From the Daily Lectionary for Monday in the Eighteenth Week after Pentecost
Luke 6:39-49
He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.
“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.”
Our reading is a segment of Luke’s account of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Plain.” In Matthew it is called the Sermon on the Mount. Mark offers no account of this famous sermon/teaching. Matthew’s and Luke’s versions are similar, although there are notable differences. It is always interesting, at least to me, to see how Matthew and Luke interpret and edit and supplement Mark’s manuscript.
Luke here is speaking of the predisposition of discipleship. Jesus is asking his disciples to be self-aware, and to trust their innate goodness. In the modern church we have been so very conditioned to think of ourselves as fallen, depraved even; but Jesus continually exhorts his disciples to speak and act from their heart. To be sure, there are myriad distractions that would keep us ungrounded and disconnected from the heart. Teaching and learning for Luke are not so much the giving and receiving of new information, as they are a process of remembering who we are, a people made in God’s image. The dynamic between teacher and student, at its heart, engenders rigorous honesty and self-awareness. Perhaps the chief purpose of the church is to nurture that knowledge, and to empower us as the faithful community to act upon it.
That of course begs the question, “How then shall we act?” Given the pandemonium in which we live, the question has become more poignant, more urgent. Matthew and Luke are in solidarity on this point. We are to persist in “bearing fruit.” That is to say that we keep on taking care of our neighbor; we keep on fighting for justice; we keep on welcoming the outcast; we keep on advocating for the voiceless… we heal, we serve… we pay rapt attention to our world with an imaginative and critical eye. We choose honesty over falsehood. Sometimes we act spectacularly… but most of the time such acts are mundane, simple… but no less important, no less transformative.
Let me remind us that we are in the faith for the “long haul.” Don’t fret over what we can do to fix everything at once. The life of faith is a marathon, not a sprint. We have to trust that the “arc of the universe bends toward justice.” And that bending is the very process of creation itself. We are called to give ourselves to this marvelous process with honesty and integrity, knowing that Love will stand in the end. Trust your heart, a heart that has been sealed as Christ’s own forever, and keep bearing fruit, as best you can. That is enough for the long haul.
A Prayer for Grace (BCP p. 125)
O God, you manifest in your servants the signs of your presence: Send forth upon us the Spirit of love, that in companionship with one another your abounding grace may increase among us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
