Jesus and the fig tree

[saraha]

In our Lenten reading last night we read, among other things, about Jesus being hungry, finding the fig tree with no fruit because it was the wrong season and cursing it. 
Why would he curse a tree that couldn’t give him fruit because it was the wrong season? Ds11 suggested he was “hangry”. Was this a little story to illustrate his humanity? Is there something obvious we are missing?

Thanks!

[kristin0713]

It's symbolic. It was a metaphor calling out the hypocrisy of the religious leaders who made great demands on the people and were not bearing fruit in their own lives. 

[saraha]

Seems like an odd place for a metaphor, with no context. Guess that’s why we didn’t get it.

[HomeAgain]

55 minutes ago, saraha said:

Seems like an odd place for a metaphor, with no context. Guess that’s why we didn’t get it.

I ended up doing some more reading on this after I saw your question.  Because, yeah, it's weird, and disjointed and it feels like someone lost a few pages in there, doesn't it?  A most common interpretation is that this tree looked mature enough: full leaves, looked later in season.  But it didn't have any fruit to back it up.  It was fronting, and it becomes a symbol for fruitlessness. So when the apostles ask wtf when they see the withered tree later, Jesus ignores the actual tree and talks to them about the power of prayer.

[J-rap]

Fig trees are often used to symbolize spiritual fruitfulness or lack of it, in the Old Testament.  My understanding of this parable is that it's a symbolic judgment on the corrupt leaders of Israel.   Not anti-Jew, but anti-powers and systems that work against the pureness and otherness of God's love.   And that by cursing it, He's showing himself as the Messiah who has come to vanquish evil and restore God's beautiful creation.

Edited April 3, 2022 by J-rap

[mom31257]

I asked my dh who follows some people who have Jewish training/backgrounds. He said that in the second temple Jewish literature, trees represented different things. The fig tree represented the leadership, and they weren't bearing fruit; thus, the metaphor was about them. 

 

[Terabith]

This story has always confused me, because it was NOT THE SEASON FOR FIGS.  

Like, even as a metaphor.....it doesn't work when it's not freaking fig season.  

Rabbinic Judaism was vibrant.  And Jesus was a Pharisee (from the school of Hillel).

I have an M.Div, and I'm on team hangry.  

Edited April 4, 2022 by Terabith

[lauraw4321]

I’ve decided some things are either a)apocryphal or b) answered by God one day. 

[saraha]

48 minutes ago, Terabith said:

This story has always confused me, because it was NOT THE SEASON FOR FIGS.  

Like, even as a metaphor.....it doesn't work when it's not freaking fig season.  

Rabbinic Judaism was vibrant.  And Jesus was a Pharisee (from the school of Hillel).

I have an M.Div, and I'm on team hangry.  

My ds11, after asking what masters in divinity means feels very proud of himself 😆

[Ausmumof3]

Fig tree is typical of Israel I think so the curse was  symbolic of the religious system that wasn’t responding to him. He says elsewhere being forth fruits worthy of repentance or something like that.

I’ve also heard someone say there was some deal where fig trees would occasionally put out a small early crop and that’s what he was looking for? I think we can safely assume it wasn’t just a poor response to hunger given he resisted the temptation to turn stones into bread after forty days of fasting.

ETA I think reading Luke 13v6 onward helps explain it a bit.

Edited April 4, 2022 by Ausmumof3

[J-rap]

12 hours ago, Ordinary Shoes said:

Why do those of us raised in a Christian environment believe that there was corruption in the Israel of Jesus's time? Why do we believe that the Jewish leaders of that time were hypocritical? That comes from the Gospels. 

How do you know that the Judaism of Jesus's time worked against the "pureness and otherness of God's love?" 

I liken it to how people often use the term "dark ages" to describe the Middle Ages. That term comes from Protestants and it's anti-Catholic. 

The idea that the Judaism of Jesus's time was corrupt and needed Jesus to reform it is anti-Jewish. I'm using "anti-Jewish" instead of "anti-semitism" or "anti-Jew" because the early Christians were Jews. 

The idea that Christianity erased Judaism which had no further use after Jesus plays a part in the two thousand years of hostility towards Jews by Christians. Why would the Jews remain Jewish if Judaism was eclipsed by Christianity? That justified persecution. 

ETA that the Judaism of Jesus's time was much more diverse than we realize. Jesus (there is a good evidence that he actually existed) was just one part of what was going on. It's simply untrue that the Judaism of Jesus's time bore no fruit but yet most of us believe that. Why? Because that's the story told by the writers of the Gospels. 

I think some of the parables and issues Jesus spoke to were symbolically directed at Israel -- because that's where he lived.  But they were always meant to zoom out to the broader community of humankind.   Even symbolically, he wasn't saying Judaism in and of itself was corrupt.  He was talking about certain leadership that was corrupt -- but again, zooming out to humankind.  I believe he was also reacting against religion itself.  Not the faith of the Jews, but what we often turn faith into and call religion:  power, force, status, laws, judgments, etc.   (Certainly not just in Judaism -- look at all of that going on in Christianity today!)

I think it's clear that the Jewish people were very, very beloved to him, and I'm sure there was at as much "good fruit" in them as there is in Christianity today.  He didn't come to replace Judaism.  He came to continue the momentum of showing us (all) God's heart, to show us (all) a different way of living... something that did not include power, force, laws, judging others, etc.   Clearly many of the Jewish people back then already understood that "different way" and Jesus wasn't referring to them.

[Katy]

16 hours ago, Terabith said:

This story has always confused me, because it was NOT THE SEASON FOR FIGS.  

Like, even as a metaphor.....it doesn't work when it's not freaking fig season.  

Rabbinic Judaism was vibrant.  And Jesus was a Pharisee (from the school of Hillel).

I have an M.Div, and I'm on team hangry.  

I've heard someone say it was still about Israel because it wasn't the season for them to believe either.  But I think that was...  I'm blanking on the name of that logical fallacy where you shoot the side of the barn first and look for a pattern later. Assuming a pattern you found afterwards doesn't have anything to do with the intention of the person who pulled the trigger.

Hangry always seemed more reasonable to me.  Especially for someone who joked people judged him as a glutton.