Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it. Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a den of robbers.’ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city. In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ‘Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.’

Sometimes it can be easy to think of Jesus in terms of soft and pleasant platitudes. Words like: gentle, kind, loving, and comforting can be used to describe qualities of Jesus that may lead one to picture Him as always smiling, happy, patient or calm. Today’s Gospel reminds us though, that Jesus, like all of us, displayed a tapestry of qualities and experienced a broad range of emotions including anger, or more specifically, righteous anger. On the surface His righteous anger was aimed first at a fruitless fig tree, and then at people who were selling and buying in the temple instead of focusing on worship and prayer. When you look underneath however, the true cause of his anger is revealed… hypocrisy.

What does Jesus’ righteous anger mean for us? “Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.” Jesus is making it very clear that as followers of Christ we need to pay less attention to the misdeeds and failings of others and call ourselves to account for the times when our words and deeds fail to measure up. We don’t need to endlessly linger on our wrong doings or doubts though, rather we are encouraged to see them for what they are, reflect on where we went wrong, and then move on with the intention to do better with our hopes and trust placed firmly in God.

Take some time today to lovingly reflect on how you live the Gospel, taking notice of the ways your words and deeds may not meet the mark and what you can do differently moving forward.