Not Every Season Bears Fruit | Mark 11 | Crossroads Daily

but no fruit on it. - Yeah. - And just do it, you know, as I said a couple days ago, I feel like I can identify more with Pharisees. So it took me back to like, oh, you can have the outside show of faith. You can have the outside show of someone who follows Jesus. You can have the leaves. - Right. - Doesn't mean you have the fruit. - This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people, just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) Welcome back to Crossroads Daily. My name is Caleb. - I'm Chris. - I'm Vivian. - And we are in Mark Chapter 11 today. We're gonna do something a little different. - Great. - At least, different for me. - Mix it up. - I haven't done it on the podcast. I'm just gonna read a short section from Mark Chapter 11. And then I wanna talk about it with you guys because I find one of the great powers of reading scripture is doing it with other people because they see things I don't see, they understand things I don't understand

and it brings it into like a fuller picture for me. And this one can be a little confusing. So I think you guys are gonna help me out here. This is Mark Chapter 11. I'm gonna read verses 12 through 14. It says this, "The next day when they came out "from Bethany, that's Jesus and the disciples, "Jesus was hungry. "After seeing in the distance of fig tree with leaves, "he went to find out if there was anything on it. "When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves "because 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. And then a couple of verses down, they pass by the tree again the next day and it's withered from the root up. - So not maybe a stereotypical Jesus story. He's not healing anyone. - He's like petting lambs here. - Rest of Mark, he's not doing any great teaching necessarily to a huge crowd. He's not doing a miracle, but I think there's something in here. So what do you make of the cursed fig tree story? What do you think Jesus is trying to say? Or what do you think it means? - Well, I thought it was interesting that says, "Jesus is hungry." That was the thing that stuck out first for me. So it wasn't like this fig tree thing was an object lesson.

I felt that he was planning. I felt like he gets hungry like we get hungry. And so he saw the fig tree and then had expectations and then was disappointed in that. And I think sometimes we wonder if the things that Jesus teaches us in the Bible, if they're all planned out or if they're part of daily life. And I think more of it is probably just part of daily life. - Well, that was really fascinating. - Yeah, I mean, he was hungry as a pretty deep statement when you're talking about God. - Yeah. - Right, like he had that you said human needs and he had to meet them, he couldn't just skip meals, right? And it was super power of not eating or drinking. And he felt disappointment. The tree, what stuck out to you, Chris? - I don't know if this means anything. My translation said, after he cursed the tree, it says the disciples overheard him. I love the idea that he's just like. - It's a verbal like here. - He was just mad at me, I was by himself. He was talking about the tree and he's just like stupid tree, like not producing fruit. And they're just like, did you just talk to that tree? And then it's weird. (laughing) I don't know what it means, but I don't know. I think it's like he has authority over everything.

And he wasn't doing that maybe for a show or like you said, it's not like he was planning a lesson out of something necessarily. He was reacting to something within him. And then he didn't even know if the disciples were an earshot and he's just like, I have authority and autonomy over everything in creation. So him speaking to that tree could be the same as him speaking to any living being 'cause it has to obey and respect him. I don't know what that means, but it's kind of cool. - No, that's amazing 'cause it's kind of the other side of the coin of what Vivian was saying. Like Jesus had human needs and he was God. - Yeah. - He had power and autonomy over creation, but he didn't abuse it, right? The scripture says he emptied himself of those divine attributes when he came to be a man. - Right. - Right, very interesting. - Wow, he's a complete man. He's both of those things. What's take out to me is this scripture says he found nothing but leaves. And he came to the tree and how I picture it in my mind is he saw it at a distance. So he saw this like full vibrant tree which he assumed would have fruit on it, which is why he went there in the first place

'cause he was hungry. He was gonna grab some figs for the road as you do. Your road figs and he gets up there and he finds a living tree with leaves but no fruit on it. I feel like I can identify more with Pharisees. So it took me back to like, oh, you can have the outside show of faith. You can have the outside show of someone who follows Jesus. You can have the leaves. - Right. - Doesn't mean you have the fruit. - Right. - It's very challenging for me. 'Cause then I'm like self-reflecting like, okay, shoot, do I have the fruit? Like, do I have fruit? - Right. - Well, also, doesn't it say that it's out of season? - Yeah, so that's the other side of the coin, is it says there's no figs 'cause it wasn't the season for fig. - But I think maybe the thing there is that if it's out of season, it shouldn't have had the leaves that would be an indicator that there should have been figs there. - Right. - And so it's a little bit of what you're saying about, you have the show, but you're actually not producing the fruit. I think that that's probably a direct thing in our lives that maybe we have the show on the outside.

