Sunday Reflections

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; …The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil;”   Luke 6: 43, 45

This Sunday’s readings exhort us to bear good fruit. We are called to be kind and compassionate, forgiving and loving unconditionally, just as our Lord does. We are called to put our Christian faith into action, not because actions are more important than faith, but because true Christian faith will always result in action. If we truly believe in God and love God with all our heart and soul and mind, then we will bear good fruit in how we interact with the people we meet and all of God’s creation.

The gospel in particular delves deeper into what it means to bear good fruit, by identifying the bad fruit we can so easily slip into producing. We are so quick to notice other people when they do or say something we don’t agree with, something we think is wrong. And it is very tempting to point out that speck in their eye; sometimes our motives even seem virtuous to ourselves. But instead of squinting to see the speck in another’s eye, the scriptures today tell us to look inward, to examine our own eyes, our own hearts, to see if there are any logs inside us which need to be shifted. Perhaps we have a similar trait in ourselves as we noticed in another person; perhaps we can learn from this observation and work to improve our own garden of faith, so that we bear better fruit than before.

One example of this springs to mind for me first. The world of social media has amplified the voices of those who thrive on pointing out the speck in other people’s eyes. The more ways we have to interact with people, especially online where we feel somewhat anonymous and distant from those we talk to or about, the more we have to be aware of our actions. Commenting on someone’s post is a real-world action, with real-world consequences. We may never meet the poster in person, but our comment can affect their mood, their perception of others, even their sense of self-worth. Our comment is fruit that we bear; let us make sure it is good fruit and not bad.

Our faith must always inform our actions. And when others see the good fruit our faith bears, they will be inspired to produce their own good fruit, and we can say that we are truly “instruments for the renewal of society, bringing [God’s] life and love to all”.  (Resurrection Prayer)