Bible Study series: Mark 11:12-14. This is an action parable. Jesus lived in an agrarian society, where animals were slaughtered and trees uprooted or chopped down often enough. Just talk to a farmer today.
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Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 11:12-14
12 The next day, they left Bethany and got hungry. 13 Seeing from a distance a fig tree with leaves, he went to find what may be on it. When he got to the tree, he found nothing except leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he replied and said to it, “May no one ever again eat fruit from you.” And the disciples heard. (Mark 11:12-14)
Comments:
This is an action parable. Yes, it really happened, but it is designed for a higher purpose.
12-14:
First let’s deal with a misunderstanding and cultural snobbery by twenty-first century Americans applied to people of two thousand years ago.
Lane says v. 13 could be translated as follows: “and the significant thing about this is that it was not even the season for figs.”
What does it mean that Jesus would react against a fig tree, though it was not the season for figs?
France responds:
One possible explanation (among several proposed over the years) is as follows. As the leaves appear on the tree about Passover time, there are already small green figs forming, known at that stage as paggîm. They are not very palatable and certainly not ripe for harvest, but they can be eaten faute de mieux (I have tried!), and some have claimed (I am not sure on what evidence) that they are actually preferred to the summer fruit by ‘the natives’. It may be then that those were what Jesus was hoping for (Gundry [another commentator], 636, points out that v. 13 says only [something], not specifically ‘figs’), especially if the tree had, as Mark’s emphasis suggests, a particularly well-developed show of leaves, which might have encouraged the hope of the fruit being further advanced than normal at that time of year. But there were not even these undeveloped figs, [nothing but leafy branches]. It was an empty show.
France references some one else who insightfully calls the tree a “braggart tree.” This means that the fig tree (i.e., Israel) should have borne fruit of some kind, when it was filled with leafy branches, but it did not. All it could brag or boast of was show-off leaves.
These two verses trouble modern American city-dwellers. “What did the fig tree do wrong?” We don’t live in an agricultural society. Let me illustrate. Cattle farmers load up their livestock and take them to slaughterhouses. Do you work in one? No? Do you like hamburgers? Yes? Okay, where does the beef come from?
Now here’s story that happened in my own life. I was sitting in the large dining room of the mother of prosperous dairy farmer, who lived in her own house on the property, on Monday morning (the usual get-together time). I was working on my doctorate, and I spent my days in a cocoon, on campus, so I was a “city slicker.” The various farmers were chatting about the animals. The dairy farmer owned a horse that was unproductive and getting old. They decided to shoot it and have it hauled off to the glue factory. They even decided that the best thing was to put the rifle barrel right on its forehead and pull the trigger. The dairy farmer, gruff and tough, said to me, “Come on!” He wanted me to join them in the shooting. I recoiled and objected: “Oh, come on! It’s not hurting anybody! Let it live!” I could easily imagine the horse coming up to the men and expecting a treat or a little affection on the forehead. They walked out the door with a determined look on their faces, ignoring me. They didn’t blink or show the tiniest bit of hesitation or remorse. This is business. They were used to death on the farm. To this day, I don’t know whether they actually shot the poor thing. I didn’t ask. (I now seem to recall that he let it live a little while longer, so maybe he did have a little remorse, as he walked out there.) Maybe we are not so different from how agricultural people were two thousand years ago, after all!
When trees are unproductive, they have to be removed. That’s the way of an agricultural society. In the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree (Luke 13:6-9), the owner inspected a barren fig tree for three years, planted in the middle of his vineyard (an odd place for it to be) and ordered the worker to chop it down. “Why should it use up good ground?” It’s a waste of time. The worker pleaded with the owner to give it one more year, so he can work with it. If it’s unproductive after that, then he’ll chop it down. Business for grownups.
Further, sacrifices of animals happened every day at the temple. God endorsed it in the Torah (Lev. 1-7). At least the slaughter of the animals served a religious purpose, while our animal slaughter for food serves no religious purpose whatsoever. We eat them to expand our bellies. Do I have to mention that Jesus sent demons into thousands of pigs which threw themselves in the Lake of Galilee (Mark 5:11-13)? It is better that he do this to a tree and pigs than to us!
Therefore, we should not look down our long, twenty-first-century noses at those living two thousand years ago as if our urban or suburban society is better than theirs in every way. That’s cultural and chronological snobbery. If you think about it, we Americans (and Westerners) really are spoiled in many ways, unused to the daily unpleasantness of agriculture and blissfully carefree about the source of hamburgers. There is no moral problem, therefore, with Jesus cursing the fig tree any more than there is a moral problem with slaughtering animals for us today or sacrificing them at the temple for the ancient people, back then, a system once ordained of God.
France also answers the twenty-first-century snobbery, as if our way is always better than those of two thousand years ago:
This evidence suggests that Mark and his readers would have had no difficulty in recognising the symbolism of the unsuccessful search for figs. Moreover, when the fig tree occurs again later in this gospel in a parabolic use in 13:28, it will again be in connection with the fate of the temple; while the symbolism is not the same as here, it will again focus on the close connection between the fig tree’s leaves and the promise of fruit.
GrowApp for Mark 11:12-14
1. Farmers have to destroy life to renew life. What part of your life had to die for you to have new life in other areas?
RELATED
10. Eyewitness Testimony in Mark’s Gospel
2. Church Fathers and Mark’s Gospel
2. Archaeology and the Synoptic Gospels
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
SOURCES
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