READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:
Jeremiah 23:16-29
Romans 8:12-17
St. Matthew 7:15-23
Grace to you all and Peace from God our Father
and our Lord Jesus, the Christ.
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His
Church, saying:
“Every tree that
does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Jesus is throwing around metaphors today, as a teaching and
a warning. First, just because you are “In” with Him now, does not mean you are
frozen there. You must take heed lest you fall back into your sinful ways.
Second, that same sin is what will have to be cleared away before you can see
your Savior, offering Himself to you.
Regarding what the Gospel said to us:
When we see a tree cut, it usually falls down. This is why
the English here in Matthew 7, says “cut down”, because we see a tree fall down
after it is cut. But really the word in the Bible is more violent than that.
Yes, we cut and it falls down, that is the effect, but the cause is that we
have cut the tree off from its source of life. It has been cut off, unplugged,
never going back.
When Moses is given the Law to give to the people, in Exodus
and Deuteronomy, one of the punishments of transgressing the law of God is to
be cut off. Not only cut off from God’s Covenant, but also cut off from family
and friends. You are out. The metaphor of being “cut down” like a tree then
comes in, for you might as well fall down, maybe even into your grave, because
you are not coming back from that.
Both the spiritual and the physical causes and effects are
here. A cut down tree does not come back. A new one may grow in its place, but
it is not the same tree. Even worse, the sin in you that causes you to be cut
off from God’s Covenant is more than just separations that can be mended or
patched up. Jesus describes sin’s work as cutting off hand, foot, or eye if they
offend you. We know those don’t grow back.
So when Jesus speaks in the Gospel sounding like metaphor,
treating animals and trees as if they represented humans, we don’t want to be
satisfied with just a parable-like understanding, telling us how to act right.
Why? Because it could cost us our spot in the kingdom of heaven! Though it
seems that Jesus is using parabolic language, He is placing immense importance
on them which puts an immense burden on us to be sure and get it right.
And yet, it is the very fact that we struggle with God’s
Word that is most of the lesson today. For, as sure and as certain as these
examples are reproducible ourselves with tree and animal, such is the reality
of sin that our Lord is teaching to us. Its corruption reaches so far inside us
and outside, that even nature is affected. In the Gospel reading, Jesus
mentions wolves. And He can, because corruption has made them ravenous, willing
to tear and rend foe and friend alike. That’s not right.
Jesus also brings up thorns, thistles, and bad trees.
Finally, He brings out demons. This is all to illustrate His point about the
truth of this world. There is good and evil, and there is a war inside you at
this very moment.
Thus, the Two-Spirit Battle rages, as St. Paul describes in
Romans 7, “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies
close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in
my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me
captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members” (v. 21-23).
St. Paul knows about that other law, the law of sin and
death, because it spills out from inside into his life outside, even into his
body. Though we often separate body and soul in our language, what happens to
one affects the other. People these days may not believe in sin or that they
are sinful, but the state of the world and the state of their bodies and souls,
beg to differ.
Repent. When you think life is fine, that is when you are in
danger. When you think you are the ones in the right, that is the trial God
puts to you. When you think you are standing on solid ground, it is only sand,
which constantly threatens to wash away and reveal all that’s hidden
underneath, especially those roots of that diseased tree you don’t want anyone
to see.
It was John the Baptist, after having announced the “Lamb
of God Who takes away the sin of the world”, who warned that “Even now
the axe is laid to the root of the trees” (Matt 3:10) and the Pharisees and
Jews listening were so full of pride and so sure that they had no sin in the
matter, since they were chosen, that they thought John was talking about
them.
These words struck a nerve, because they also knew of the
punishments God laid out, which threatened being cut-off. But in their heads,
they are in the right, they are the true descendants of Moses. How could they
possibly be wrong? How could any of that sin, that diseased tree, infect any of
what they are doing? They alone are doing God’s Will and He alone is their
“Lord, Lord”.
It turns out, the axe is laid at the Root, not the tree, as
John the Baptist said. And none of us are the Root, that is the Source. The
root of all kinds of evils is the love of money (1 Tim 6:10), but money can’t
buy you understanding. What we are to understand is there is a root which feeds
and nourishes sin and corruption. We would call that Original Sin.
