Oh, no! Another learning experience!
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope.” St Paul in Romans 8:20
Why are these two images together in the Gospel according to St Mark?
“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it.
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11: 12-17)
Jesus curses a fig tree and clears the temple courts
“For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope.” Adam and Eve embroiled all their descendants in sin and consequently, death. The certainty of sin and death is later replaced —in Christ—with the certainty of rebirth and glory: a great hope.
In our days mankind devised a way to enjoy certain aspects of human reproduction while avoiding the divinely intended results. That in time produced other results. Since the divine will is absolutely good, the opposite is absolutely bad. The anti-life Pill was followed by other anti-life results: abortion, euthanasia, and other disgraces still to be discovered like the geometric regression of population currently in progress. Women of antiquity considered themselves blessed in their fruitfulness and saw the actual blessing of God in their children. How things have changed. Our female ancestors were fruitful fig trees, privileged participants in the creative work of God. Now we have reached the other end of time and it is all upside down. From Eve’s “I have conceived a son with the help of GOD!” (Genesis 4:1) to “I have avoided conceiving with the help of the Pill.”
I dare to advance that the "growth" of the American economy without actual growth in employment is the reverse side of the willful depopulation achieved through abortion—since the Pill is abortive.
Now we have market investment records paired with high unemployment. How come? Enjoyment without enjoyers, a summer fig tree without figs. Human ingenuity, Ovid's "disastrously inventive" force. Our genius political figures and their economists forgot the basics: population is the economy. There is no thriving commerce in a deserted island. Some are proposing an economy moved by cyborgs. Those are mechanisms with the so called Artificial Intelligence, copies of human beings that do not sleep, eat or die. They are fed presumably by electricity but there’s the rub.
Hold that thought…
Some believe that human beings will be able to live in Mars one day but the costs and complications that plague interplanetary travel are many. We can send a robot to Mars and take advantage of the fact that a robot does not have to carry food for the trip. Batteries can be charged by the sun and suitable sources of energy can be found after arrival. But sending humans is complicated. Humans need food. Food is additional mass. Humans need pure air. We can make air out of machines but machines, labs, etc. also add to the initial mass. Every pound of extra weight also has to be added to the energy needs of the ship. The more weight we add, the more combustible has to be carried so the astronauts can decelerate their capsule on arrival, complete their mission and return to Earth. More cargo, more fuel needed, more fuel means more cargo. It gets more complicated the more we look at it.
Back to Artificial Intelligence. I still affirm there is no such thing but for the sake of argument … let us take a look at the amount of energy we need to operate our current AI demands. I do not know what is the efficiency ratio but at a glance it looks huge. Some say many-many nuclear plants will be needed to feed enormous processing centers and production plants for microchips and other components.
Here we seem to run into the same problem we have when trying to put men on Mars. If we are to implement a safe system that will feed the AI needs of the entire planet, we are facing enormous demands of energy, pollution, heat generation, and more. AI may in the end be a self defeating strategy if we need millions of gigawatts per second to solve mankind’s problems.
It seems to me God has tied creation to futility. We cannot go beyond the great chasm that separate us from a star (see Einstein’s Relativity for that) and a simple trip to the nearest planet may be really expensive and complicated. Artificial Intelligence presents similar challenges at a different level. These problems have one thing in common: energy or rather, the lack of sufficient energy.
The invisible hand of God is there setting the limits
“To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high: Who created all these? He leads forth the starry host by number; He calls each one by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. (Isaiah 40:25-26)
It seems to me that we inhabit a marvelous pen that contains us. That is not surprising. We are still in infancy as a species. God seems to have great plans for us but first He has to extricate us from the mess we got ourselves into. He will get us out of here but NOT without learning our lesson. When we reach that point we may not even care for a physical trip to Mars and we may laugh at our own simplicity.
I think there is a hint to our current situation in pairing the curse of the fig tree with the expulsion of the merchants from the Temple. The human race is rapidly advancing towards a number of very serious obstacles. Money, energy, population, and many other things are showing signs of approaching unsurmountable limits.
