Hangry Jesus

I had a friend at my first job when I was in my twenties who went away to Vegas for Halloween one year with her boyfriend. They broke up that weekend and it was all very dramatic. When I asked her what happened, the story started like this, “Well, I hated my costume…” Say no more. Anyone who has worn the wrong jeans for the day, or the pants to work that are just a little too tight or ill fitting already knows where this is going. And honestly, same, girl same.

I grew up Evangelical. Easter was a big day in our house. I always had a new outfit. My mom went all out to hide beautiful baskets wrapped in cellophane, big handmade bows tied to the top of the basket handle. We’d come home from church to a big meal with ham, potatoes, muffins, green beans, etc. We dyed eggs. On the fireplace hearth, Easter Lilies. It was my favorite holiday. Then my mom died and now Easter is emotionally loaded. It’s the day I miss her most. She’s buried in San Diego and it’s inconvenient to get down there, but I try, and I leave an Easter Lilly at her grave when I do.

She used to talk about the questions she wanted to ask Jesus when she got to heaven. I hope she’s sitting in her heaven, complete with gold streets, happy in her mansion, choosing from her many crowns, each dotted with jewels she earned. That was her version. I’m not sure what mine is.

But if I were sitting at the feet of my mom’s Jesus today, I think I’d ask - so what happened that week, that week you waltzed into Jerusalem on a baby donkey one day, the next day, crashing out in the temple sending tables flying, bum rushing the merchants and vendors with a whip, scattering all the animals, telling all the leaders to basically piss off? And then how exactly did it all unravel so fast, ending a week later with your own nasty murder? And I imagine him saying something like, “Well, I woke up one morning and all I wanted was a stupid fig…”

The story goes like this:

It’s the week before the crucifixion. Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, crowd going wild, palm branches, Hosanna, the whole thing. Peak moment. Everyone’s been waiting for this.

Then he goes to the Temple, looks at the entire operation; money changers, dove sellers, full marketplace running inside a house of God, and just leaves. He heads back to his friend’s house in Bethany, a 30-minute walk away and sleeps on it like a professional, coming up with what I imagine to be a very calm teachable jesus-y type lesson for everyone. You know, about love and peace and prayer and doing the right thing.

Bethany means House of Figs. He has been sleeping in the House of Figs, walking out every morning from the House of Figs. And on this particular morning, he spots a fig tree in the distance with leaves on it. He’s hungry and walks out to it. His disciples hang back just watching him. They know what he must, it’s not even fig season. So they wait. He gets out there and there’s nothing. Nature screwing up the order. Not even the sad little pre-fig nubs that might technically count.

He crashes out and starts yelling at the tree. The disciples can hear him from where they’re standing. He curses the tree, “may no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And the universe, to its credit, just went ahead and killed it on his behalf.

It makes no sense, what prayers get answered.

Hangry Jesus then storms back to his friends and on they go to Jerusalem, and by the time they get there, whatever lesson plans he had went straight out the window as he proceeded to flip every table in the Temple and drive out the money changers with a whip he made himself.

Scholars have said that the importance of the episode is signalled by the fact that within a week of this incident, Jesus is dead. Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree that this is the event that functioned as the ‘trigger’ for Jesus’ death.

T.W. Manson, a New Testament scholar, called this story, “a tale of miraculous power wasted in the service of ill-temper.” Bertrand Russell found it “pathetic” and “contemptible” that Jesus cursed a fig tree for not having fruit, even though it was not the right season and cited it as one of his reasons for not being a Christian.

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I guess I see this story differently.

It’s never the fig. It’s always the fig. The thing that breaks you is almost never the thing that breaks you — it’s just the thing that was standing there when everything else finally ran out of room.

You can hold the big stuff. You have to. The diagnosis that doesn’t go away. The grief that shows up every Easter. The anxiety of the unknown that is coming for all of us. You hold it because there’s no other option. You organize yourself around it. But the weight doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just waiting for a door.

And then the fig tree has no figs.

It’s almost merciful, actually. The small thing gives the big thing somewhere to go. You can scream at a tree in a way you can’t scream at cancer or the love one you lost, disappointment, fear, or anxiety. You can punch the cracker box because it doesn’t fit in the drawer you’re trying to shut, you can dent up the trash can because the bag won’t come out. The small thing is survivable. The small thing is a container for everything that has no container.

Jesus couldn’t scream at Rome. Couldn’t scream at the Pharisees plotting against him over dinner. Couldn’t scream at the crowd that misunderstood everything he was. At the inevitable coming for him. But he could scream at a fig tree.

You’re not crazy. Is it so much to ask that the universe just throw you a fucking fig now and then?

The biggest crash out in the New Testament. Bro just wanted a fig. And honestly, same, Jesus, same.