – even the breba crop – in April. But the tree is in full bloom, and in full bloom, Jesus could expect that this first crop would be present. Jesus grew up in the midst of fig trees and multiple harvests. Jesus would have known what the presence of full foliage would signal. 

Understanding the reasonable expectation of Jesus for fruit only gets accentuated when we understand where and what Jeus is in the midst of. Context is almost always critically important in understanding Scripture.

Jesus has just cleansed the Temple. This central place in the spiritual life of Israel had been surrounded, misused, and captured by those seeking to unreasonably profit from those trying to worship there. Unfair currency exchange rates, sacrificial animals required by Old Testament law but sold at exorbitant prices, the economy of the businesses surrounding the Temple was oppressive and unjust. 

The Temple was there, in full bloom so to speak – completely constructed, fully functioning and Jesus had every right to expect that the Temple would be living into its purpose. But it wasn’t. No longer a house of prayer, Jesus described the Temple as a den of robbers. 

The fig tree – cursed for appearing fruitful but actually not bearing its crop. The Temple, similarly cursed for appearing fruitful but actually not bearing its spiritual crop. We need to understand this story in the context of Holy Week and Jesus providing a new opportunity for faithfulness and purpose in his life, death, and resurrection. 

But here we are, 2,000 years later. Is our Temple, is our Church fully living into its purpose? I have been at churches where it seems like missions and service is secondary to coffee and book shop sales. I have been to churches where spiritual growth and discipleship seems secondary to entertainment and visibility. The cleansing of the Temple and the cursing of the fig tree is an opportunity to wonder what Jesus would think if he walked our church grounds.

Lent is an opportunity for us – filled with grace – to examine our own lives to see if the spiritual fruits that a faithful life reflect are present. This is not, for us, about judgment. It is about opportunity. An opportunity to consciously, honestly reflect on those places of our lives that should be blooming, but perhaps are not; that should be bearing fruit, but remain empty.

Again, this is not today about judgment. It is, on this third Sunday in Lent; on this Communion Sunday simply an invitation to inspect, to reflect, and perhaps – if called – to recommit ones’ self to spiritual growth and fruit. And what kind of fruit? Jesus tells us at the Last Supper that people will know us, will recognize spiritual fruitfulness and bounty when we love one another. What kind of fruit? Perhaps fruits of the Spirit like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

May we be a people, and a church, bearing fruit as people of faith. Amen.