Today’s reading is from the Jerusalem Bible version of the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 6, verses 43 to 49:

“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘There is no sound tree that produces rotten fruit, nor again a rotten tree that produces sound fruit. For every tree can be told by its own fruit: people do not pick figs from thorns, nor gather grapes from brambles. A good man draws what is good from the store of goodness in his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness. For a man’s words flow out of what fills his heart. ‘Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord” and not do what I say? ‘Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and acts on them – I will show you what he is like. He is like the man who when he built his house dug, and dug deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man who built his house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!’” This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Today’s reading comes from the concluding verses of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. It may be compared with the Sermon on the Mount within the Gospel of Matthew. The Sermon on the Plain took place after Jesus had spent the night on the mountain, praying to God. Two days later, he gathered his disciples and selected from them the twelve Apostles. On his way down from the mountain, Jesus met at a level place a group of people who came to see him. Jesus cured several of them with unclean spirits and then began his sermon.

This particular passage of Jesus’ sermon is about good and evil. That is not always an easy message for us to hear. It is much easier to think of God as completely loving and forgiving of everything, and that what we do, say, or think has no eternal consequence. Some people claim to have faith in God, but do not really live that way. The proof is in what they produce.

Here, Jesus reminds us that our actions come from our character. They reveal what is really in our hearts. While we sometimes can hide what is in hearts from others, we can hide nothing from God. The choices we make in our lives will be made apparent in the fruits that those choices produce. Each and every day, we will need to ask ourselves: Do we build our lives on the foundations of God’s message? We will need to ask God for the strength of character to help us in the challenge of day to day choices that we make.

In today’s passage, Jesus uses two images that are easy for all of us to understand. The first image comes from a garden. We could not expect to find delicious figs on a thorn bush, nor would we hope to find beautiful grapes on a bramble bush. The kind of people that we are fundamentally affects the way that we act. Consequently, becoming a person who seeks to be faithful and righteous is the most important mission of our lives. Yet, this mission cannot succeed without the help of God.

The second image relates to construction. When the Israelites moved into the Promised Land after forty years in the wilderness, their tents were no longer sufficient. They had to build homes with stronger, more permanent foundations to support their new lives. Otherwise, those buildings would fall. Within our faith lives, we must be similarly careful about what we build in the few, short years of our human existence on Earth. Through devotion, education, and worship, we must create strong foundations in God. In this way, our eternal mansion will be well constructed. Our lives, given freely in gratitude for God’s grace, will be living examples of humility, obedience, and hope. Amen and Amen.