Known By Our Fruits
Prayer of Preparation
Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing. Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
From Phyllis Tickle, The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime. Doubleday: New York, 2001, 68.
Known By Our Fruits
Sunday Scriptures from the Narrative Lectionary:
Does it seem like John the Baptist has an unresolved issue?
As we read these verses from Luke 7, we assume John is in prison (see Luke 3:20) and from there is sending his disciples to Jesus for some answers. “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (7:20).
These two men’s lives, John and Jesus, have been intertwined since before birth – literally, since they were in the womb. Later, John baptized Jesus. They would have connected at least at family events if not more frequently than that, and thinking about the duration and intensity of their relationship, John’s question seem sort of odd. Wouldn’t he know the answer? It is curious.
The question apparently follows a busy time for Jesus. Luke says he had just “cured many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were blind” (7:21). It seems that this flurry of healing activity had occurred right under the noses of John’s disciples as Jesus tells them “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.”
If we have been paying attention to Luke’s Gospel as it is unfolding, those words then remind us of Jesus in Chapter 4. There, he entered a synagogue in Nazareth and read from the prophet Isaiah 61:1-2, saying that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, that he had been appointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, and to let the oppressed go free.
Based on what Jesus read, based on the words of the Prophet Isaiah, based on Psalm 146, Jesus had been doing exactly what he said he would do. Go tell John, this, Jesus tells his disciples. “And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” (7:23).
John’s disciples leave, and Jesus then begins to speak to the crowds about John. It is as if they have been listening in, taking in the question of John’s disciples as well as Jesus’s answer because Jesus begins speaking to the crowd about John. After a series of questions about what the people were looking for in the wilderness — a reed shaken by the wind? Someone dressed in soft robes? — Jesus reminds them that those in fine clothing and living in luxury are not in the wilderness, but in palaces. Again, he asks them what they went out to see — a prophet? Yes, he says, this is John. John is more than a prophet. He is the one who prepared the way for Jesus. “I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he” (7:28).
Maybe John did not have an unresolved issue after all. Maybe he wasn’t asking a question for his own comfort and answers. Rather, it seems he was asking a question that would force others to answer a key question for themselves. If Jesus is the Messiah, what does the Messiah do? It is the “who do you say that I am?” Is Jesus Messiah and what does Messiahship mean? It is by the fruits that the truth is known. Is this Messiah fruit? Is this the Messiah? Does the Messiah do these things?
Fred Craddock wisely writes, “It is not one’s view of Jesus that may need adjustment but rather one’s view of Messiah” (100). He continues, noting that the idea of a Messiah, a Savior, brings all sorts of wishes, dreams and hopes. But, what will God’s Messiah do? “Can someone who gives time and attention to the dead, the very poor, the outcast, the acknowledged violator of the law, and the diseased be God’s Messiah?” John has to decide just as everyone else does – based on what others have seen and heard, as do his disciples, the gathered crowd and us.
Because if Jesus is the Messiah, then what we are seeing in the ministry of Jesus is what God is doing in the world, what the reign of God really is. And if we confess Jesus to be God’s Messiah, to be Savior, that is what we should be doing also. “Blessed is he who takes no offense at me.” We should be known by our fruit. And the fruit should match up with the Messiah who is Jesus.
John’s greatness lies in that he pointed to, prepared for this unique mission. He pointed to Jesus, the Messiah.
The audience is split. (Interestingly, we find this information in parenthesis!) There were the people, including the tax collectors, who acknowledged the justice of God and who had been baptized with John’s baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And there were Pharisees and lawyers who rejected John’s baptism and rejected God’s purpose for themselves (7:29-30). They opted out of the Kingdom! Accepting or rejecting John’s baptism, notes Craddock, is accepting or rejecting the purpose of God! “Those who received John’s baptism ‘justified’ God; that is, they confirmed by their acceptance the active presence of God’s purpose for them.”
Luke then brings us to verses 31-25 which offer commentary on the way people responded to John and Jesus. This is not the folks who confirm the active present of God’s purpose for them. It is those who don’t. “These unhappy people stand at sufficient distance from both ministries to criticize and to justify their refusal to participate by attacking the life-styles of the two prophets.” They do not approve of John. They do not approve of Jesus. The table fellowship of both, those who reject prophet and Messiah, are lacking. John is too restrained. Jesus is too welcoming.
These unhappy people have no interest in God’s Messiah. They prefer a savior of their own crafting. One who does not require them to tend to the poor and the widow and the foreigner. One who likes power – demands it even.
But Luke reminds us, “wisdom is vindicated by all her children” (7:35). It is the fruits that will determine truth from falsehood.
Saviors of our own creation are much easier to follow. But Mark 13 and Luke 21 make plain what false prophets and saviors of our own making bring. Division. Lying. Violence. Neglect of the “least of these.” Destruction.
The true Messiah, who is Jesus, shows by his life and ministry who he is, what God’s Kingdom looks like, and what his followers are to do.
And by their fruits (see Matthew 25; Galatians 5:22 for the fruits the Messiah is seeking) it will be clear who is following the Messiah, and what it is that Messiah’s do.
Who is your Messiah? What is the fruit of your following?
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Works Cited:
Fred B. Craddock. Luke. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, 1990.