Mark 11:15-16
Fruitlessness
rarely ends in something positive. As I drive around Florida I see a
countryside that has fed so many in years past. There are still vast expanses
of cattle being grazed here. Citrus still goes on for miles. Strawberries
dominate my corner of this state.
But
there are large areas where the orange groves are now covered with weeds and
vines, the trees having died down to their roots. There is a bacterium that is
attacking these plants, causing the fruit to grow small and bitter, eventually
killing the tree. Billions of dollars are at stake. And farmers and scientists
are working hard to find a cure.
And
this means there are millions of orange trees that are being bulldozed, piled
and burned. Since at this point there is nothing that can clean the tree of the
bacterial infection, there is only one way to go forward, and that is to start
over from scratch. New trees replace the old ones. You might say, not much
lost. But large mature trees produce hundreds of oranges, while small new trees
produce only a handful. It takes years of growth to recoup the growing
capacity, which means years of lower yields.
Jesus
enters the area in Jerusalem that is space meant for gathering and for worship
preparation. This is not an area inside the Temple, but just outside. I might
liken it to the foyer in many large churches.
In
this space people are engaged in for profit activities. Over the years scam
artists had set up shop right under the noses of the priests and Levites, those
charged with executing the worship plan that the LORD has instituted. They were
there at the permission of these leaders, and probably got a cut of the profit.
Part
of this activity stemmed from a legitimate practice prescribed in the Old
Testament Law. When anyone brought an animal to be sacrificed to the LORD,
usually as part of a prescribed ritual designed to remind the Israelites that
they needed mercy, they had their animal inspected. It had to be spotless and
without defect in order to be sacrificed.
So
out of the kindness of their hearts, and the profit they could get by selling
them an “officially accepted animal” to replace their defective animal, these entrepreneurs
set up shop right in these large waiting and gathering areas. And of course
most animals did not pass inspection and had to be replaced, often with an
animal that they had flunked a few minutes before. It was a Ponzi scheme, bait
and switch.
The
other side of this equation was money changing. In order to give a donation to
the Temple, you had to exchange your secular money for official Temple money.
You brought your dollar and bought Temple dollars. Of course your dollar ended
up buying less than a dollar’s worth of Temple money, because those who made
the exchange charged a large fee for the transaction.
Jesus
comes in and ends their practice. They are stealing from God’s people right
under the noses of those who ought to be protecting. Instead of spending time
preparing for worship, people had to engage in corrupt business practices. No
wonder Jesus rebelled against this corruption.