Senior sermon by Lillian Hyde, Class of 2004 from the Diocese of Mississippi, given on Holy Tuesday, April 6, 2004, in Christ Chapel

Jesus makes his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. People spread their cloaks on the road in front of him, and they shout acclamations of blessing and praise. Then, as Mark tells it, Jesus goes to the temple - where he overturns the tables and seats, and calls the people “robbers,” but not before he curses a fig tree, and withers it to its roots. That’s not very nice.

After all, it’s Passover. Animals are required for burnt offerings in the Temple, and the Jews who don’t live in Jerusalem, travel a long way, making it impossible to bring animals with them. They need to be able to buy animals in Jerusalem, in order to participate in temple worship. And the temple tax can’t be paid in Greek or Roman coins because of the human image – the emperor’s head – on the coin. This means that foreign coins have to be changed into the legal currency in Jerusalem. So the sale of animals and the changing of money are necessary, for the out-of-towners to properly participate in worship, so why turn over the tables and call them robbers? And it isn’t the season for figs, so why curse the poor fig tree?

No, that’s not very nice. And it’s coming from the one called Prince of Peace, Holy Comforter. This holy fit-throwing and tree-cursing are really not nice.

And that’s what many of us have come to want and expect from Jesus, that he be nice. Faithful servant, good shepherd, true light, beloved. But not cleanser of the temple or curser of fig trees. Not someone who comes into our space and upends things, calls us to task, and ruins our landscaping in the process. No, we want the Bread of Life, the balm in Gilead, the nice guy, Jesus.

For you see, we are good and decent people. We try to do what we’re supposed to, we work hard, and we mean well. Knowing that God loved us enough to send Jesus for us is often what comforts us, and gives us strength, as we struggle through a tight budget, a health problem, a child in Iraq, a paper for Michael. We need a holy comforter. And we want Jesus to be nice when he comes to church with us.

This “nice,” that we need Jesus to be, is not what Jesus has in mind at this point in Mark’s gospel. For you see, the root word for nice is the same as the root word for impotent. And that is the cause for Jesus’ treatment of the fig tree, and the activity in the temple court. Each appears to be thriving; neither is bearing the desired fruit.

To understand this, we can look at something right here in Texas: an oil refinery. Imagine an oil refinery, whose builder has constructed it with the capacity to refine enough crude to provide energy for the entire world, and returns to discover that it is only refining enough crude to produce the fuel it takes to keep the refinery running.

That same is true of the temple and the people who are there. God had intended the temple to be a “house of prayer for all people.” But that prayer had not been possible for all people. The area of the temple, where the people of all nations would gather, is in the court that is filled with the animals being sold, and coins being exchanged. The religious leaders had made it impossible for them to pray to God in the temple.

Those outside the court are not looking for a nice Jesus. What they want and need is someone with a revolutionary new way, someone who will overturn the tables, someone who will provide a forceful demonstration against a system in which injustice prevails, someone too radical to settle for merely structural reform, but who will insist on regenerated hearts. They want and need a liberator, who will change the order of things, so that “all people” can be a part of the house of God, which will then be a house of prayer for all people.

Jesus asks us to share in his anger, when in his name people are kept outside the gate, by those who are so concerned with their own position, that they can’t recognize the presence of the divine in their midst. But we best beware. They will feel threatened. In fact, some will feel so threatened, that they may want to kill someone, rather than change, rather than open their worshiping community to full participation by everyone.

The good news, here on Holy Tuesday, is that Jesus was willing to take that risk. Both we, and those outside the court, are the beneficiaries of that love and sacrifice.

Thanks be to God.