Hard Sayings—Week 2 Faith to Remove Mountains

• The fig tree was a symbol for peace and salvation (see Micah 4:1–5 and Isaiah 35). The season of Israel's salvation was upon them, for the Messiah was in their midst.
• Fig trees produce leaves and buds almost simultaneously. Sometimes the knobs of the immature figs could be seen before the leaves appeared. Hungry travelers were permitted to pick the unripened fruit in an emergency. So when Jesus came looking "for something" among the leaves, he would have been content to find a small green fruit. But he found nothing.
• Likewise, Jesus would have been content to find some life, some indication of fruitfulness among the religious leaders who were meant to prepare the people for their season of salvation. Instead, he found leaders who padded their own prestige and used the temple as a place to turn a profit.
• So Jesus castigated the religious leaders in the form of a curse to the fig tree. Their chance to produce fruit was gone, and they would be cut off at the roots!
• This passage calls us to take stock of ourselves—all of us in general and our leaders in particular. Are we living hypocritically, failing to admit our faults and taking no advantage of God's forgiveness? Do we talk a good line about public justice, yet keep persons of another economic status at arm's length? Do we never suggest praying for anything other than what is comfortable— are we more likely, for example, to pray for Aunt Linda's operation than for the renewal of the church?

The text suggests that we should be praying for the big things with gusto. If the church is speaking for Christ, then we may have the bravado he used in suggesting that we tell a mountain to uproot itself and move…enough courage to ask for something in prayer and have the gutsy certainty that we will receive it…enough assurance of our own forgiveness that if we forgive others, they are forgiven. In other words, having enormous faith, we are to pray with bold confidence to him who is limited in his answers to our prayers only by his own sovereignty…which we know is limitless.

• pastors, staff members, and many volunteers may work to bring the gospel message to life.
• elders will be encouraged to come alongside people within their care to share what God is doing in their lives.
• deacons will be recognized as representatives of Christ even as they serve as agents of charity.
• some university students may try church one more time, and that if they enter here, we will receive them as Jesus would.
• our neighbors won't just see us as traffic on their street, but as people who, like them, are looking for what is meaningful in life.
• church school teachers will get close to the heart of each student so they can know God's love through their teachers.
• our young adults won't have occasion to accuse us of hypocrisy, but will hear a direct call of God to make faith their own.
• the bravado of the Spirit will uproot each of us (who are entrenched) and cause us to move to heights we will not attain unless we pray.