Covenant Faith and Fruit

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today remind us to reflect on the Covenant between humans and God that we experience in the promptings of the Spirit especially in identification of false prophets.

Faith and Fruit

The reading from the Book of Genesis describes the establishment of God’s Covenant with Abram.

* [15:1–21] In the first section (vv. 1–6), Abraham is promised a son and heir, and in the second (vv. 7–21), he is promised a land. The structure is similar in both: each of the two promises is not immediately accepted; the first is met with a complaint (vv. 2–3) and the second with a request for a sign (v. 8). God’s answer differs in each section—a sign in v. 5 and an oath in vv. 9–21. Some scholars believe that the Genesis promises of progeny and land were originally separate and only later combined, but progeny and land are persistent concerns especially of ancient peoples and it is hard to imagine one without the other.

* [15:6] Abraham’s act of faith in God’s promises was regarded as an act of righteousness, i.e., as fully expressive of his relationship with God. St. Paul (Rom 4:1–25; Gal 3:6–9) makes Abraham’s faith a model for Christians. (Genesis, CHAPTER 15, n.d.)

Psalm 105 praises God’s Faithfulness to Israel.

* [Psalm 105] A hymn to God who promised the land of Canaan to the holy people, cf. Ps 78; 106; 136. Israel is invited to praise and seek the presence of God (Ps 105:1–6), who is faithful to the promise of land to the ancestors (Ps 105:7–11). In every phase of the national story—the ancestors in the land of Canaan (Ps 105:12–15), Joseph in Egypt (Ps 105:16–22), Israel in Egypt (Ps 105:23–38), Israel in the desert on the way to Canaan (Ps 105:39–45)—God remained faithful, reiterating the promise of the land to successive servants. (Psalms, PSALM 105, n.d.)

In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus uses a tree and its fruit to warn of false prophets.

* [7:15–20] Christian disciples who claimed to speak in the name of God are called prophets (Mt 7:15) in Mt 10:41; Mt 23:34. They were presumably an important group within the church of Matthew. As in the case of the Old Testament prophets, there were both true and false ones, and for Matthew the difference could be recognized by the quality of their deeds, the fruits (Mt 7:16). The mention of fruits leads to the comparison with trees, some producing good fruit, others bad. (Matthew, CHAPTER 7, n.d.)

John Shea, S.J. notes that today we celebrate the feast of St. Irenaeus, a second-century bishop and Father of the Church who may be best known for his frequently cited quote: “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.”

While created things like the night sky can help us encounter God, they can also draw us away from God. When created things become the center of our lives, our focus turns inward. Love for God and for others is replaced by a love for created things. We become like the bad tree, incapable of producing good fruit. We fail to give glory to God because we are no longer fully alive. Instead, our lives become focused on created things, which are temporary, fleeting, and limited.

What created things help us encounter God? What prevents us from being fully alive? (Shea, 2023)

Don Schwager quotes “Beware of false prophets,” by John Chrysostom, 547-407 A.D.

"Jesus reminded them of what happened to their ancestors who were attracted to false prophets. The same dangers are now faced as those that occurred in earlier days. He reminded them of the experience of their ancestors so that they would not despair at the multitude of troubles that would mount up on this way that is narrow and constricted. He reminded them that it is necessary to walk in a way that goes contrary to the common opinion. One must guard oneself not only against pigs and dogs but those other, more elusive creatures: the wolves. They were going to face inward anxieties as well as outward difficulties, but they are not to despair. 'Therefore do not be thrown into confusion,' Jesus says in effect, 'for nothing will happen that is new or strange. Remember that the ancient adversary is forever introducing deception as if true.'" (excerpt from THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW, HOMILY 23.6) (Schwager, n.d.)

The Word Among Us Meditation on Matthew 7:15-20 comments that Jesus wants us to examine our thoughts. Not because he’s trying to convince us that we’re bad people, but because he wants us to learn to distinguish between these false prophets’ inner voices and the voice of the Holy Spirit. Only by taking our thoughts captive in this way will we be able to hear the Spirit’s words of encouragement, conviction, and direction. Only by silencing the wolves can we hear the Lamb!

So how do you take control of these renegade thoughts? There are many ways, but none is quite as powerful as immersing ourselves in the Scriptures. As we prayerfully ponder the word of God, we’ll come to see more and more clearly the difference between godly and not-so-godly thoughts. Not only that, but we’ll come to love hearing the Spirit’s voice because of the fruit he bears in our lives—love, joy, peace, gentleness, patience, and so much more.

God’s word has the power to silence the false prophets in your heart. So come and listen—and let the Spirit set you free!

“Come, Holy Spirit! Help me hear your voice speaking to me through your word!” (Meditation on Matthew 7:15-20, n.d.)

Friar Jude Winkler finds in the passage from Genesis a pact between friends as well as a hierarchical relationship of blessings and curses with God. Abram is not subjected to the curses of a Covenant even as God is emptying and accepting the consequences of breaking Covenant. Friar Jude notes the instructions in the Didache for identifying false prophets.

