A Harvest of Righteousness
September 22, 2013 | Patrick Preheim

My wife has expressed her disapproval, and rightly so.  I am not proud to acknowledge that I ignored her wishes, but even today I am unrepentant of what I have done.  What has raised the ire of my wife?  On what grounds has she lodged a grievance?  I have filled our freezers with fruit.  They were all nicely defrosted when we got back from Jasper in mid July.  But the saskatoons were full on so I wasted no time.  I schlepped home gallons of the precious berry from the acreage of an enabler.  And then came the raspberries, sour cherries, choke cherries strawberries, black currants—all before any bean had been blanched or swiss chard chopped.   By early September she was asking questions:  where will we put the tomatoes?; I want to order half a lamb and where will it go?; why do you pick so much fruit?   There was no adequate response.  I have spent several days juicing and canning to free up space, but still the underlying problem persists.   To her questions I can only shrug my shoulders and head back to the garden for the next round.  These are good problems to have (an abundance of fruit I mean and not an aggrieved wife).  They are the kind of problem for which Jesus and the Gospels hope.

In Matthew’s gospel, but not only his, imagery of fruit and harvests abounds.  In your bulletin you will see the various references to fruit in Matthew.

• 3.8-10  John the Baptist preaches, “bear fruit worthy of repentance” and  that every tree not bearing “good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire”
• In 7.17-19, the portion of Matthew read today, you have three references to fruit and trees.
• 12.33 Jesus says, “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit”
• 13.23 In the Parable of the Sower / Seeds Jesus explains that the seed sown on good soil is the “one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”
• 21.19 During passion week Jesus hungered and went to a fig tree.  Not finding any good fruit he cursed it saying, “may no fruit ever come from you again”.  And the tree immediately withered.
• 26.29 And finally, Jesus at his last supper links the wine, the fruit of the vine, with his blood which would be outpoured for many.

Jesus longs for the problems of my wife.  He desperately wants there to be so much good fruit out there that all the canning jars at the thrift stores, all the freezer units, all hungry tummies might be filled with this good fruit.  Jesus has applied the imperatives of Genesis to be “fruitful and multiply” (See Gen 1, 9, 47) in another direction.  God fearers and followers of Jesus are to be fruitful and multiply their works of righteousness.  How do we nurture lives which bear fruit?  First and foremost, I suggest, we learn to rest in God.

Fruit growers or orchard stewards know that preparation for harvest begins long before harvest season.  This past week I cut out the dead raspberry canes so sunlight and space can benefit the new shoots next spring.  At the end of winter I prune the apple tree so that the energy might go into branches which I can reach—after all what is the point of good fruit that can not be enjoyed.  In spring time I will till my soil to aerate it and I will add compost to enrich it.  Midsummer I will subject the tomatoes and zucchini to an aggressive haircut.  All of these actions take place prior to the harvest and actually contribute to the making of a plentiful crop.  So is the case in our spiritual lives.

Meditating upon God and scriptures and nature and sacred readings allow the Good Gardener access to our lives for pruning, tilling, enriching—the kind of things which contribute to a strong harvest.   Attitudes and behaviours which impede the light of God are pruned from us.  Our organic matter is enriched as we hear stories of the saints.  The hard pan of our soil—the injuries we have given and received, the cynicism, the rebellion—is loosened so that roots might grow deep.

We don’t do the tilling or the pruning or the fertilizing.  This is the responsibility of the Good Gardener, the Best Farmer.  We make ourselves available for her work.  We say, “Come, Lord Jesus, help me bear good fruit”.   The Beatitudes of Matthew’s gospel give us focus for our meditation.  Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, those who are merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted.  Contemplation on these allows God to mould us into fruit bearing machines.  The Spirit will do its work so long as we make ourselves available, at least usually.

Even the spiritual giants among us have their times of drought, blight and frost.  Henri Nouwen fought deep insecurity his entire life.  Mother Teresa of Calcutta struggled with her faith in the midst of her ministry.  We are human and as such we will have seasons of crop failure.  The farmer does not give up on the land after a hail storm.  The gardener does not abandon the plot because potato bugs did their damage.  The orchard owner does not chop the trees down on account of a late or early frost.  So, too, God will tend us even when spiritual disaster strikes.  We are, however, ever called to place our lives in the hands of God and seek to honour him in worship and service.

