In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘Pastor, I’m allowed to get really mad at people, right? I mean, Jesus did it!’

Today’s Gospel lesson can be problematic for many newcomers to the faith. A mature hearing of Holy Scripture doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes it takes years to strip people of Christological heresies that may influence their reading of the text. For example, a Nestorian or unspiritual-minded hearer may wonder or protest, “Boy, was Jesus ever grumpy that day! Turning over those tables in the sacred temple! At least that act makes sense, trying to address the hypocrisy, albeit a little over-reactive. Yet He was ministering on an empty stomach after all, which partly explains His bad mood with the fig tree; angry with it for not producing fruit, though He knew full well it was out of season. Like a spoiled kid who knows it’s not dinner yet kicks the fridge door in a hissy fit. Not only grumpy and unreasonable, but a bit nutty, don’t you think? He’d just entered Jerusalem: His triumphal entry. That was His big day after all, wasn’t it? You’d think he’d be in a good spirits the next day.’

And then, He tells the disciples, when they’re witnessing His ‘special power’, that they can do that too, if they just believe. ‘I mean, concentrate really hard, and you can destroy something even bigger than a fig tree, like a mountain.’

Is that our Jesus?

Those who know Jesus, those who love Jesus, see the text through a different lens. The text doesn’t tell us what ‘mood’ our Lord was in on Palm Sunday but it does not suggest lots of smiles on our Lord’s part—unlike a popular political figure riding through the streets in parade blowing kisses to his fans while standing up through the sunroof of his luxury limousine. Our Lord is entering Jerusalem to offer His life as a ransom for many through His brutal crucifixion. His ‘big day’ involves His last day, His death. Now, He doesn’t stop the joyous shouts from the crowd, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!’ And why would He? They are telling the truth. They have every reason to rejoice. Their praises are meet, right and salutary. These are the ones for whom He came. And yet, more solemn words echo in the background, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!’ Surely, emotions were mixed in the heart of our incarnate God on that bright yet gloomy day, but it was nothing that He wasn’t aware of or already prepared for, as He hungered for souls, and for salvation for mankind, though they willed it not. They would rather continue to be fed by foreign bread, rather than this Manna, the Bread of Heaven, who offers eternal life and true satisfaction.

The Christ hungers as He approaches the fig tree. He hungers for mankind. “I thirst,” He cries on the cross. It’s not simply evidence that He suffers as any man would, it’s an appeal, uniquely confessed by the only Son of God. He has come to earth to consume sinners and incorporate them into His body, the Church. He thirsts for their souls. He hungers for their salvation. And yet He is rejected and ignored, forced to fast. The season is now, ‘Today is the day of salvation,’ the prophecies have been fulfilled, the climax of history is about to occur—and Israel in specific, and mankind in general, is oblivious to it all. They bear no fruits. They are fig trees without figs; unnatural. They are already cursed. Jesus just names it. For environmentalists who are deeply insulted by an object lesson involving such a heartless act of injustice shown to an innocent little living creature—a fig tree—well, it’s Christ’s tree after all. He made it. He knows best. And, it’s not the only cursed tree that He would have us ponder; well, once cursed, but now blessed, with fruit very much living, His Body.

His Body, our Temple. His Temple. And so we turn to the apparent ‘temper tantrum’ in the Jewish Temple. And there too is a lesson.

Righteous anger isn’t the same as short-temperedness. Divine righteous anger stems from zealous love. After all, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity visits our earth, to fill the Temple with Himself, to take His rightful place as the holy of holies. He is the One to whom the Ark of the Covenant once pointed. He is the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He is the living and ultimate sacrifice. He is the only currency that can redeem us for His father’s kingdom. He is the one to whom the faithful pray. And yet …He is ignored as He dwells within His Temple and approaches the altar upon which the sacrifices are offered and slain. Of course the table upon which He would be slaughtered and His blood spilt would be outside the Temple and city, on a hill, a mountain, for all to see, for all to hear His final sermon of seven words; after all, He came not only to atone for the sins of the Jews, but of us Gentiles as well, the whole world, though most would live their lives as if He was just another man.

And finally, there is the part on prayer and faith. He isn’t promoting ‘faith healing’ by giving his disciples some tips as to how to reach deep down inside themselves and harness their hidden abilities to perform some magic tricks just like He had! Even if He had, have you seen a mountain move lately? Even our medical gurus in the big pharmas, or elected priests in Parliament, haven’t claimed to be able to do that …yet. Instead, Jesus performs a miracle. Yet our grumbling stomachs find it a hard one to swallow. Jesus curses. It’s judgement. Judgement upon sin, injustice, and most importantly, lack of faith. We have a hard time digesting Jesus’ words, and so instead of allowing ourselves to be judged, we would rather find in our Lord an example, or, from our Lord, permission, to do the same as He.

Yet He’s not just telling the disciples that they can just go out and do what He does…well, at least, not entirely, or in the way that we may think. For one of the key teachings in the text, is heard in that last verse: ‘And whenever you standpraying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.’ Forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ: Am I confusing Law and Gospel if I were to say that clergy start with forgiveness when it comes to ministry? The mountains of sin for which we are each responsible have been forgiven us by our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, died, risen, and ascended. So now we, sent out by Him, are commissioned to do the same by forgiving the mountains of sin of others, ‘moving them’ and casting them into the depths of the sea. Forgiving sins is a miracle of insurmountable comparison indeed. ‘What is easier to say, Get up and walk, or your sins are forgiven?’

A Nestorian-minded reader prefers to compare Jesus with us, looking for simple similarities in an effort to discover some inadequacies in our Lord to excuse our own. We want Jesus to be like us, so that, say, we can more easily justify our angry behaviour or feelings of revenge. Yet when a Christian contrasts the Lord with us, he or she rejoices in the ways in which He is different from us. Jesus curses where we would show compassion (we say: leave the poor tree alone, what did it ever do to you to deserve such treatment?! Leave those in the Temple alone, call an elders’ meeting and address it properly, professionally, don’t make such a big deal about it). And Jesus shows compassion where we would rather curse. Jesus says, ‘Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.’

Pastors who commune themselves first while presiding at Mass have several good reasons to do so. Yet I have often embraced the tradition as a helpful reminder to pastors that we need forgiveness more than anybody else. The biggest sinners, those who hunger the most, well, they get to eat first. It helps to set the mood for not only the Eucharistic Feast, but for all of Christian ministry. That though we do pronounce the judgement of God on the world around us and worldly ideas among us, and we are permitted and expected to express righteous anger in various shapes and forms, we always seek to begin with humility and love, and, in short, forgiveness, in spite of all the mixed emotions that come with being human.

That’s how Jesus does it. And, in Him, as His Body, as His Temple, as His Living Sacrifices, that’s how we do it too.