If today's passage tells us anything, it is just how human Jesus was. There are two occasions here when Jesus got angry, a very human reaction. I have heard that anger is not a sin, it's what you do with that anger that can get you in trouble ( sin ). Yet, here too Jesus shows his humanity in going beyond anger into perhaps justified rageint overturning the tables of those buying and selling in the Temple. Very human indeed.
Along with Jesus' humanity, there is his total and unabashed Divinity. That power can be used to move mountains into the sea or have fig trees wither and die. Who can say what else we are capable of? Jesus is quick to point out the power of our own faith ( our own divinity ? ) if we ask, say it and truly believe.
All this brought to mind a hillbilly religious politician who apeared regently in the news. He as much as said that the only way to 'cure' the stigma of homosexuality is to kill them all. Could that willfully ignorant man, with an ounce of faith, have all the avowed homo'sexuals wither and die like that fig tree?
One of the things that amazes me so about us homosexuals is our tenacity. No matter how we have been demeaned, maligned, lied about, tortured and killed, you can't get rid of us. Further, history reveals we have been around perhaps as long as the worlds oldest profession. That is, that straight profession that shall go without name. Bear in mind that I am talking about relationships of love ( a la Jonathan and David , 1 Samuel 18 ) and not rape as in Genesis 19. It's almost funny how that Genesis passage has itself been maligned, mistranslated and abused for a so called religious agenda. That is the crux of that religious politicians problem. It is the problem with any of us that have the faith to move mountains but lay that faith out for personal gain, a personal agenda or even a so called religious agenda. The faith to move mountains it seems only works if it is in concert with God's plans of love, inclusion and forgiveness.
So why have "the gays" been around for eons? It is part of God's plan of a diverse and glorious creation. The created world gives witness to a diverse and rainbow universe, not just as a gay community but in the entirety of creation. The world is not black and white no matter how you wish to look at, no matter how comfy and cozy that might make some people feel.
I contend that we all have the divine power of faith to move mountains, so long as it acts in concert with God's plan. So we shall not have any more witherig fig trees, only God Himself can do that at will. We also will all have to soldier on with the joys of the gay community, that special love and all the incredible gifts bestowed on mankind by those homosexuals throughout history. It's God's plan.
Let's use our faith for better purposes than hate, it won't work anyway, God didn't give us that kind of power in faith. The power is in love.
Mark 11:12-26
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.’
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