But if things aren't happening in our lives that shows that Jesus is working in our lives, that God is making a difference, then are we being fruitful? Are we fulfilling the thing that God had hopes for us? - Yeah, that's really, that's really, really good. It makes me think that like, Jesus wouldn't be mad at the fig tree if it was, if it didn't have leaves. - Right. - 'Cause he would not have expected it to have fruit, right? And so that I was reading this. See, this is why we do it in groups, in communities. See, I was reading this thinking like, oh, like there should be no off season, right? Like I should always have fruit. Like I'm thinking I'm the tree, right? 'Cause it's all about me. (laughing) But like I can't have all the leaves, but I should also have the fruit that goes with it. But listening to you talk about it, it's like there are seasons, natural seasons, it's called winter. When like leaves don't, trees don't have leaves. And they're not supposed to have fruit. I mean, God's not mad at us or disappointed us as we're following him through a season of winter. 'Cause winter does come back around to spring, right? Summer and fall or whatever.

We have the same seasons in our lives, right? Where God is doing something and maybe it's a slow growth season or it's an internal growth season and not, fig season. - Right. Yeah, it seems like it's a constant theme all through these chapters that we've read is Jesus calling out the Pharisees again for all their leaves, right? But welcoming the people who admit that they have no leaves. - Right. - It was the Greek woman on the first day. It was the kids yesterday. It was the man who struggled with faith and Jesus still healed his son, right? Like you're not gonna fake out God. Like he knows, he knows what's in your heart. And so Jesus is very open arm to the people who are like, I don't have any leaves and I shouldn't be here. The people who are waving their leaves around, if I can stick with the tree metaphor, like the Pharisees, he's like, you guys have got this all twisted. That's not what I'm about, not about the outside show. - It feels like a very gentle warning towards us. They're like that 'cause he could have done this example on a person. - Yeah. - Like let's say he took a Pharisee and he's just like, look, you with all your leaves.

Like, and then he makes them combust or something. Like, that would be very, I don't know. And his infinite wisdom, maybe, obviously maybe he didn't plan it, didn't know what was listening, but like in his infinite wisdom is God. He is like, hey, this is a nice visual warning to you of what this is like as a human, as someone who has leaves and does, but does not have fruit. So I, and that feels like within his character that he isn't just gonna blow someone up in front of him to prove a point about something necessarily, but like, it uses something as beautiful as a tree to be like, hey, this is what could be you. Like, this is not just a tree thing. This is a human thing also. - Yeah, totally. The trees have seasons and life has seasons like we said in the spring, summer, fall, winter. You could pick like in 30 seconds or less, what season do you think God has you in and why? I'll start. I think I'm in a spring type of season. I recently changed positions and I'm in a spot where it's just new challenges. It's new, new creativity. It's new flourishing. And like, I can see that God is blessing. It's like really, it's like really exciting. So that's me. - Mine feels transitioning, I think from a winter to a spring

of I feel like God has been growing me in a ton of areas and now is the time to start to like take a risk and blossom and open myself up, but that feels risky. And I guess some trees don't do that. They don't blossom. They don't open up and so it's like it's not a guarantee just that because you were in a growing season, automatically there will be fruits or anything like that. It's like, I feel like the opportunity is there and will I choose to step into it. of life. I probably relate more to being in the fall where a lot of growth has happened, a lot of great summer experience and then in the fall, I love it because of the colorfulness of it and I think I'm feeling like that's where I am in life right now. It's also a time to where things start to pull in to prepare for the winter and yeah. Lessons from the fig tree. Thank you guys for helping me uncover them today. My challenge for you is to think about the seasons and could you pinpoint what seasons does God have you in, spring, lots of growth, summer, lots of fruit, fall, maybe transitioning winter, maybe it's a slow down season. Not every season has fruit, not every season has leaves, but every season does bring growth. So where is God pushing you to grow, meet him in that, do the thing he wants you to do and I think it'll turn out for the best. We'll see you next time.