Jesus’s confrontation at the Temple challenges us to see past their questions of authority, but the reason for the questioning. Jesus ducks their questions because they are questioning the authority of God.
On Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem in a parody of authority. And after the crowds died down, he took a quick look inside the Temple and left. He went back to Bethany, a town next to Jerusalem; a suburb of the city.
On Monday, he came back to the city, got angry at a fig tree and cursed it. Then he went straight to the Temple and made a holy hell of the place. And when he was done, he left again for Bethany.
This morning, Jesus returns to Jerusalem, to the Temple, passing by that fig tree. The curse has withered it. And what Jesus is about to do is to complete the withering of the Temple.
Authority
Yesterday, we discussed that the fig tree makes sense of the action in the Temple. That Jesus isn’t purifying the Temple or “cleansing” it so much as exposing its corruption and distance from God’s desires for it.
Passing by the fig tree on Tuesday, the disciples see that this cursing is complete. And this should portend what will happen in the Temple shortly.
Immediately, Jesus is verbally attacked by all the branches of Temple elites: the chief priests, scribes, and elders. Soon after this, the Pharisees and Sadducees will take their turns.
They question Jesus’s authority, which, let’s be honest, they have every right to do! He just made a huge mess of the place yesterday.
But Jesus’s response to the question is important. Not because of the jiu-jitsu arguing style he uses, but because he is guiding everyone to re-examine their focus on authority. Specifically, the question of attributing God as a source for one’s authority when we’re really talking about people doing junk to other people.
The Little Apocalypse
Jesus tells this parable which is pretty terrifying, actually. For everybody! Nobody walks away happy.
The landowner keeps sending people to collect and the tenants keep killing them. Even the landowner’s son! So what’s the landowner supposed to do about this? But come and destroy them!
We’ve all heard this story and its general condemnation. And it’s hard not to hear the Jesus figure there in the middle: the landowner’s son — even he gets killed!
But notice that in the parable, the tenants get killed for killing the son. But when Jesus is killed, there’s no avenging angel coming to slaughter everyone in Jerusalem.
Hear instead the folly and evil of the tenants, how they thought they could steal the son’s inheritance. This is greed for power and the stealing of authority. This is a parable about where the authority resides, not the quid-pro-quo response of God.
If we kept reading, we’d hear more teachings on authority: about paying taxes, marriage in the afterlife, the Greatest Commandment, a question about David’s son. Then we’d hear this nugget at the end of chapter 12 (41-44).
It’s almost like a manifestation of the parable in reverse. These terrible tenants impoverishing this woman, and moralizing her to give her last penny away, leaving her destitute. Leaving her to die. Like killing the landowner’s own son.
Learn it’s lesson!
The day closes as they leave the Temple, but Jesus isn’t done. He speaks to his followers about the future. Here, the vision is terrifying and speaks of great destruction. It’s a teaching often called “The Little Apocalypse”.
But it isn’t a story of the end of the world, but of the vengeance of the powerful, the passing on of violence from one to the next, the dividing character of human sin. In other words, it is the cycle of violence shown in the parable we read this morning over and over again.
And toward the end of this terror, Jesus gives them the bud of hope. Listen to it, catch the glimmer (Mark 13:28-31).
The fig tree! Learn it’s lesson!
Yesterday it was supposed to give figs because now is the season! Now is when Jesus is present and this cycle of violence will be drawn to a close. Not the violence itself, but its justification!
Now, he tells them, when even this cursed, dead tree begins to show life, you know the time has come and the kin-dom is here.
Watch and Prepare
This whole day, this Tuesday of Holy Week brings us to the end of three days of Jesus confronting the authorities. Three days of Jesus coming to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to reveal its danger and opposition to God’s dream for humanity.
He’s making the case, not of his authority, but God’s great authority over us. Over the Temple and even Rome. An authority which is not displayed by feats of strength or dominance, but by love.
And the three days end with a warning of what is to come in the days ahead. A warning that the very authority of God will be tested by the human demand for ultimate authority: over each other and all of creation.
A confrontation the powerful will blame on the powerless, calling it an insurrection.
But even in the midst of this struggle, Jesus gives us a glimpse: when even the dead show life, we know the kin-dom is at hand.
For that, we watch and prepare.