I Don’t Want That Fruit

Good morning to you all on this second Sunday as we enter the second Sunday of the great fast. We come to be nourished and supported by God in his holy word and this bread & wine which is his very own self.

We are given these readings which are theologically rich.

Jesus and Saint Paul open the minds of believers of their relationship with God and influence of sin.

St. Paul is speaking to an audience of believers who were mostly converted and baptized in their adult lives after being convinced of Christ as the Messiah and and savior.

So they were called to leave behind old ways of living which lead to corruption and death and continue learning the obedience to Christ and his teachings which lead to everlasting life.

Paul wants to speak about a true obedience. We can say it is a servant who obeys. Obedience is essentially doing what is asked of you. And he says we are either servants of our Lord, God in all that is good. Or servants of sin, doing what sin calls us and tempts us to do. Whatever sin asks of us, we can’t deny it.

He probably met people like us who were having difficulty leaving behind certain sins. So he reminds them of their former situation and says, “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. The end of those things is death. “But then what return did you get from the things of which you are now ashamed?

You were ashamed. You are embarrassed. What you did brought you death.

Christ today says the same thing in the Gospel, a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. And a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.

Sometimes we too need to be reminded of the fruits of sin when we are convinced that it is the best route for us:

Lying = Puts us in a prison of more lies and distrust

Gossip = a social fire and destruction of others and builds a culture of unsafety. we can’t be close to anyone

Greed & Stealing = breeds anxiety, to the point where the more you have, the more you protect and being generous feels like a loss and eventually takes from someone else.

Pride: builds an island of personality that no one can reach. and you no longer can tolerate your neighbors and end up alone because no one can enter in, not even God.

He reminds them that if you are thinking back of these sins and considering them once again, remember what they did to you. They were never good to you. They left you nkheepeh/ashamed and dead.

St Paul and the Lord invite us to an obedience to God that is rooted not in shame alone. We may be motivated to not sin because we don’t want to be ashamed in front of others. But in this we are not servants of God, we become servants of others because we leave the power in their hands.

We will either be motivated to be servants of God because we know it will bring us life, or Eventually we will find a group of people who praise us for doing what is wrong so we are not ashamed.

Lent reminds us that we are people on the way. We have not yet arrived, but we have chosen our direction. Every act of fasting, every prayer, every time we resist what sin asks of us, we are saying — I know what that tree produces, and I want no more of it. Come to this table and let God confirm in you what he has already begun.