February 1, 2026 – Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
Isaiah 34.4; Jeremiah 8.10b-13; Hosea 9.10
Mark 11.12-24
A Pretti Good Sermon
Fourth Sunday of Epiphany
This is a parable from the 24th chapter of Jeremiah the prophet.
God showed me two baskets of figs placed in front of the Temple of God… In one basket the figs were of the finest quality, ripe and ready to eat. In the other basket the figs were rotten, so rotten they could not be eaten. God said to me, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “Figs,” I said. “Excellent figs of the finest quality; and also rotten figs, so rotten they can not be eaten.”
Then God told me, “This is the Message from the God of Israel: The exiles from here that I’ve sent off to the land of the Babylonians are like the good figs, and I’ll make sure they get good treatment.
I’ll keep my eye on them so that their lives are good, and I’ll bring them back to this land. I’ll build them up, not tear them down; I’ll plant them, not uproot them. “And I’ll give them a heart to know me, their God. They will be my people and I will be their God, for they’ll have returned to me with all their hearts. “But like the rotten figs, so rotten they can not be eaten, is Zedekiah king of Judah. Rotten figs – that is how I’ll treat him and his leaders, along with the survivors here and those down in Egypt.
I’ll make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting – repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them. And I’ll make sure they die like flies – from war, starvation, disease, whatever – until the land I once gave to them and their ancestors is completely rid of them.”
In the Doors’ song “Peace Frog,” one of the lyrics goes, “Blood in the streets in the town of New Haven… blood on the streets, run a river of sadness.” The song was released in February of 1970. Today there is blood in the streets in the city of Minneapolis – blood and violence and fear in the month of January 2026. On January 7, Renée Good was shot by an agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. On January 24, Alex Pretti was surrounded by five agents and shot ten times by two of them as he lay defenseless on the ground. On January 20, agents detained Liam Conejo Ramos as he was walking home from school; Liam, five years old, is currently being held at a Texas detention center. On January 18, ChongLy Thao, a naturalized US citizen, had his front door broken down by ICE agents, was handcuffed and escorted from his home dressed only in shorts and a pair of crocs. The temperature was nine degrees and the ground was covered with snow. Also on January 18, about three dozen witnesses for justice walked into morning worship at St Paul’s Cities Church, part of the Southern Baptist Convention, calling for justice for Renée Good and for the ouster of ICE from the city; Pastor David Easterwood of Cities Church is also the acting field director for the St. Paul ICE office. While thousands of folks have gathered to protest the unlawful killings of Pretti and Good and the unlawful detention of Scott Thao and little Liam, there are still parts of the church of Jesus Christ who believe the greater sin was the disruption of Sunday worship. “Shame on you” Pastor Jonathan Parnell scolded them, “This is a house of God!” And just for good measure, on Friday, Federal agents arrested reporter Don Lemon for the crime of reporting on the Cities Church incident.
Jeremiah’s parable of the good figs and the bad figs was based on the refusal of Zedekiah, the last King of Judah, to heed God’s warning to flee Jerusalem; that refusal led Nebuchadnezzar to lay siege to Jerusalem and send the Jews into exile in the Babylonian captivity where they remained captive for two generations. But this is not why I read the parable this morning. I read it because of Jesus’ parable – not a spoken parable, but an acted parable – Jesus’ parable of the fig tree Diane read for us. If you were reading along in the pew Bible while Diane was reading – and I know some of you like to do this – you noticed that she skipped some verses in her telling of the story. It was deliberate, because I want us to hear it again, this time with the missing verses. Jesus’ story of the fig tree is not really about the fig tree; rather the parable acts as a frame that surrounds the picture that he really wants us to see and understand. It is an episode that took place during his final days – Monday of Holy Week to be exact. I will read the frame Diane already read, and Diane will read the telling middle to show us what the acted parable of the fig tree is really about:
On the following day, when Jesus and the disciples came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.
Then they came to Jerusalem. And Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.
The next morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
The parable of the fig tree in Mark’s gospel is no more about figs than the one in Jeremiah’s prophecy. It was about using the temple as a cover for privilege. Pilgrims from across the middle east had come to worship at the Jerusalem temple for the high holy days, and if they could not afford the exchange rate the money changers were charging, they were barred from worship. Likewise the sellers of doves for the sacrifice charged exorbitant prices and if you could not afford one you could not offer your sacrifice. Where we heard Jesus say a few weeks ago I am the gate where the sheep may enter, the temple officials were the gate that charged an entry fee effectively shutting out those who traveled miles at a considerable inconvenience to worship and honor God.
What must the immigrant and the citizen alike think when coming to the door of a church led by the acting director of an agency dedicated to capturing and deporting you? “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations – but you have made it a den of robbers.” As the fig tree withered away to its roots, so does a faith that builds gates and walls by whatever method and closes people out. The three dozen or so who exposed the hypocrisy of Cities Church bore testimony to Jesus’ parable of the fig tree.
Friends, these are difficult days, and it’s OK to admit it. Lillian Dnaiel is an occasional contributor to the UCC devotionals you and I read in Advent and Lent; she is currently serving as the UCC’s Michigan Conference Minister. I first met Lillian years ago when she was at the Church of the Redeemer in New Haven. Faithful, thoughtful and articulate, I’ve been following her books and articles ever since. Lillian sent out a pastoral letter of sorts earlier this week to encourage churches and pastors to stay the course in a tempestuous world. I was struck by many things she wrote, but one thing in particular really spoke to me. She asked two questions, “What can a person hear in church that they cannot hear anywhere else?” and “How do I preach in a way that starts [or continues] a sacred conversation instead of ending it?” What are you and I best equipped to say and do as people of faith that others can not or will not, and how can we keep the conversation going?
At the risk of being repetitive, we can keep saying what we have been saying all along. That God has always carved out a special place in God’s realm for the immigrant and the alien, and the responsibility to care for them belongs to all people of every faith. We can say it on Sunday mornings, we can say it when we stand on street corners and at rallies for justice, we can keep saying it to our neighbors. But we must say it with love and courage, so as not to cut off the conversation with those who have listened but not yet heard. We can say to the false teachers of the age, this is a house of prayer and it will not be made into a den of thieves. We can say this particularly when we welcome guests and neighbors into our house of prayer. We can differ from whoever believes the church should function as an arm of the state. As Jeremiah said of the false witnesses, “I will make them something that the whole world will look on as disgusting – repugnant outcasts, their names used as curse words wherever in the world I drive them.” We can condemn in no uncertain terms the killing of bystanders, and those who gather to bear witness against injustice and injury. We can speak without fear of retribution, not because there is no retribution but because we are not afraid. We can wave signs from bridges. We can blow whistles. My grandson Connor’s school handed out ICE packs last week to their families – plastic baggies with whistles and emergency instructions. Elementary school, folks. We can be allies to least and the lost. We can be confident. We can be humble. We can bear the good fruit that is not tainted by selfishness, prejudice, anger or revenge. And by our witness we can pierce the noise and fog of siege and stand on God’s side of history.
We may not be able to stand in Minneapolis. But we can stand with Minneapolis and let the world see us as we do so. If you are able to stand with us in our interfaith community witness Wednesday evening, we welcome you, and if not, you will surely stand with us in spirit. For as I look out this morning in God’s fertile field, all I see are trees that bear excellent figs of the finest quality. God bless you all.