The Mountains that Need Moving

Jesus moves through Jerusalem with intent.

Our passage today is loaded.

Jesus clears the temple (just after riding into the city on a donkey). He heals some people right in the Temple for the first and only time in Matthew. Jesus is really doing it now - publicly declaring by what he does - I am Messiah, son of God, King of Israel.

He cleanses the temple of commerce and then sets up sets up a hospital, as if to say, This is what it’s all meant for - the restoration and wholeness of people.

The children love it, shouting with joy. The religious leaders do not. But Jesus, now that things are ramping up, accepts the title “Son of David” and confronts their objections. Then he leaves the city for Bethany to spend the night.

He’s on a roll, so on the way back into the city, seeking some breakfast, he finds none on a particular fig tree. So he curses it to death.

It’s not the kind of demonstration we expect from Jesus as an example of faith. Yet this act, startling as it is, becomes the lesson: faith that bears fruit is what matters. He tells his disciples that such faith, even small, can move mountains.

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After cleansing the Temple and healing in it for the first time, Jesus makes a prophetic claim: this is what God’s house is meant for — restoration and wholeness, not profit and exploitation.

The very next morning, the fig tree becomes a living parable of that same point. A fig tree, leafy but fruitless, looks alive from a distance but has nothing to offer up close. In the same way, the Temple, bustling with activity, had ceased to bear the fruit God desired: justice, mercy, and the care of people. Jesus’ curse on the fig tree is not just about breakfast; it is a symbolic judgment on empty religion.

Seen together, the cleansing of the Temple and the withering of the fig tree tell the same story. God is not impressed by appearances, by show, or by religious busyness. What God seeks is fruit — lives transformed, the poor lifted, the sick healed, the outsider welcomed.

These are the mountains that need moving.

Matthew 21:12-22

Then Jesus went into the temple and threw out all those who were selling and buying there. He pushed over the tables used for currency exchange and the chairs of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It’s written, My house will be called a house of prayer. But you’ve made it a hideout for crooks.”

People who were blind and lame came to Jesus in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and legal experts saw the amazing things he was doing and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were angry. They said to Jesus, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Haven’t you ever read, From the mouths of babies and infants you’ve arranged praise for yourself? ” Then he left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.

Early in the morning as Jesus was returning to the city, he was hungry. He saw a fig tree along the road, but when he came to it, he found nothing except leaves. Then he said to it, “You’ll never again bear fruit!” The fig tree dried up at once.

When the disciples saw it, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree dry up so fast?” they asked.

Jesus responded, “I assure you that if you have faith and don’t doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree. You will even say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the lake.’ And it will happen. If you have faith, you will receive whatever you pray for.”

Psalm 24:1-5

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants too. Because God is the one who established it on the seas; God set it firmly on the waters.

Who can ascend the Lord’s mountain? Who can stand in his holy sanctuary? Only the one with clean hands and a pure heart; the one who hasn’t made false promises, the one who hasn’t sworn dishonestly. That kind of person receives blessings from the Lord and righteousness from the God who saves.

Prayer

God,

Thank you for a new week. Open my eyes to the situations of opportunity and responsibility around me. Reveal your kingdom - the one already built by Jesus…reveal it to me. That is, may the actions of my life today simply show forth what already is - a realm of love and grace and power.

Not that I expect to be spectacularly seen or perform the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster, but that the things I do would bring a surprising goodness to the environment in which I exist.

Even if it’s just a smile.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.