Have you ever watched Legally Blonde? Chick gets dumped by a douche, and to prove herself to this douche, she manages to get into Harvard Law. Welp. Fast forward to the important part- she's working at her professor's law office on a murder defense. And our heroine, Elle Woods, has a connection to the client, a fitness instructor named Brook. Brook reveals to Elle that she was having Liposuction during the murder. If that's revealed, she'd be ruined. Not much of an ambassador for female fitness, after all.
Or, I saw another example like Brook from a collection of funny bulletin posts. "Due to the fact that Mr. S., our local banker, has embezzled $100,000 and been sentenced to 20 years, he will not be teaching his usual Sunday School class this week."
Kinda makes you want to laugh or cry, doesn't it?
"By this, my father is glorified," says Jesus in our scripture lesson for today, "that you bear much fruit." this is at the core of discipleship. Sure, we could be Saints and his peers driven snow with our moral purity. We could have the 10 Commandments memorized backward and forwards inside and out and in multiple languages, including the original ancient Greek and Hebrew. . Hell, we could even recite the Sermon on the Mount backward without missing a single syllable. We could pray so eloquently that angels weep and arch angels scream hallelujah. All of it is bullshit if we are not bearing fruit with it.
Rich bitch, businessman sat upon his high horse, looking down at his gate, where Lazarus lay broken, starving, and destitute and did not see Lazarus.
He was condemned to damnation because he couldn't bear fruit.
In the parable Jesus gave us in Luke: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. He said to the vinedresser, `Lo, these three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down; why should it use up the ground?'"
Jesus didn't just give us this parable; when he came across a fig tree, he cursed it, and it withered and died because it had no fruit and only flowers.
There is a thrill we get from those people who live their lives to be a testimony to something greater than themselves, those who have taken themselves to a higher place and taken their source with them, thereby improving what they have left behind. We look up to Jackie and Al Joyner from East St. Louis or many Olympic and professional athletes. These giants who are remembered more for their impact on the community than their athletic achievements bore fruit, changed lives, and now stand as our heroes.
The disciples that continued the work of Jesus heard the call to bear fruit. The harvest of souls into the fold and into this new way of faith in God flourished, the cost was the spiling of the blood of martyrs. Jesus' brother, James, and the other James, Zebedee's son, were mobbed and killed. Matthew died by the sword in Ethiopia. in Phrygia, Philip had his neck stretched by the noose. Bartholomew was flayed alive in Armenia; Archia crucified Andrew; Thomas was lanced through in what is now east India; Thaddeus was shot to death by arrows. Simon the Zealot found a cross in Persia. Rome crucified Peter upside down because he said he was not worthy of dying as Jesus had. Matthias was beheaded. John? he was the only one that wasn't brutally killed. he just died in exile, alone and lonely.
It didn't stop in the first century Christianity. Martin Miemoller, a German pastor, refused to give in to Hitler and spent nearly all of the World War 2 in a concentration camp.
Some reports say that the commander of that camp took it as a personal mission to break this priest. He placed an outspoken atheist in the cell next to Niemoller and gave permission for the two to talk . He arranged for them to take their daily half-hour walk at the same time and in the same yard. The athiest was a skilled deabter and an intellectual. He was also promised a slew of favors if he could manage to break the priest's faith. BOth of the men engaged each other and enjoyed presenting their points of view for four days. on the fifth day, the atheist begged Niemoller to lend him his bible. a book that had taken on new meaning to the athiest. That was the day the athiest found himself in a new cell, far away form the devout German Pastor.
Christian Discipleship is all about bearing fruit.
I'm not saying that a life lived well is always more effective than words well said.
NO one that gets into my car gets to see how I live my life. they don't see me reading and the questions I feel I need to ask. No one saw me at protests, or what I give to my church or the work I do, all I have to bear my fruit is this podcast. All I really have at this moment is the word well said.
Benjamin Franklin learned that sowing plaster into the fields can make crops grow better. He told the neighbors, but they didn't listen to him. They argued with hi, trying to prove that plaster couldn't be of any use to grain or grass.
Benjamin shut up after a while, but in the spring, he sowed more grain, close ot the path, where people could see it, he traced some letters into the ground with his fingers, put plaster in them and sowed his seed into that field.
it took about a week for the seed to spring up. HIs neighbors, as they passed, were surprised to see, in brighter green, the writing in large letters reading " This has been plastered.
There was nothing left to argue anymore about plaster in the fields. as the season passed and the grain grew, these bright green letters rose higher and higher above the fields to announce to everyone who looked that " This has been plastered."
"By your fruits shall all men know that you are my disciples." Cool. But how? How to we live lives that win over to this new faith? To a faith of welcome and love?
Good fruit is grown by having good roots. Jesus said, on another occasion: " “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes 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. (Luke:43-45)
Our roots determine the fruit we bear. Where are your roots?
C.S. Lewis wrote, "God has designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy without bothering about religion. God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing."
The Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company performed a study that showed evidence that deeply held religious conviction makes the most productive employees. "97% of those who made strong spiritual commitments had strong feelings of conviction, commitments, and loyalty that carried over to their employers, with highly productive results." Crazy that it mirrors a study involving over 21,000 students who qualified for Who's Who in American Schools and colleges. Over 85% of these honor students said that their faith in God was extremely important to them."
The roots determine the fruits. There are those that need to do a better job caring for their roots.
In our current discourse of life, there is something to be said about the bad roots. Take Donald Trump, former president of the United States of America. He was raised in Real estate, Playing Land Lord. His life was ruled by scams and short cuts, and a corrupt business life while making illusions to his own greatness. I"m going to be honest, those are some bad roots.
So many of his past associates have turned against him. He claims to be Christian with no sign of any christian faith. he tried to sell bibles to raise money for his lawyers he has to have due to how much evil he has wrought. and the witnesses against him in nearly all of these cases are former associates in Business and politics. Many of whom, themselves, are headed for prison, in prison, or indicted and waiting for trial. Trump stood in the National Cathedral unable to even read and recite the Apostle's Creed. His kids, his wife, anyone that calls him friend, all are absent as he sits in trial in New York.
Since I am in the Cheese Head State, let's talk sports. Way back in the glory days of the Green Bay Packers, Vince Lombardi was fanatical about the basics. Once, they lost to a team they had no business losing to. the next day, he called the team around him and roared, "OK, we're going back to the basics." he held up a football for all to see and said " THIS is a Football!"
Can't get more basic than that. Maybe that's what I really need to do. Maybe I need to stand up, hold up my bible- which will be difficult as it is on my phone, and say," This is a Bible." I'd show off an alter, but we're on a podcast people. and I don't think I need one for it.
It's about the Fruits and the roots. They both need to be developed. Jesus cursed the fig tree that didn't give him a snack. Bearing fruit is what that tree was supposed to do. SO is following Jesus. IN order to bear the fruit of faith, we have to be rooted in Worship, the Study of God's Word and in the fellowship of the Saints. Roots and Fruit. that's what it takes to live successfully as an authentic Christian.