The idea of placing both lessons together in the Gospel according to St Mark may be to show us that God is “hungry” to see the fruit of Creation even if it is not the season. The fig tree was not showing the expected buds announcing the soon to come fruit. Later at the Temple, the merchants and money changers were involved in making barren metal produce unlawful gains. That is the perfect representation of how the natural universe is thrown out of whack by sin. We are presented with these things to meditate on the terrible consequences of disobedience. We have to profit something from what we are going through.
In the words of a well known bumper sticker of the 1990’s: “Oh, no! Another learning experience!”
DIANN VIA EMAIL
And where is a fig leaf mentioned in the Garden in Genesis??
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RESPONSE BY QUOD SCRIPSI
Good question. Genesis 2:7
"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."
The fig leaves come into the scene with the arrival of sin. Adam and Eve felt the sadness and shame of sin, something unusual from them. Some physical change must have happened that they had to cover. May be the self awareness of their newly acquired imperfection.
DIANN VIA EMAIL
I did recall that. Your essay spoke of the anti-life methods of today as well as the fruitless fig in Passion week. I was linking the symbolism of the Genesis fig leaves covering that which provides generation/life to the barrenness of the fig which Jesus had hoped would have fruit. Seems there is more to glean in the symbolism and very linked to your thesis.
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RESPONSE BY QUOD SCRIPSI
Oh, yes! There's a lot more. Enough to write a book. The Hebrew etymology seems to hide more things as well.
"And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’” Luke 13:6-9
The fruitless fig tree is the nation of Israel that has forgotten the Law (as usual) It also connects with the fruitless tree that the Master wants to cut off but the servant says "let me dig a trench around it and add some manure ... etc." The waiting time is three years if by the third year there are no fruits ... it will be cut off and sent to the fire to be burned completely.
Those seem to me the three millennia since the death of Christ. We are entering the "third year now" and Jews are beginning to convert. The Church is the New Israel that comes from Mary and Jesus to incite the old Israel to jealousy. As far as I can see, it is working. The fig leaves of Adam and Eve seem to be made to cover their genitalia as if they had learned instinctively that their descendance (living inside them) are going to be cursed by their parent's error.
Yes! the fig tree is a parable spread all over Holy Scripture... there is a lot to be found there, a real treasure. I am going to study that better. Thank you for the prompt!
One more interesting thing from a childhood memory.
A neighbor in the province of Buenos Aires had a problem with a tree. It may have been a fig tree or an avocado tree. It was completely barren. A magnificent tree but no fruit. The owner called one of those experts who knew what to do. An older gentleman who knew all the secrets about growing trees in that region. He looked at the tree and asked the owner to wait for a few minutes. The man went home and returned with three large and very rusty nails. He proceeded to hammer those nails to the trunk of the fruitless tree. Then he stood very formally in front of the tree and proceeded to cuss heavily on the poor plant. "Give it three seasons," he said "it will be fruitful for sure if you pray near it." And it worked, the tree was fruitful at the beginning of the third season.
Any similarity with the Cross and the birth of Christianity is unintended. It seems that was a living lesson that fortunately I caught in spite of being a mere boy of nine."
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DIANN VIA EMAIL
What a terrific story and memory! The wise arborist, who probably learned from generations before, knew the best treatment.
I imagine our waywardness is often mercifully treated with the same treatment but the Divine Gardener.
In our parish we just had a gigantic Divine Mercy celebration ending 50 days of intense prayer for Mercy, then the nine day Novena of Divine Mercy. The floodgates of Jesus’ unfathomable Divine Mercy are opened upon the world, in perhaps this most apocalyptic time. Romans 5:20.
I just learned something interesting about the parable of the fig tree. The word "fegh" is a very old word and it means "son". In many Indo-European languages that particle continues to mean something related to the original meaning. Fitz, fig, fijo, hijo, filios, figlio, filho, etc. etc.