The Lesson of the Fig Tree

Homily for November 15, 2015 (33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time)
Deuteronomy 12:1-3; Psalm 16; Hebrews 10:11-14, 18; Mark 13:24-32

“The Lesson of the Fig Tree”

This past week, people living on the Great Lakes experienced a storm system popularly known as the November Witch.  It brings colder temperatures, a variety of forms of precipitation (rain, sleet and snow) and powerful, even dangerous winds.  Forecasters were predicting wind gusts of up to 60 mph and waves as high as 20 feet on the western shores of Lake Michigan.

It was such a storm that led to the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior 40 years ago.  In that disaster, winds with gusts over 85 mph created waves of over 35 feet, and the Detroit-bound ship broke apart and sunk in over 500 feet of water.  All 29 crew members perished.

When the Witch of November starts to cackle, people in the Midwest learn take her seriously.  It can be a matter of life and death.

It’s no accident that the end of our liturgical year coincides with a significant shift in our meteorological seasons.  In the Northern Hemisphere, we move from light to greater darkness, from life to death and repose.  By contrast, our brothers and sisters in the Southern Hemisphere move into summer—a time of greater light and warmth.  In both places, we adjust our lives according to the signs and demands of the seasons.

Our scripture readings throughout the month of November repeatedly ask us to consider the seasons of our lives and more directly, how they will end.  Many of them are in a genre of biblical literature we call apocalyptic, from its most well-known example, the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse.  This highly mystical, poetic and symbolic style of writing is addressed to a community in need for sustenance and hope during a time of crisis.

Set during the time of the Babylonian Exile, the Book of Daniel was composed several centuries later, during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes over the land of Israel (167-164 BCE).  He was trying to Hellenize or impose Greek religious, linguistic and cultural practices on the people.  He did it ruthlessly and without regard to their religious freedom or sensibilities.  In 167 he erected an idol in the Temple in Jerusalem, consecrating it to Zeus.  To add insult to injury, he had swine offered on the altar there.  He even claimed divinity for himself, adopting the title Epiphanes or manifestation of God.

Today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke was composed during a time of similar crisis, several decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The Temple in Jerusalem had been not only desecrated but destroyed by the forces of the Roman Empire in response to a Jewish uprising.  The nascent Christian community found itself besieged by Roman leaders who viewed them as a impious and unpatriotic sect, and Jewish leaders who viewed them as unorthodox at best and at worst blasphemous and heretical.

Luke 13, then, includes a prophecy about the destruction of the Temple and a litany of signs of cosmic and temporal distress, including astronomical disturbances, natural disasters, wars, and the appearance of false prophets and messiahs.  Our reading today includes an admonition to pay attention to the signs of the times, just as one would learn a lesson from the fig tree and its signs of summer: tender branches and sprouting leaves.

Since the time of Christ, various people have (mis)used apocalyptic literature to try to forecast the end of the world and the time of our Final Judgment.  The real point of such writings, however, is not so much to prepare us for an end at a time we cannot know but rather to dare us to live fully here and now as holy children of the Father, devoted disciples of the Son, and courageous bearers of the Spirit. +