We don't see much of a gentle Jesus in today's gospel reading (Mark 11:11-26).  Jesus calls out all of the main characters (if we can call a fig tree a character) for not doing what they're supposed to do.

 

Take the poor old fig tree: Jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree, but discovers that it has no fruit - as anyone would know anyway, because figs happen not to be in season at that point.  But it is the fig tree that gets the blame and the curse for pretty much being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  

 

Take, too, the people at the temple who are selling things.  I imagine no one's told them not to sell things.  Indeed, they probably see what they're doing as a service to the people coming to the temple but who have not brought the necessary animals for sacrifice.  And, moreover, this is their livelihood.  So it must seem a bit much to them that Jesus calls them thieves. They're just getting on with their daily lives, doing what needs to be done.

 

Jesus has a purpose, of course, in what he's doing here.  By his own actions toward the sellers and the fig tree, Jesus reminds us of all the many ways that we blame others (even inanimate objects) for bad things happening in our lives.  This is why it is so important to consider all this in light of the last few lines of today's gospel: Jesus says that we should forgive anyone with whom we have a grievance so that God can forgive us for our transgressions.  Wherever we see a "transgression against us" God sees even greater a transgression - and yet still forgives us.

 

Recognizing our own everyday sins is important, but today's readings are calling us to do more.  Unlike the sellers in the temple, we are not meant to be "just" doing what needs to be done, in whatever way best gets it done.  God calls us to live our lives in a bit different way, as the apostle reminds us in today's first reading (1 Peter 4:7-13).  We are meant to do everything in our lives with "intense" love, to serve one another without complaining.

 

On the face of it, Christians don't live any differently than any others; we still have to make money and cook dinner and so on.  But the marks of our lives are meant to be with this intense love that Peter speaks about.  Today, we celebrate the memorial of Saint Justin, who was martyred for the faith in the second century.  Outwardly, Justin looked to be a very ordinary man: he was a teacher and he taught philosophy in the same kinds of ways that other, non-Christian philosophers taught.  But because he was a follower of Jesus, Justin's life and purpose also looked very different.  He spent his life making philosophical arguments in favor of Jesus, to those who didn't think there could be any truth to it.  He spent his ordinary teaching life doing extraordinary acts of witness to Jesus, to the point that it was a threat to Roman authorities, and he was put to death.

 

Today, let us seek to do even our most ordinary acts with the kind of intense, extraordinary love that God calls us to do.

 

- Jana M. Bennett