DAY 68

MOVING MOUNTAINS

Deuteronomy 7, 8 & 9 and Mark 11:19-33

Deuteronomy 7 is a fairly intense chapter. God is saying you are to be my people and mine alone, but to become so is intense. God knows the tendency to syncretism (a fancy word for combining different beliefs) in his people. He knows that unless the other belief systems are obliterated, they will creep in. Then in the Eighth Chapter the theme is, “Don’t forget me when things go really well for you, when you have food, and a house, and more…don’t forget the Lord your God.” Then in the Ninth Chapter he warns them one last time to not think all the amazing things that are about to happen are because of them, no they are because of God.

So we have three big picture lessons: 1-stay faithful to God alone, don’t mix other beliefs in, 2-don’t forget me when things are going well, and 3-don’t think all that is being accomplished is because of you, it is because of me, the Lord God, I am the one in charge. Why is God doing any of this? To let the world know of Almighty God – through a people who are to be a Light to the Nations!

Turning to Mark 11 you may think it is a completely different theme. The first question in your mind might be about when you have prayed and your prayer has not been answered in the way you hoped. Someone like me has probably said something like, “God answered your prayer, he just said no.” First of all God no doubt says “no”, but that is not the point of this text. We are in the middle of another “sandwich”; the fig tree is the bread and the Temple is the meat!

To find the “first slice” we need to go back to yesterday. Jesus “was hungry” and saw a fig tree, but it had no fruit on it. He cursed it. He then went and cleansed the Temple. A few points: first he wasn’t just having a bad day, taking it out on the poor innocent tree, and next, one scholar has pointed out that it wasn’t even the season for figs! So what is going on? Remember the “sandwich” because he immediately goes to the meat of the matter – the Temple.

In the Temple Jesus called them “robbers”. NT Wright suggests that the word used in Jesus day had more to do with people who were ultra-revolutionaries. People who were using the Temple for some misplaced nationalistic pride. So often we think Jesus cleanses the Temple because he doesn’t want to mix money and religion. While I share that concern, it is a rather modern one. Jesus is judging the fruitless (fig-less) Temple. The place of God’s dwelling, the place where God’s Light is to be proclaimed to the world, is dark. It is not so much dark because of the money, but rather because it is now a symbol of a people who have turned inward. Instead of shining the Light of God out, it has become a building of misplaced nationalistic pride. Jesus brings the entire operation to a halt, stopping all the sacrifices to dramatically point out that it is…not bearing fruit. It is not being the Light to the world.

The next scene: a dried up fig tree. The sandwich is finished. But Jesus has more. He knows that his message will get twisted and perverted. He knows that we will mix it with other beliefs. Therefore Jesus says to his disciples, “whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea…” In other words, those of you who are remaining humble, those of you who ask for forgiveness, those of you who don’t pervert the instrument that God has given to proclaim himself to others, those of you who pray against those mountains that will no doubt appear (they always seem to), don’t worry your prayers can move those mountains just as mine will move this Temple.

In connects to the Old Testament: God telling Israel to not mix their faith, to not forget him and to not think “it is about them”. Of course we do this today. We mix a little of this and a little of that into Christianity. There are wild surveys about how Christians believe in all sorts of non-biblical ideas. We have perverted the message and we have allowed the Church to get off message and off track, to turn inward, and be about itself and not about its Source. Thank goodness for the Cross. Thank goodness for Jesus; may we be people who stay humble and on track.