Series: Season of Creation 2024

Trust
Rev. Tim Wood, MDiv
Stevensville United Methodist Church, 9/22/2024

Passages: 

• Matthew 21:18-22    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 21:18-22&version=CEB

• Matthew 24:32-35    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 24:32-35&version=CEB

• Joel 2:21-24    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joel 2:21-24&version=CEB

The Mountain thrown down

There’s a post that I’ve seen several times on Facebook. It has two pictures of the same area. The first is barren. The second is green and lush. The post explains that a husband and wife dedicated themselves to restoring that area and over decades planted, if I remember right, more than a hundred of thousand trees to restore that ecosystem.

It is impressive what happens when people have faith in what they are doing and don’t doubt. I’d say when two people restore an ecosytem, they moved a mountain.

The Withered Fig Tree

Now, Jesus is not just making a general point about persistance and overcoming obstacles. If we backup, we, again, have a story of Jesus cursing a fruitless tree. Again, an extravagent and showy tree that freely consumes all the resources but has nothing to show for except the big showy leaves. Much like the political and religious leaders who benefited from their positions but never fostered growth and fruit in those in their care. 

We looked at Mark’s version of this story last week. If we’d kept going, we would followed Jesus into the temple where he said the temple was meant to be a house of prayer for all nations… But, they have have made it a den of robbers … Then they exit the city to  find the tree withered. It’s hard to not make comparisons. The tree, like the temple, was meant to produce fruit and benefit everyone. The temple is a place for dirty business & trade that only benefits a few. Good figs and bad figs.

It’s all politics

Those being called it for making the temple a den of robbers are not being complimented. They’re actions are not being approved. Jesus was challenging  the prevailing social and political orders. Biblical scholar Marcus Borg emphasizes the relational and transformative aspects of faith in this passage. He suggests that Jesus is encouraging his followers to embrace a profound trust in God’s power to effect change, which can be seen as a counter to the despair and hopelessness created by oppressive systems. Faith is not something we have alone, apart from others. Jesus is calling the community to engage in actions that challenge injustice. It’s call to envision a world where faith empowers people to strive together for social transformation.

We have met the enemy and…

A few weeks ago, I talked about repentence, that it [….]. And that includes recognizes that addressing the problems around us, begins with recognizing our part in those problems. 

The lastest Cinema and Theology movie was the English Patient. The English Patient has been so badly burned that the people around him have to do everything for him. Kip, an Indian Sikh, is reading Kipling to him, and in the middle of a scene about a “cannon” and “the natives,” he puts down the book and says I can’t read it. The Patient gets a little condescending as he explains the how of reading kipling. Then he says one of the reasons he loves Kipling  is because he remembers seeing the canon; it reminds him of the Indian he once visited. Kip replies that he knows that cannon is still there today. He remebers it because the british took silverware, plates and other personal items from his family, his community, to cast that cannon. Kip had not problem with commas and pronunciation. He couldn’t read Kipling because, for him, the cannon was not a romantic echo of a wonderful past adventure. It was a concrete example of  the prevailing social and political orders.

Or as Pogo once famously said, we have met the enemy and he is us. When I as a pastor come into a new community, or a traveling photographer travels to a new location, we have to learn about this new place. As members of a community, we have to be aware of our susceptibility to greed and desires towards personal gain. The problems out there often benefit us. The practice of repentence is also about asking what part we play as individuals and a community in the bigger problems around us.

But it’s just too big

Now, I want to bring in Joel. The opening chapter of Joel describes locusts descending on people’s farms, homes and communities. They are an invading army. They blot out the sky. They consume everything. What once was the garden of paradise is now a desert wasteland.

And then we get to today’s passage. All the hardships Judah has experienced will be reversed by God’s “great” acts. If the locusts are a mountain, they will be moved and life… animals, pastures, fig trees and grape vines will be restored.

Which raises the question of how you get from looking around at desert wasteland to a restored land, how we get from a world whose climate and environment has so changed over the last generation and war is spreading to a restored creation? The problem is so large it seems overwhelming …. but we do not have to solve the problem by ourselves.

All we need is just a little Trust

For Matthew’s Jesus, it begins with prayer and faith. It begins with prayer together as a community. It begins with two people committing to reforest an ecosystem. There’s faith living out hope that we are making a transformed world real. Buried in Jesus word’s is the phrase don’t doubt. Trust god, letting god trust us, and hold fast to what we know is coming even when we do not know when it will arrive. Even if the struggle may outlast us. Hold fast because the arc of history does bend.

The second part of our passage from Matthew is the lesson of the Fig Tree… not the fig tree that gets cursed and withers… not fig trees producing rotten fruit… but fig trees you can trust. 

When I live around trees, I notice something, birds keep returning to those trees. We have turkey vultures that have adopted the tallest tree near the parsonage. Other species of birds will keep returning to those trees. They’ve all learned to trust trees and they keep returning home. Well, Jesus calls our eyes to something in particular about fig trees: as soon as its branch becomes tender and it begins to put forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. 

We’re a long way off from leaves sprouting again. Snow has already fallen on some of our peaks. And after a while a few people in Montana will get tired of snow and cold. It may begin to seem like it will never end but, if you look in the right places, you’ll see buds forming on branches…. when it begins to put forth its leaves. All around you it may look like nothing is changed but those leaves remind us that summer is coming. 

The leaves certainly don’t tell us how long until summer will arrive. It’s not that kind of a sign. But it is a sign that confirms summer is coming. All winter long… we trust that summer is returning. The buds are just the final confirmation.

Conclusion

When the English Patient reached the end, the screen turned black. It was challenging and complicated but, a few hours later, we were done. 

Joel describes a force of nature that has obliterated the sky and stripped the landscape. But Jesus points out that we face “this mountain” and the problems facing his people seemed just as overwhelming. Instead of offering a simple quick solution, he says it begins with by stepping outside the problem in prayer. 

Pray we be trustworthy stewards of God’s creation and intention. 

Pray that we not allow God’s creation to wither, decay, and die

Pray that we don’t act merely in the name of profit and personal gain.

And pray that it becomes more than just prayer.

Because it continues in faith. In asking what part I play in this problem. And continues together. It is not about clocking in a few hours until the screen goes black and we go home. Instead, it calls for trust. Faith empowers people to work together to transform the world. Summer will come. We do not know when but I know we will get there. Creation will be healed. I do not know when creation will be carried there. Don’t doubt. Trust god, let god trust us, and hold fast to what we know is coming even when we do not know when it will arrive.