Jesus demonstrates his disgust with fruitlessness
There are people who pretend to be followers of Jesus. In fact, they gather together and call themselves "church." It says so in the newspaper ads they run on special occasions and on the sign out front. But being a church means that they follow Jesus' teachings, produce good works in the community, and seek out new followers. Outsiders recognize them as Jesus' friends because there is such love between them... and they extend that love to outsiders. They put the things of Jesus first.
Now picture Jesus walking up to the front doors of one of these kinds of churches - expecting to find a community of followers - and instead he sees the trappings of religion (stain glass windows, hymnals, the baptismal font, the communion table, the church van, the bulletin), BUT no fruit.
Matthew 21:18-19 18 In the morning, when he returned to the city, he was hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the side of the road, he went to it and found nothing at all on it but leaves. Then he said to it, "May no fruit ever come from you again!" And the fig tree withered at once.
A fig tree - no matter how beautiful and lush its leaves are - without figs, it is pretty worthless. Jesus curses it - and it withers and dies.
Do we ignore Jesus' demonstration that he doesn't tolerate fruitlessness? How can we, as individuals and as the church, produce the fruit we have been created to produce?
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