John Moffatt SJ finds, in the writings of Irenaeus, some ideas about what it means to live in right relationship to everything of this world and be in communion with the natural order.

Irenaeus is not offering a programme for living in harmony with creation. After all, he lives at a time when, for all the real environmental degradation and exploitation that went into feeding the Roman Empire, most people are much closer to the land and much more aware of their vulnerability to nature’s whims. The idea of humanity’s being in a position significantly to control or subvert the natural order would be ridiculous.

Nevertheless, he does warn us against damaging narratives of creation and redemption, and offers an alternative that can spur our own reflections on what such a programme for care of creation might look like. And he gives us a vision of Eucharist as a liminal space in which communion (koinonia or ‘sharing in common’) binds us with the whole natural order, with one another and with the incarnate Word, as we are nourished on the journey to redemption. (Moffatt, 2018)

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM shares United Church of Christ minister Otis Moss III reflection on joy’s availability even in difficult times. Seeing his daughter dance inspired Moss to share the message with his community.

Sunday, I told the congregation that we must meet the threats in our lives. We must fight for justice, for our safety, and for the right to live in a world where we can thrive. But even in the darkness of midnight we can maintain a connection to the light. When we cannot survive in darkness by using visual tools of sight, we still have internal tools of memory to remind us of our terrain. Until dawn comes, we need more than the determination to fight for justice. We need love to keep us from getting lost in distraction, love to keep us from falling into despair, love to help us restore ourselves, get back into harmony with ourselves, so we can last through that dark night.  

“Dance,” I urged them. “Dance in the dark!” (Rohr, 2023)

Christ’s warning about bad fruit and our attention to the Spirit will help us stay on the narrow path of our journey.

References

Genesis, CHAPTER 15. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/genesis/15?1 

Matthew, CHAPTER 7. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/7?15 

Meditation on Matthew 7:15-20. (n.d.). The Word Among Us: Homepage. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://wau.org/meditations/2023/06/28/718163/ 

Moffatt, J. (2018, September 5). The Eucharist and care of creation – an ancient perspective. Thinking Faith. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/eucharist-and-care-creation-%E2%80%93-ancient-perspective 

Psalms, PSALM 105. (n.d.). USCCB. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/105?1 

Rohr, R. (2023, June 28). Dancing in the Darkness — Center for Action and Contemplation. CAC Daily Meditations 2023. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://cac.org/daily-meditations/dancing-in-the-darkness-2023-06-28/ 

Schwager, D. (n.d.). You Will Know Them by Their Fruits. Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations – Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved June 28, 2023, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2023&date=jun28 

Witness to the Word

The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today, the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist, challenge us to grow in fellowship and experience the tension between the limited appreciation of life in Western culture and the Christian reality of the Word made flesh in Jesus.

The Word of Life

The reading from the First Letter of John testifies to the humanity of the Word of Life.

* [1:1–4] There is a striking parallel to the prologue of the gospel of John (Jn 1:1–18), but the emphasis here is not on the preexistent Word but rather on the apostles’ witness to the incarnation of life by their experience of the historical Jesus. He is the Word of life (1 Jn 1:1; cf. Jn 1:4), the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible (1 Jn 1:2; cf. Jn 1:14), and was heard, seen, looked upon, and touched by the apostles. The purpose of their teaching is to share that life, called fellowship…with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, with those who receive their witness (1 Jn 1:3; Jn 1:14, 16).1 

Psalm 97 praises the Glory of God’s Reign.

* [Psalm 97] The hymn begins with God appearing in a storm, a traditional picture of some ancient Near Eastern gods (Ps 97:1–6); cf. Ps 18:8–16; Mi 1:3–4; Heb 3:3–15. Israel rejoices in the overthrowing of idol worshipers and their gods (Ps 97:7–9) and the rewarding of the faithful righteous (Ps 97:10–12).2

 

In the Gospel of John, human emotion and mystical experience surround the Resurrection of Jesus.

* [20:1–10] The story of the empty tomb is found in both the Matthean and the Lucan traditions; John’s version seems to be a fusion of the two.3

 

Eileen Wirth started a Bible reading exercise partially to see if she could plow through the Old Testament as she sought to discover if she really was a Christian.

By reading the entire Bible, I came to see that John and the other evangelists could not possibly have invented Jesus. There is simply no other comparable figure in history or literature. He was a real man from a certain time, place, and culture but his divine message is universal and universally demanding. Christians of every generation and culture can apply it to their circumstances. Reading the whole Bible made me a Christian in fact as well as name. Now the challenge is to live like one!4 

Don Schwager quotes “The Word of Life was seen and touched,” by Severus of Antioch (488-538 AD).

