John Gardner - The King's Indian - Stories and Tales

“Consider the story from the point of view of the fig tree. Wasn’t the curse unfair?

“First, it wasn’t the season for figs. It was almost certainly Mark himself, not some later reviser, who wrote —‘for it was not yet the time for figs.’ It was remarkable, in fact, that the tree even had leaves on it. Wasn’t it unfair to expect it to have fruit as well? And even if it were the right season for figs, the tree grew beside a public highway. Thousands of people passed every day. Jesus was surely not the first who spotted the tree and investigated to see if it had fruit. Perhaps the tree was remarkably fruitful but had generously given away all it had. And even if it was the season for figs and the tree produced none, even if the tree was barren, wasn’t it unfair not to give the tree another chance? Maybe next year would have been better. Maybe somehow it would get fertilization, or someone would give it proper care. Knowing its unrealized potential, wasn’t it terribly unfair not to give the tree one more chance? What kind of parable is this? The curse is outrageous — and final.

“The Bible is full of symbolic trees. For instance the Psalmist’s symbol of the righteous — like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season. Or there’s Jeremiah’s symbol of Judah: ‘God once said you are a green olive tree, fair, with good fruit.’ But the situation has changed, the prophet says. The tree has turned brown; the fruit, if there is any, is inedible. God will blow his breath on the tree, there will be a roar like a tornado as the dry branches burst into flames, and the tree will be consumed. Outrageous. Final.

“Think about it. The prophet’s tree of Judah started well. It was valuable and healthy and produced excellent fruit. Only with time did it lose vitality and purpose. That happens, you know, with human institutions. Judah is not the only nation that went wrong. Any institution, life-style, program, can be vital at its inception but become, in time, an obstacle, a sickness. The tree of Judah has become, according to Jeremiah, ‘unredeemable.’ Like an elm with dutch-elm disease, there is nothing that can be done for it; it can only be destroyed with the hope that its destruction will keep the disease from spreading.

“Take another tree. The editor of the book of Jeremiah put together two pieces written by Jeremiah that have no relationship except that each uses a tree figuratively. One refers, as we have seen, to Judah. The other refers to Jeremiah himself. He is the ethical man trying to be right in an unrighteous society, trying to do what he can to redeem his culture — but his contemporaries, even his own family, hate him and plot against him, saying, ‘Let us kill him and the world will forget him; let us destroy the tree with its fruit.’ Again, outrageous. Not only is there no hope for the sick society, there’s no hope for the righteous individual within it! The Psalmist, it seems, was overly optimistic. The righteous too are ‘like the chaff which the wind drives away.’

“Whether or not Jesus actually cursed the fig tree, as Matthew and Mark report, the early church accepted the parable; and I think you can see how early churchmen understood it. Jesus began inside the church of his fathers. Though John the Baptist objected, Jesus demanded baptism of him, because John was, he knew, the last of the prophets, the last green leaf on the withered tree of Judah. Throughout the gospels we read of Jesus’ grief at Israel’s failure to catch up, recognize that the wait was fulfilled, the time was now. And if you still doubt that the fig tree represents dead, sham religion, authority grown sick, look at the context of the fig tree story.

“Immediately afterward in the gospel of Mark comes the story of Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. Then come the lessons drawn from the story of the withered fig tree — the fundamental laws of the new religion: Have faith in God; do not pray if you cannot forgive. In other words, love God and man. Then comes the story of the wicked husbandmen, the men who betrayed their lord, stealing and wasting his vineyard, and were therefore executed. After that comes the question of tribute to Caesar. ‘Whose image is on this coin?’ (In Greek the word is ikon, implying holy image.) ‘Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,’ Jesus says. If you have accepted something from worldly powers, confess the debt and repay it. But the saying admits of a more radical interpretation: If Caesar usurps the rule of God, decrees that immorality is moral, then resist him; blow up the Pentagon.

“You have heard before today that the early church was a trifle anarchistic. If one of those wild-bearded, fiery-eyed men were to enter our church this morning, we’d have considerable difficulty welcoming him. Unwashed, obstinate, indifferent to all we take comfort in. And perhaps we’d be right to hope he’d go away. But let us be careful about turning in righteous indignation on fiery-eyed radicals, resisters of government, blasters of fig trees.

“By the fruit we bear — if any — men shall know us.

“The barren fig tree, the vineyard stolen and wasted, brings a sentence of death. — Outrageous or not.”

I pause, look solemn.

“Let us pray.”

In the middle of my prayer I glance out over the congregation. My spine goes cold. The boy with the beard, the staring eyes, is watching from the vestibule doorway. I know pretty well how long he’s been there, just out of sight, listening.

9

I do not claim that what I’m doing makes sense. For every move I make I can give two explanations, one more or less reasonable, one sick: I have fled to the wilderness to confront the Devil, think out what’s right; or I have fled my responsibility. Outside the train window, the Amish farms of Ohio flash by: barns red as blood; ancient thrashing machines; gangs of workers — communists, pacifists — throwing antique shocks of wheat with handmade forks, talking together in the old-fashioned silence of steam. In the seat across the aisle from me an old Negro woman sits sleeping, indifferent to Eugene Carson Blake and his militants, indifferent to demands for reparations from the Presbyterian Church. In the front of the car a soldier, no more than eighteen at most, sings drunkenly of bottles of beer on the wall — ninety-nine tragic particulars in the vast array of emblems: Even pleasure, oblivion must pass, casually, senselessly fall in the endless chain of chance destructions.

The Carbondale newspaper lies on the seat beside me. BOMB DAMAGES POLICE STATION. I have no way of knowing whether or not the bomber was my admirer. Neither have the police; but the smaller headline reads: Bomber linked to local minister. I’d already seen it when I got Janice’s note, “Call Mr. Leffler, Security Police.” I did not make the call. How could I have helped them? I have no way of knowing where he lives, and neither does Marilyn — I know because I asked. And what could I have told them? His description, perhaps. Do I want them to have his description? How strongly do I disapprove of him? Or to put it another way, how sick is the tree of Judah?

No, I’m lying, of course. Nothing to do with politics. It has to do with responsibility, the dangerous freedom my pulpit grants. I told them what was true, or what I believe to be true (we are forgiven in advance for nonomniscience), and what it was necessary for them to hear. If I’d known he was listening I would not have spoken in quite the same way. I didn’t know; but any effect my sermon had is nevertheless my fault. They know that too, my congregation. It isn’t easy to stare down their stares.