Fruit and Blood [Trinity 8]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Jeremiah 23:16-29
• Romans 8:12-17
• St. Matthew 7:15-23

To you all who are beloved of God in Rensselaer, called as saints:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ speaks, not just to His generation, but in history and to us today.

“Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

​ The lesson from Jesus today appears easy enough. Stay away from false prophets who do evil things and bear good fruit, then you’ll know that you’re not a false prophet or a bad tree…or you’ll be a good tree…or…at least bear good fruit. Bear good fruit, do good things. Fruit not blood.

Fruit not Blood means that instead of looking for the false prophets or enemies, you should be building something good, true, and beautiful. But fruit is hard. Just ask any parent. It is easier to hack and slash an enemy, than it is to raise children properly. It is easier to kill, than it is to reach out and build something to make your enemy a friend.

The way of blood is easy, as long as its not ours. enemies are easy and we all know easy is the way. to conquer them and feel accomplished, especially if its to the glory of God, all you need to do is pull the trigger. Or gather up your buddies, destroy his reputation, and run him out of town. 

The problem with that easy lifestyle is you may cut down one enemy, but more are waiting to take his place. “Living according to the flesh”, as St. Paul says in our Epistle, includes this never ending cycle of enemies. So we say, fruit not blood.

The fruit option sounds better and seems better too. Not only do we get the psychological benefit of doing good to others, but we also get to shine. There is no command or restriction from God against doing good. the possibilities are endless. Your opportunities to do good are only limited by the number of neighbors around you. 

And our communities are starving for this sort of attention. People lose their minds over not being told this other option of living. They only see blood and hopelessness, so they give up liberties and freedoms to try and pay for comfort and peace. for the time that you have been giving in this life on earth, nothing is better to do than to produce fruit.

As soon as we pick the fruit it rots in our hands. Jesus says, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not create many mighty fruits in your name?’” No matter how much fruit we think we produce, Jesus always places this doubt about how well we did or if we did enough, in our brains.

And we can’t blame Him. Of course we weaponize good fruits. They’re so good everyone should be doing them and those who aren’t should be punished, somehow, to learn a lesson or something. “You’re not doing it like me” so you make laws against those people that disagree and publically shame them so that they never work again. Good fruit so good, it has to be mandatory.

In our sin, we despise the Word of the Lord, as much as Jeremiah says. We say, “It shall be well with you” and neglect our neighbor and declare divine providence. We say, “No disaster shall come upon you” and fail to take responsibility for those among us who are hurting or even just think differently. 

Now we understand our confusion at Jesus’ words of good fruit and bad fruit. We do not understand God’s oracle, His Word. We jump to the parts where we can be better than everyone else and skip the parts where God is giving His Word to us which He speaks through Jeremiah in 23:33, “I will abandon you”.

How can that be a Word from God? How can God abandon the people He just warned about false prophets and good and bad trees? How can God abandon us? How can we prevent God from tell us “I never knew you”? This kind of high-intensity unreasonableness is not godlike, surely??

In our sin, it is certainly not what it seems. What we see is God vs. God. God saying one thing here and a seemingly different thing there. Especially when God says nothing shall separate us from Him, at the end of Romans 8. What’s important is to hear what God is saying and then the puzzle is solved. Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The key is not just Jesus, but it is in Jesus. As in you being in Jesus. Inside another person. The Lord repeats the same words at the beginning of Romans 8 saying, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”. 

All fruit come from God. Fruit and Blood is what God does. Not only does He create the earth and all the vegetation, but He puts man in it as well. Fruit and Blood. Jesus gives the seedtime and the harvest and in the New Testament, equates seeding to giving faith and the harvest to gaining His people for eternity on the Last Day.

So must we simply wait for the Last Day in order to figure out which works or fruits were good and which were not? 

There was an article in an internet satire-news website called the Babylon Bee. It was titled: Jesus Still Planning To Assemble Great Multitude Of Every Tribe, Tongue, And Nation Despite Ban On Large Gatherings. 

Now, it is funny in its own right, but there is a deeper point for our discussion today. That is that we don’t have to wait. Jesus is gathering today and He is gathering in order to distribute the baskets of fruit He has from His suffering, death, and resurrection. 

Jesus promised that when He was lifted up, that He would gather all men to Himself. And He has been lifted up on the cross. Isaiah 11 says, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” And in the Gospel of John He says, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” (6:56)

For fruit to be good it must come from God. But it must not just be those things that you take from God, such as do unto others as you would have them do to you (Mt. 7:12). You must also take those things which God says to take. 

That is, the only way to find oneself “in Jesus Christ” is to be baptized into Him. The only way to be grafted into the true vine through a Sacrament of Grace, for it is God’s work, not yours. God’s fruit and God’s blood.

In fact, these are the only offerings God accepts. First a rent heart (Joel 2:13). A heart that is bleeding out for the sin of the world. And the fruits of the Spirit, that is a perfect life towards God. This fruit and blood Jesus possesses, we do not. These acceptable offerings Jesus gives to the Father, we do not. These precious gifts of grace Jesus purchases and wins, on the cross, in order that we may offer His fruit and His Blood to God in His place.

So, yes, produce fruit and not blood in your lives. But make sure your fruit is Jesus’ fruit or it won’t count. So, yes, this is all about Jesus, but it is all about Jesus fruit for you. It is all about Jesus’ Blood given and shed for you. It is all about “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). 

We aspire to live a peaceful life, in Christ. Such that we can worship Him and wait for His Last Day. The fruit He gives us becomes apparent in our lives when we love God and love our neighbor, yes, but also when we hear God’s true oracle inviting us to His Church, so that we may be imitators of Him.

Suffering and dying for the faith, yes, but also living life under the Gospel and gathering together before the Last Day, in order to proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes in His Holy Supper. The lesson is hard when we look at it through our fruit, good and bad. The lesson is easy when it is about Jesus’ fruit for us. In sin, God abandons us. In Jesus, God never leaves us nor forsakes us.