And, there is a second Root, the Root of the Good tree, the
Source that leads to eternal life. This Root is the Root that is responsible
for all of Creation. The Source, the Chosen, the Messiah come to save and to
forgive. Jesus is the shoot that comes forth from the stump of Jesse. He is the
branch that bears fruit from His Root, which is God. He stands as a signal for
the peoples—of Him shall the nations inquire, and His resting place shall be
glorious (Isa 11:1, 10).
The Root stands on the Tree of the cross, a signal for the
peoples that the End is near. Not just the end of all things, but the end of
the reign of sin, death, and the devil. Everyone does something with Jesus,
they have no choice. They either believe or reject.
And His glorious resting place is first the Cross, then the
Tomb. For it is in His descent into hell that He frees the prisoners (1 Pet
3:19). In His Resurrection, Jesus opens the gate to heaven, through His Body
and Blood, redeeming all, even those who came before Him.
In His suffering and death on the cross, Jesus steps in
front of the axe, for even the Tree of God must be cut down until it bears the
Fruit of Resurrection. Yes, God let the axe, the blame for everything, fall to
Him and He was cut down and cut off (Isa 53:8), stricken that He might forgive
the transgression of His people.
Though the Tree of God was the ultimate Good, in Christ He
willingly and joyfully absorbed all sin and death, until He was diseased with
your sin. This disease, that was not His own, then affected His whole life.
Until finally He was sent to prison and not let out until He had paid the last
penny (Mt 5:26) of the debt of sin, in blood.
And it was only the Blood of God, the Fruit of God that
could accomplish such a thing, That in death, He remined the Lord of Life. That
in the midst of sin, He remained holy. That in the jaws of ravenous wolves, He
retained innocence. And it was this pure, innocent suffering that produced
eternal life for sinners.
Christ is the Root, Christ is the Fruit (1 Cor 15:20), and
Christ is the Tree. He purchases and wins a true vine, full of everlasting
life. He grafts you in. He cuts you off from sin, death, and the power of the
devil. He drags you to Himself in Word and Sacrament, kicking and screaming,
and declares you justified before Him.
All this He happily does for you, not because you caught a
wolf in sheep’s clothing, not because you are a grape on a thorn bush, a good
fruit on a bad tree, or an invaluable “Yes man”. He does it only out of
Fatherly divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness within you.
In spite of you, He is cut off for you.
This because it is the way Jesus chose to rescue from a
corruption such as sin. This is His way to renew. It is only in God’s
obedience, God’s sacrifice, and God’s blood that we find cleansing. A most
powerful cleansing able to redeem all of creation, in the resurrection.
And the resurrection is key. Jesus shows us our sin and
corruption in order that we see and hear His resurrection. For He does not just
raise Himself from the dead, but leaves teachings and warnings about it
everywhere.
We can consider, beloved, how the Master shows to us
continually the resurrection that is about to be, of which He has made our Lord
Jesus Christ the first fruit, having raised him from the dead.
Let us look at the resurrection that is ever taking place
right in front of us.
Day and night show to us the resurrection; the night is
lulled to rest, the day arises; the day departs, the night comes on.
Let us consider the fruits, in what way a grain of corn is
sown.
The sower goes forth and casts it into the ground, and when
the seeds are cast into the ground, they that fell into the ground dry and
naked are dissolved; then after their dissolution, the mighty power of the
providence of the Lord raises them up, and from one seed many grow up and bring
forth fruits. (St. Clement of Rome; First Epistle to the Corinthians)
If you are approaching Jesus by metaphor, He will give you
His resurrection. If you are approaching Jesus really and truly, He will give
you His Resurrection. The answer to the corruption and sin we see around us and
in us is the Resurrection.
Daniel 9 says, “after the sixty-two weeks, [the Messiah]
shall be cut off and shall have nothing” and in three days rise again. In
that Resurrection, “there is hope for a tree, if it be cut down, that it
will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease” (Job 14:7). Hope
that God-made-man has ordered all things under His feet, even our diseased
root, and works forgiveness through the Resurrected Tree, His Body, the Church.
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