Trees and Fruits!

Sunday, March 2, 2025

Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Sir 27:4-7; 1 Cor 15:54-58; Lk 6:39-45

The eighth Sunday invites us to reflect on what nurtures Christian discipleship. 

Through the imagery of a fruit tree, Jesus talks of the character of a disciple who must give out of the repository of goodness, and for Jesus, that is the sign of authentic discipleship and maturity. 

The tone for Christian discipleship is set from the content of the first reading itself. Using speech as a revelation of human vices, the author Ben Sira instructs us about the importance of governing our tongues. However, since the tongue just represents the person, a good person’s tongue speaks wisdom while a bad person’s tongue utters pretension and falsehood. In essence, the first reading talks about the tree of the person that should be good in order to reveal the goodness in speech. 

Instructing on life after resurrection in the second reading, St. Paul motivates the Corinthian community to make use of this impermanent life to earn virtues so that they would benefit our life after resurrection. In other words, this earthly life is meant to prepare us for our heavenly life. Hence, our discipleship is about chiseling ourselves every day into becoming good people who will be known to produce only good fruits. What glorifies our resurrected bodies will be the goodness that we work on in this life. 

Moving on to the Gospel, we come across Jesus narrowing down everything to the imagery of a good tree producing good fruit. Just like the fruits, only our good actions can testify to our goodness. Goodness replicates and abounds only with actions that justify it. 

On the whole, the week’s liturgy is about practical advice for Christian discipleship. 

Is imitation of Christ easy or difficult? Does God tolerate only human goodness and abhor human sinfulness? Is it easy or difficult for God to embrace the sinners? 

For all these and similar questions, the answer is that a Christian has the obligation to make his/her life continually better. We may begin anywhere. Even the worst sinner finds favor with God depending upon the determination he/she reveals to climb the way toward God. 

In this regard, there is a beautiful piece of advice from St. Catherine of Siena, who said, ‘All the way up to heaven is heaven.’ 

Regardless of our failures and setbacks in our faith journey, what we must be worried about is the persistence to return to God. Christian discipleship is not an overnight task. It is a process. Hence, it has its time of low tides too. 

However, the only thing that would define our upward climb is the constant striving to become that tree that produces good fruits. That is the sign of maturity in discipleship. 

Let us pray that we may become the good trees that produce good fruits. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar