Faith Spreads: Mark 11:12-14

Faith should produce fruit.  This makes sense.  What’s the point of learning anything if it doesn’t do something?  A healthy spiritual life is something we feel making a difference in life.  It makes a difference internally and hopefully it reaches out into the world around us.

It is easy to feel bad for the fig tree in this story.  Mark tells us it wasn’t the season for figs.  When Jesus goes to the tree and finds only leaves, what did it do that was so wrong?  The answer is a little surprising, but the tree didn’t do anything wrong.  Like the herd of pigs into which Jesus cast the legion of demons, today Jesus uses the tree to set up a lesson for the disciples.  That lesson is two-fold.  We’ll study the second part of the lesson, the part regarding the curse, in a couple of days on the blog.  Therefore, put any questions about why Jesus cursed the tree on hold.

Instead, focus on Jesus’ interaction with the tree.  The tree is full of leaves.  It looks incredibly healthy.  It is inviting.  There’s little doubt why Jesus chose this tree.

Jesus doesn’t find any fruit.  There are all sorts of signs of health, but no fruit.  There is a lesson here.  Healthy trees are only good for a single generation.  Unless a tree fruits, the health of the tree only affects the single tree.  For a healthy tree to produce a forest of healthy trees – or even a stand of healthy trees – it needs to fruit.

The same is true for the disciples of Jesus.  Ultimately, God wants a relationship with us.  Jesus came to this earth to die for our sake so that we could have a healthy relationship with God.  That point, while valid, only affects the single individual.  Yes, our spiritual health is significantly important.  Yet if our spiritual health doesn’t go anywhere, who has it affected but ourselves?

Healthy relationship with God is meant to be spread.  A spiritually healthy individual is meant to help inspire a stand of spiritually healthy individuals.  Together, that stand of spiritually healthy individuals can inspire a forest of spiritually healthy individuals.

We do need to be careful to avoid the trap of quantity over quality.  In other words, the person who helps inspire a greater number of disciples, each of whom have a shallow faith, is not necessarily doing better than the person who helps inspire a few people into great depth.  Faith is not a numbers game.

In the end, Jesus calls us into repentance so we can have relationship with God.  His call, though, doesn’t stop there.  The Gospel story is dominated by examples meant to teach His followers how to reach into the lives of others.  Our faith should be inspiring someone somewhere.  That is Jesus’ point when he looks for fruit in a healthy tree, even out of season.  Faith should produce fruit.