Having clarified that a healthy internal life is the foundation to a bountiful harvest we can finally consider the fruit.  The kind of service we offer God need not be flashy or earth shaking.  Mother Theresa once said, “To show great love of God and our neighbour we need not do great things.  It is how much love we put into doing that makes our offering something beautiful for God”  (in Robert Ellsberg, All Saints).   When inspired by love the smallest act is as precious as the multi-million dollar ministry. What are some of the fruits which Matthew’s gospel identifies?

The two blocks of teaching which begin and end the public ministry of Jesus are useful to understanding a bit of what good fruit might look like, at least from Matthew’s perspective.  The Sermon on the Mount, which includes the Beatitudes, contains the first teachings of Jesus (7.28 ends the first of five sub sections in Matthew’s gospel—“finished saying...”).  It names good fruit in these terms:

Not fostering anger against a brother or sister.  Not committing adultery or even slipping into lust.  Not swearing oaths.  Not retaliating against an evil-doer.  Giving to those who beg.  Loving one’s enemies.  Practicing faith humbly.  Praying earnestly to God.  Not storing up treasures on earth.  Not being anxious.  Not judging others.

In good Jewish tradition many of the guidelines are stated in negative formulation (e.g..  thou shall not...  ).  In good Rabbinic tradition these actions form a hedge to protect us.  If you are angry with another, make it a habit to pray for them.  If swearing oaths is a problem, learn to let a yes be yes and a no be no.  A few modern day examples might be the following:

If over eating is a problem, do not take the “smorg” option on the menu. If alcohol is a problem, do not go to bars.  If over spending is an issue, abandon the credit cards.  The idea is to choose activities which shield ourselves.

 It is interesting to note that many of the directives in the Sermon on the Mount are internal in nature, and yet they affect those around us.  Go figure, our attitudes and actions impact others!  As we address moral and ethical issues in our lives it will bear good fruit.

The parable of sheep and goats in Matthew 25 is the last public teaching of Jesus (see 26.1), and it too outlines fruit bearing activity.

Feed the hungry.  Give drink to the thirsty.  Welcome the stranger.  Clothe the naked.  Visit the sick.  Visit the imprisoned.

If the Sermon on the Mount explores internal attitudes, Matthew 25 looks outward to the community—both the church community and civil society.  Both texts, however, address the bearing of fruit in the life of the disciple.

Matthew 25 and the Sermon on the Mount share another important detail—perhaps an uncomfortable detail.  In both passages we find people who recognize “the Lord” but have somehow fallen short of the master’s expectations.  Simply knowing our Lord and saviour, it would appear, is not enough.  I highlight this point because there is too much history of Christian theology reducing faith to a confession of Jesus as Lord (the contemporary church, the 16th century church which sparked an Anabaptist reformation, or the 4th century church of Archbishop John Chrysostom, or the audience of Matthew’s gospel).  Patty and my devotional reading out of Rejoice! this past Friday underscores this problem. 

Helen Tellez wrote, “I once did contract work for a professing Christian who, I discovered, runs a scam.  He uses his employee’ services but fabricates any excuse to fire them and not pay them what they are due.  Then he moves on to the next vulnerable person.  He still owes me, almost three years later.  I keep invoicing him.  He keeps saying he’ll pay.  I guess it is hard to pay the bills when you live in a half-million-dollar house and drive a Cadillac SUV” (Friday, September 20).  To merely confess Jesus as Lord is not what Jesus asks of us.  Jesus had a parable on this very point. 

‘What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, “Son, go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not”; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, “I go, sir”; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?’ They said, ‘The first.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”  (Matt 21.28-31)

I want to be the son who does the biding of his Father who art in heaven.   So as I shuffle along on my knees picking strawberries I pray for the humility to sweeten the lives of others.  As I reach to pick my apples I pray for the courage to stretch my compassion to the tax collectors and prostitutes of my era knowing they often bear as much fruit as I.  As I rake the clusters of saskatoons and choke cherries into my picking pail I pray for an attitude of generosity to those around me.  As I glean black currants, haskaps, and choke cherries from city parks may I remember that this good free fruit has been given for all city residents.  And in a defiant spirit I will wash them all and bong them into my freezer.  I will do so knowing that the days are surly coming when I will need to pull these memories of grace from the freezer to warm my heart and the stomachs of those God has placed in my life.  May we entrust the garden of our lives into God’s care, and may the good fruit grow within us producing a harvest of righteousness.  Amen.