"Given that this same John also said, 'No one has ever seen God' (John 1:18, 1 John 1:4:12), how can he assure us that the living Word of Life has been seen and touched? It is clear that it was in his incarnate and human form that he was visible and touchable. What was not true of him by nature became true of him in that way, for he is one and the same indivisible Word, both visible and invisible, and without diminishing in either respect he became touchable in both his divine-human nature. For he worked his miracles in his divinity and suffered for us in his humanity." (excerpt from CATENA)5

 

The Word Among Us Meditation on 1 John 1:1-4 comments that the Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, means participation in a life and a mission that knits people closely together. St. John, whose feast we celebrate today, knew how important this koinonia was because he had experienced it firsthand, both with the other apostles and with Jesus himself.

Fellowship is a gift that God wants all of us to experience and to share with other people. So on his feast day, honor St. John by finding one small way to deepen your experience of fellowship with someone. Tell that person you are praying for them, or reach out to thank a friend who has supported you in the past. Jesus came to give us an abundant life—and that includes walking together with fellow travelers on the road to heaven! “Jesus, show me ways I can experience deeper fellowship with someone you have placed in my life.”6 

Peter Edmonds SJ, a member of the Jesuit community in Stamford Hill, North London, guides us through the evangelist’s unique narrative and encourages us to read the whole of this ‘religious classic’ for ourselves.

It is fitting that we read this gospel during Lent and Easter when we are at our best spiritually. It took time before this gospel was accepted in early Christianity. It was regarded as a dangerous gospel, to be handled with care, because it carried two main risks. It could lead to a neglect of the humanity of Christ, as if the divine Jesus was only pretending to be human. This is known as the heresy of Docetism. It could also lead disciples to claim they could not sin, because they have already undergone judgement in their encounters with the Christ whose glory they have seen. This is known as Gnosticism. These issues are addressed in the Letters of John, which are probably to be dated after the gospel. This writer ‘declared to you what we have seen and heard’ (1 John 1:3) and warned that ‘if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’ (1 John 1:8). A true classic is a text to which we can return again and again, and always discover something new. Rarely indeed will we pick up the fourth gospel and not learn something fresh about the story, the theology and the drama which it contains. It was surely sound instinct and wisdom that led the Church from earliest times to adopt this gospel as its favourite pedagogical means to introduce the profound mysteries celebrated each year during Lent and Easter.7 

Friar Jude Wikler sees the contrast between the prologue in the Gospel of John and  the prologue in the First Letter of John as balancing Jesus' Divinity and humanity to counter Gnostic spiritual ideas. The Beloved Disciple is compelled by Love in the race to the tomb, yet Love yields to authority to allow Peter to enter first. Friar Jude suggests the Gospel shows a Beloved Disciple who sees and believes through Love and Peter who keeps the Commandments.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, names some of the realities that have been “unveiled” in recent decades, as well as a reconciling path forward. Neither conservatives nor liberals are willing to carry the burden of living tentatively in a passing and imperfect world. So the contemporary choice offered most of us living in the West is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)! What a choice! It has little to do with real transformation in either case, because in each case we have manufactured our own false stability.

The Gospel accepts the essentially tragic nature of human existence; it is willing to bear the contradictions that are imprinted on all of reality. It will always be the road less traveled. Let’s call it “unstable stability!” But for some reason, it is the only real stability, because it is a truthful map of reality, and it is always the truth that sets us free. It is contact with Reality that finally heals us. And contemplation, quite simply, is meeting reality in its most simple, immediate, and paradoxical forms. It is the resolving of those seeming contradictions that characterizes the mystics, the saints, the prophets, and all those who pray. This liberation, this ability to hold the paradoxical nature of reality, liberates us from and for. It is the ultimate agreement to participate in the only world there is. True participation in paradox liberates us from our own control towers and for the compelling and overarching vision of the Reign of God—where there are no liberals or conservatives. Here, the paradoxes—life and death, success and failure, loyalty to what is and risk for what needs to be—do not fight with one another, but lie in an endless embrace. We must penetrate behind them—into the infinite mystery that holds all things together.8

 

The exploration of the Word made Flesh in the Gospel of John is an opportunity to be guided by the Spirit to a greater Reality than our culture of concrete facts permits.

 

References

1	(n.d.). 1 John, CHAPTER 1 | USCCB. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/1john/1
2	(n.d.). Psalms, PSALM 97 | USCCB - Daily Readings. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/psalms/97
3	(n.d.). John, CHAPTER 20 | USCCB. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/20
4	(n.d.). Creighton U Daily Reflections - Online Ministries. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/122721.html
5	(n.d.). Daily Scripture Readings and Meditations. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.dailyscripture.net/daily-meditation/?ds_year=2021&date=dec27
6	(n.d.). Mass Readings and Catholic Daily Meditations for December 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://wau.org/meditations/2021/12/27/277220/
7	(2014, March 21). Story, theology and drama in the Gospel of John | Thinking Faith. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/story-theology-and-drama-gospel-john
8	(n.d.). Daily Meditations Archive: 2021 - Center for Action and Contemplation. Retrieved December 27, 2021, from https://cac.org/kneeling-before-the-mystery-2021-12-27/