BEARING GOOD FRUIT

June 23, Wednesday

TWELVE WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

 

      The certainty of faith is always a search for a fuller reality, which we do not yet possess. We have to learn to live with partial visions and to place ourselves trustingly into the hands of the God of the covenant, like Abraham.

      Christ is our real tree of life. If we pluck the fruits of his message and life, we too can become trees of life that produce good fruits. It is not enough for us to take pride in being the People of God and in boasting that we are disciples of Christ. We must also effectively follow him and lead the life of people of the covenant.

 

First Reading: Genesis 15:1-12,17-18

After all these things, this word of God came to Abram in a vision: “Don’t be afraid, Abram. I’m your shield. Your reward will be grand!”

Abram said, “God, Master, what use are your gifts as long as I’m childless and Eliezer of Damascus is going to inherit everything?” Abram continued, “See, you’ve given me no children, and now a mere house servant is going to get it all.”

Then God’s Message came: “Don’t worry, he won’t be your heir; a son from your body will be your heir.”

Then he took him outside and said, “Look at the sky. Count the stars. Can you do it? Count your descendants! You’re going to have a big family, Abram!”

And he believed! Believed God! God declared him “Set-Right-with-God.”

God continued, “I’m the same God who brought you from Ur of the Chaldees and gave you this land to own.”

Abram said, “Master God, how am I to know this, that it will all be mine?”

God said, “Bring me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, and a dove and a young pigeon.”

He brought all these animals to him, split them down the middle, and laid the halves opposite each other. But he didn’t split the birds. Vultures swooped down on the carcasses, but Abram scared them off. As the sun went down a deep sleep overcame Abram and then a sense of dread, dark and heavy.

When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria.

 

Gospel: Matthew 7:15-20

“Be wary of false preachers who smile a lot, dripping with practiced sincerity. Chances are they are out to rip you off some way or other. Don’t be impressed with charisma; look for character. Who preachers are is the main thing, not what they say. A genuine leader will never exploit your emotions or your pocketbook. These diseased trees with their bad apples are going to be chopped down and burned.

 

Prayer

Lord our God,
the present renewal in the Church
and the changes in the world
have upset many of our certainties,
and at times we don’t know where we stand.
Give us a great faith and a deep trust,
and the wisdom of your Spirit.
Help us to retain our critical sense,
that we may not run after false prophets
and yet remain open to all true renewal
that brings us closer to you
and helps us to bear good fruit
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Reflection:

Anything without love is not from God
We are reaching the final recommendations of the Sermon on the Mount.
The worst struggles of the community of faithful in the early Church perhaps did not come from the persecutions of the emperors or the opposition from the Jewish leadership. They had divisions within. Not everyone who claimed themselves as followers of Christ, preached the true Gospel of Jesus. We see the references to such false preachers both in the Act of the Apostles and also in the Letters of St. Paul. Perhaps, the presence and teachings of such leaders prompted Matthew to address the issue of false prophets in the community, through the words of Jesus.
Therefore, the warning is clear: the disciples would experience problems not only from outside, but even from within the community, from people who had come to join them. They have to learn to discern what is the true gospel. How to differentiate the true Gospel from the false message and the messengers? Refer back to the beginnings of the sermon on Mount: The Beatitude.
Jesus had already spelt out the ways to blessedness; these are the non-negotiable requirements of honesty and truth, integrity, openness to forgiveness and rejection of violence, the need to pray, to move away from temptations of accumulating material wealth. But all of these are converged in the rule of love. Any teaching and any act that is against love of God and love of one another, is not from God.
Reflecting on this Gospel, we shouldn’t be wasting time to look around for the false prophets and point our fingers at others. By doing that we would be falling to the sin of judging others. Rather, the Gospel wants us to look into ourselves today. We claim to be followers of Jesus, but if our actions, behaviour, lifestyle are not conforming to the values of the Gospel, we give a false witness and we turn out to be the false prophets. Being faithful Christians, we are invited to bear good fruits of love, patience, compassion, forgiveness and empathy.
Discernment would be difficult, but it is indispensable. Mistakes would be made. Jesus offers as a criterion for discernment the fruits of various actions of people. Action, not words, would count. But even actions can be difficult to discern. Actions can express varied motivations. Jesus had dwelt at length on the dangers associated with the pious practices of almsgiving, fasting and praying.
There would be no simple answers for travellers who choose the hard and narrow road to life.

 

Video available onn Youtube: Anything without love is not from God