Holy Monday: Leaves without Fruit
On the Monday of Holy Week, Jesus did two things. He cleansed the temple by overturning the tables of money changers and merchants. This makes sense. The house of the Lord was being misused as a marketplace, “a den of robbers” rather than a “house of prayer” (Mathew 21:13). It is clear that the desecration of the temple would incite the anger and action of Jesus. But Jesus also does something else, something bizarre.
In hunger he approaches a fig tree. Finding no fruit and only leaves, he curses the tree that no one may ever eat fruit from it again (Mathew 21:12, Mark 11:16). The disciples later remark on the withered tree, and in response Jesus declaims the importance of faith and the effectiveness of prayer. This story can be confusing to the reader. What is the point of cursing a tree? Why did Jesus punish a fig tree for not bearing fruit even when it is out of season? Did Jesus take out his anger on a faultless tree just because he was hungry?
The key to understanding the story of the fig tree comes from its situation alongside the account of the cleansing of the temple. The temple offers a false promise. It claims to be a conduit to encounter God through prayer, but is filled instead with transactions and materials. The tree in a similar way presents itself as offering sustenance in bearing leaves, but offers no fruit.
So why does the tree wither? Augustine offers an answer in his Sermon 39 on the New Testament. He writes, “[t]hat tree is the synagogue, not that which was called, but that which was reprobate. For out of it also was called the people of God, who in sincerity and truth waited in the Prophets for the salvation of God, Jesus Christ.” Augustine highlights the tree as the symbol of what is put on display in the temple. The Jews have lost sight of God and turned from him by not recognizing Jesus as the fulfillment of their scriptures. They abide by their laws and put on the costume of truth, but in reality turn away from the truth that confronts them. Religion becomes not a means to get to God, but a societal facade. This is emblematized in the corruption of the temple. The temple is not used for its proper end of prayer and nearness to God, but as a marketplace to prosper and profiteer. The withering of the tree prefigures the destruction of the temple as a sign that those who continue in religion without pursuing God only wear the clothes of religion, lacking substance and truth.
Fig leaves are also present in Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve sew fig leaves together to cover their nakedness in shame after the Fall. There, the leaves symbolize a behavior performed to try and overcome feelings of shame. In the broader Scriptural context, fig leaves present the appearance of vitality despite offering no true substance.
In the words of Blaise Pascal, all of humanity has a God shaped hole in their heart. Sin separates us from God, leaving a vacuum which we seek to fill. We exist dissatisfied by nature, always seeking for something to fill the void left by sin. This is what Adam and Eve first experienced in the garden: a deep unhappiness that permeates existence. Pascal writes, “[a]ll of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” We fill our lives with distractions that keep our minds and bodies busy to avoid the emptiness in ourselves. Aquinas proposes that God is the foundation of being, substance emanates from him, and being subsists on him. He writes, “every created being participates, so to speak, the nature of being; for God alone is His own being” (Aquinas, The Summa Theologica). In Aquinas’ theology, reality exists only in relation to God, and substance originates from participation in His being. The chasm of sin in man’s heart cannot be filled with worldly things which offer no substance in themselves. Only the infinite nature of God can feed the soul.
The story of the cursed fig tree warns how distraction can even take the form of religion. Clothing yourself in the comforts of ostentatious religious display falls to the same flaw as any other vice or toil, but with the self-assurance and blindness of the reprobate Jewish leaders of Jesus’ time.
Jesus searched for fruit among the Jews as he did in the tree. He found them lacking in love, in prayer, in faith. He did not find himself among those in the temple nor among the leaves on the tree. For Jesus is the bread of life, and God is love. Religion without love, religion without Jesus, leaves the soul emaciated and withered. To find nourishment one must participate in the being of God, in the love of God. Jesus offers insight into how we can participate in God, thus being sustained by him, prescribing faith and prayer.
On this day of Holy Week, take up Pascal’s challenge. Go sit in an empty room. Turn off the lights. But don’t do so alone. Approach God in prayer. Rely on him as the sustenance of life and for the rest he brings to the inner turmoil of the soul.