When the North Star of Prayer is Cast into the Sea

One morning on his way to the Temple, Jesus curses a fig-tree because it didn't have out-of-season figs when he was hungry.  After this he enters Jerusalem, enacts a prophetic announcement of God's judgement on Herod's Temple, overturning the money-changer's tables and saying, in effect: "God is about to overturn this whole Temple and the worship-charade it houses, because 'my house was supposed to be a house of prayer for the nations' and you've made it into a monument to your own nationalistic agendas and revolutionary zeal."  Then, on the way back to Bethany in the evening, the disciples discover that the cursed fig-tree has withered, just like Jesus said it would.

Ok:  this would all be confusing enough, but then, when they ask him about the tree, he declares:  "Have faith in God:  truly I say to you that if one has faith, he should say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and cast into the sea' and if he does not doubt in his heart but he believes that what he says will be so, it will be so for him."  Or something like that. Then he adds:  "Because I tell you this: everything you pray and request, believe that you have received, and it will be so for you."

I've been thinking about this passage a lot over the last little while.  Because it seems to imply that the operative factor in determining whether or not we receive what we pray for is the degree of faith with which we ask-- i.e. the one who believes firmly that they will receive what they've prayed for will receive it; by implication the one who doubts won't; and by further implication, the more strongly you believe the more likely you are to receive. This is, at least, how I've often understood it.  And there are huge pastoral implications for this reading:  do we tell people, explicitly or implicitly, that when they don't receive what they're praying for, it's because they don't have enough faith?  Especially when there's a lot on the line (for a child, perhaps, praying for the healing of a loved one), this can insidiously turn the life of faith, which was meant to be liberating, into a life of bondage and guilt.

So here's what I got: when you read the whole passage (Mark 11:20-25) in context, notice that:  1) Jesus doesn't actually tell us to believe that we will receive, but that we already have received  what we're looking for (the verb tense in v. 24 is aorist, not future); 2) Jesus doesn`t say "ìf you have faith in God" in verse 22, but "have faith in God" (some early manuscripts say "if you have faith" but the most reliable say, simply, "have faith in God") The point:  this is not a "conditional statement" (i.e. you'll be answered if (and only if) you have faith); it's an imperative: "Have faith when you pray.  Believe that you have 'received' and it will be so for you."

Which brings us to note three:  this promise of having received when we pray is embedded right in the middle of Jesus' prophetic announcement that the Temple in Jerusalem will be destroyed.  He acted out its destruction through the whole money-changers demonstration, and then  he symbolically predicted it with the whole fig-tree curse. Just like the fig-tree didn't have fruit when God's Messiah came looking for it, and was destroyed because of it, so too the Temple: it didn't have the "fruit" of righteousness when God's Messiah came to it, so it will be destroyed.  And in as much as the fig-tree did shrivel at a word from Jesus, so too the Temple:  its predicted destruction is assured.

Which brings me to note four.  Jesus tells us that the primary content of our prayer should be that "this" mountain be lifted up and cast into the sea.  I always used to think he was speaking generally and metaphorically; i.e. you could ask for something so impossible as a mountain to be thrown into the sea, and if you've got enough faith, it will happen.  But. Jesus has just pronounced and enacted God's judgment on the Temple-- which is situated on the Temple Mount.  He's actually standing (presumably) in the shadow of the Temple Mount when he utters verse 23. The "this" of "this mountain," it turns out, is a very literal and very specific "this."  He means the Temple Mount.  He's saying, in light of his ominous announcement that the Temple is slated for demolition:  if you have faith, you could say to this Temple (and the Mountain on which it stands) be cast into the sea, and it will be so (v.23):  and once it's so, whatever you pray for will still ascend lovingly and confidently to the gracious ears of God, by faith (v.24).

Why does this context matter?  For a first Century Jew, Herod's Temple is the Spiritual North Star of your whole religious life.  You prayed toward the Temple, as a First Century Jew, because this was where God's Name dwelt.  Your prayers were heard and answered, as a First Century Jew, because God's Name and Glory still "dwelt" in the Temple of Jerusalem.  And Jesus is speaking to First Century Jews when he tells them:  because of its corruption, the Temple is about to be destroyed.

It would be like telling a devout Muslim that Mecca will soon be no more.

Can you hear the anguished reply:  But then how will we pray now?  How will our prayers be heard (let alone answered) now?  By what will we navigate, spiritually speaking, if the lode-star of our spiritual lives is cast into the sea? 

The question throbbing in this passage isn't "what does it take to get my prayers answered?" The question is:  how could we even imagine praying at all, if the Temple is destroyed (which the lesson of the fig tree, well learned, assures us it will be)? Because to pray that this particular mountain be thrown into the sea is actually to pray for a whole new way of coming to God in prayer, period.

And God says:  believe in your heart, and do not doubt, and you will receive exactly that.

Because Jesus says:  "Have Faith in God.  He's doing a new thing in me and through me.  And for those who have faith in me, and through me, the Temple can be cast into the sea, and prayer will not cease; in fact it will have just begun to thrive, because it will no longer be centred around a building made by hands, but will be empowered and filled and transformed by my resurrected and life-giving spirit.  If you believe this, then even before you pray, you will have received the hearing from God that up till now you've assumed is only possible in and through this Temple."

And in answering the question like that, Jesus has made faith, once again, the life of freedom and communion with God that it was meant to be.