A challenging passage

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Jon Swanson

Jesus wants breakfast. The fig tree is covered in leaves but there are no figs. He tells it that it will never bear fruit. It dies immediately. The disciples are amazed at the power Jesus displays. He says that they can do it. He ends by saying “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

I’ve summarized Matthew 21:18-22. The story is also told in Mark 11:12-25. There, it takes 24 hours for the tree to die, and Mark adds that it wasn’t the season for figs.

Which is most troubling to you in the synopsis above?

that Jesus killed a fig tree because, it seems, the tree inconvenienced him,
that it wasn’t even the season for figs, so it was an irrational act,
that Jesus says if you believe enough, you’ll get what you pray for, or
that the accounts can’t agree about the very timing of the events.

Each point can be challenging to those of us who are following Jesus, who want to be like him. Either he is cranky, agriculturally clueless, out of touch with our experience of prayer, or part of textual conflict that we have to ignore or reconcile.

I understand the challenge. But just because it makes no sense to our sensibilities doesn’t mean we can avoid this passage.

At the time, the disciples weren’t concerned about why Jesus was killing a tree; they were stunned that he could make a tree die. Though we are familiar with Roundup, we would be stunned, too. In response, Jesus invites the disciples to believe that their words, with God’s affirmation, do things.

I know that we often pray and nothing happens. But what if Jesus is right? What if we could move mountains?

What if we asked with confidence…that it was what Jesus wanted?

grinding them down

Posted on July 22, 2009 by Jon Swanson

Jesus was concerned about little children. He said that the road to greatness in the kingdom of heaven ran closer to the playground than the temple courts. And then, after telling the disciples to learn from children, Jesus got graphic:

“If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,” Jesus says, “it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

We are tempted to say, “Better than what, Jesus?” But if that is the good news, I don’t want to know the bad news. Instead, it is worth thinking about how to avoid the punishment altogether.

I thought about why Jesus would choose a millstone.

The obvious reason is the weight. I wonder, however, if he was thinking about the slow oppressive grinding that happens with our children sometimes. We push and push and push until they get angry. We live with such a difference between how we are in public and how we are at home that they abandon faith as mere hypocrisy, or worse. We are too lazy to help the small seeds of faith grow with encouragement and coaching, and they struggle to survive when faced with serious challenges.

Jesus looks at the result of faith corrupted or abandoned and says, “you wore them out by being a millstone, grinding away. Now wear the millstone.”

But it doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why Jesus makes the point.

Start with the faith they have. Help it grow. Answer their questions. When you can’t, look it up. When they aggravate, show them how to respond well. When they struggle, love them. When they fail, hold them–and then teach them how to learn from God and others.

desperate confidence

Posted on July 3, 2009 by Jon Swanson

The woman’s daughter was sick. Demon-sick. That’s sick.

She, like any mother in that situation, was willing to consider anything and anyone. Even if it meant a foreigner.

Jesus was heading out of town, taking some time to get away from the constant Pharisaical scrutiny. He headed to the Mediterranean coast, north of Israel.

And so we see the intersection of the vacationing celebrity preacher and the desperate mother. She approaches and, using the right title (“Lord, Son of David”) asked for help.

Silence.

Exactly what many people find when they ask God for help. They have a need, they hear nothing. And so they give up on God.But she didn’t give up. Apparently she kept asking.

The disciples try to protect their vacation from this annoyance. It would be nice to think they were protecting Jesus, but the text suggested that her requests were bothering them.

Jesus finally speaks. His answer speaks of the target audience of his message (Israel). The woman persists: “Lord, help me.”

She is respectfully persistent. She isn’t rude (she kneels down, calls him “Lord), knows that she has no standing as a non-Jew, but she has nothing to lose.

And then Jesus engages her in conversation. They exchange a brilliant play of metaphor, which she handles lightly and quickly.

And Jesus heals her daughter.

Think of his responses: silence, principle, veiled insult (dogs). And she persists through it all.

Why?

Because she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus was the only one able to heal her daughter. Because her daughter needed healing. Because this wasn’t about a show or a miracle, this was life/death. Because she knew Jesus was a person, and people can be addressed.

I seldom have that kind of persistent, conversational, desperately confident faith.

I’m like a disciple.

taking sides

Posted on May 27, 2009 by Jon Swanson

I don’t like sides. I don’t like having to decide which team to be on. I don’t like being forced to be with one group or the other.

That’s why I want to avoid Matthew 13: 11-17.

Because I am working our way through Matthew, writing 300 words a day about following Jesus, I consider whether to discuss each section. Part of the decisionmaking process is a simple question: “Is this something I don’t want to write about?”

If the answer is, “I don’t want to,” it means that I have to address it. I can’t hide from it.

That is the case with this passage. Jesus is saying that some people will understand and some won’t. Further, he is saying that some people will be given understanding and some won’t.

This is difficult. It feels not fair.

Theologians have debated the amount God gets to decide and the amount we get to decide. For centuries. And there are sides. And it is hard to take sides. And non-theologians look at the words and try to understand how fair it is that God gets to decide who will understand and who won’t. And it is hard to take sides.

But what if we don’t have to take sides? What if Jesus is describing what we all know to be true?

That no matter how hard you try to explain math to someone who has decided that they can’t understand, they won’t get it.

That no matter how much you explain the safety rigging for the trapeze to someone who doesn’t trust it, they won’t go up.

That no matter how much food you offer to someone with their mouth clamped shut, they won’t be nourished.

And they fail the test and don’t see the heights.

And the food eventually will be taken away.

wondering again

Posted on May 2, 2009 by Jon Swanson

John wondered about Jesus. The John known as John the Baptist. Jesus had two things to say, one to John’s followers and one to Jesus’ followers.

To John’s followers, the ones who were bringing the question from John who was in jail, Jesus simply said, “Go and tell John what you see and hear.”

The evidence that Jesus used was evidence that would speak hugely to John. Look at the blind, the lame, the lepers, the deaf, the dead, the poor. Look at what is happening to change their lives. Look at how they are healed.

This was a list that John would have been familiar with. Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet talked about these as signs of healing, as signs of God caring. When Jesus said by implication was this: You know that the one doing certain things is the one who is to come. I’m doing them. I’m the one. Relax.

This was a message of gentle assurance for John. It told him in words he would understand, that he hadn’t wasted his life.

But then Jesus turns from talking to John to talking about John.

Here’s where the truth should come out. Here’s where we’re going to hear Jesus say, “Yep. That John. What a loser. He’s questioning me. I think I’ll smite him with lightening.”

You say, “Jesus would never talk like that.”

I say, “we say that about him all the time.”

“God could never forgive that. I don’t have enough faith, God will hate me. I can’t doubt–I’ll be smitten.”

Right?

But Jesus does nothing of the sort. After talking just to John’s disciples, as they are leaving, while they can still hear, Jesus lifts his voice and praises John: “John is your Elijah.”

Of course, Elijah had questions, too.

Questions don’t mean failure.