Readings (Year C):
Sirach 27:4-7
Psalm 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Luke 6:39-45
Reflection: What are the fruits of our actions in community?
Late winter is a dreary time, but starting my garden seedlings for a new growing year always cheers me up. Inside, I start my peppers and tomatoes under lights. Outside, I’ll be planting peas and onions soon, and digging potato trenches, pruning my fruit trees.
Just getting my hands in the soil is an opportunity to reconnect with the living, physical world and the millions of diverse organisms in it, especially following an exceptionally cold winter. With our climate upended, I don’t know what the growing season may bring. Drought? Flood? Who knows. Whatever crises may come, I will do my best to give my seedlings a good start.
This kind of work insists on honesty. If I overwater my seedlings, and they damp off and die, I can’t pretend it’s not my fault. If I don’t prepare the soul well, with the right nutrients, and my tomato plants do poorly, it’s obvious. If I lie and say “oh, no, really, they did well,” the testimony of a meager harvest will tell otherwise.
In our moral and communal lives, when we do harm, even if it’s just by accident, it can be tempting to defend ourselves instead of trying to make things right. One way we do this is by arguing that the harm, we did wasn’t harm at all. You say I took resources from a poor community? Well, I say I was helping them learn self-reliance! You say my abusive behavior led to someone else’s misery? Well, I say I was speaking the truth in love!
As long as our morality remains theoretical and abstract and disconnected from the real world, we can convince ourselves and others that a drooping, wilting plant is a healthy one. Or a rotten fruit is a good one. We can force ourselves and others to deny the evidence right in front of us and point instead to some abstract theory according to which the evil that we did is somehow good. We can convince ourselves and others that shattering someone’s life was morally righteous.
The gospel reading today reminds us that the moral value of our actions in community really does relate to actual, material outcomes. This doesn’t mean there’s no room for mistakes. Sometimes our intentions are good, but things don’t work out. Sometimes a situation is beyond our control. Sometimes there’s information I’m missing. I may give my tomato plants the very best start, but we could still have catastrophic flooding.
But if repeatedly, over and over, my tomato harvest is pathetic, I should probably stop and ask myself if I’m the problem here. If I’ve been doing something wrong, since my plants don’t yield good fruit.
If repeatedly, over and over, my actions lead to suffering, disorder, pain, injustice, and the unraveling of the common good, I need to consider the very serious possibility that I am choosing unethically—even if I’ve developed a convenient abstract theory to justify my decisions.
A good tree does not bear rotten fruit. Nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. In our moral and spiritual lives, and in our political and social actions, let’s take a step back and ask: what is the fruit of our actions, choices, the policies we enable and promote? Are the hungry fed? Are the vulnerable protected? Are communities safer and healthier? Do people have hope in the future?
If we can’t answer honestly that our practices yield good fruit, we need to reevaluate them. And change them. May we all have the humility to evaluate our actions and the courage to change, when needed.
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