The sermon this past Sunday was on Mark 11:12-25. The first part was rather interesting:

12The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14Then he said to the tree, "May no one ever eat fruit from you again." And his disciples heard him say it.

I'd always wondered why this was here and what it was saying. I'd never taken it deeper. According to Ben the fig tree is representative of Israel. This is apparently a pretty common analogy throughout the Old Testament. So, it (Israel/fig tree) looked really good on the outside, but was producing no fruit. As a result God/Jesus caused it to wither.

This generates a few thoughts from me.

If we personally bear no fruit, do we wither under God's touch? I know that I personally "look pretty good" if you look at my church attendance/activity. I also know that I'm not producing a lot of fruit in the area of my faith walk. Lately I've felt pretty wither-y and certain "besetting sins" keep cropping up. Has God cursed me? It’s a serious question, not feeling particularly down or anything.

If our churches bear no fruit will they shrivel up? A lot of church's (mine certainly) look pretty good on the outside. We're not a mega-church and it would be real easy to pick on the mega-churches here, but I don't want to pick low hanging fruit (heh). We're going through a hard time with long standing members leaving and lots of hard questions being asked. I won't say we haven't been bearing any fruit but the pickin's are slim. A good number of the complaints I hear could be dismissed as sort of selfish (we lack the right "programs" for youth for instance), but that may just be me. In any case it can't be denied that we're going through a rather long season of spiritual drought. Is this the work of God? I think it could be. But then what does that do to the concept of perseverance of the saints? The idea that God will give us what we need to "keep on keepin' on".

(Note, Ben did not extend this idea to either a personal level or a church level, he solely talked about Israel.)

Discuss.