Where’s the Fruit?

This week’s readings present a wonderful look at God’s kingdom and a challenging look at our society and ourselves. In our first reading, Isaiah gives us a picture of God’s Holy Mountain. He tells us that the Messiah is going to act with justice and faithfulness, that peace will fill everyone, and that our children will play with the cobra. I do not know about you, but I am not one for snakes. I am glad that God created them and they have a place on the Earth. However, that place is far away from me!

In our Gospel, Matthew tells of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to see John the Baptist. John is not welcoming or peaceful with them. He calls them “vipers” and demands that they “produce good fruits as evidence of [their] repentance”. John warns them that depending on their Hebrew heritage will not save them. Then John talks about trees being cut down and bad grain being burned in unquenchable fire. Quite a different picture than the one Isaiah gave us.

However, this is the challenge! We look at the peaceful mountain that Isaiah prophesizes and we feel warm and fuzzy, but do we think of that as a possibility for our world? Do we strive everyday to bring about that Kingdom? Do we act and think like the Messiah of Isaiah? Or do we go about our lives judging people, like the Pharisees and Sadducees, thinking that because we are Christian we are ok? Where are our “good fruits”, our works towards the Kingdom?

This is not an easy life we are called to live. It is easy to get discouraged, to feel like failures if we don’t fix everything. But we are only a part of the whole. Paul wrote that we should “think in harmony with one another, in keeping with Christ Jesus, that with one accord you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He tells us that we are not alone and “that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”. Our hope then comes from our faith and our community. We do not have to fix the world by ourselves; we are workers, not master builders as Archbishop Oscar Romero said. If we can become the true Body of Christ on Earth and create the Kingdom, then you will see me happily playing with a cobra!

Matthew Kosydar is a WVU alum and former member of St. John’s.

Recommended Reading:
Prophets of a Future Not Our Own
http://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/NetCommunity/Document.Doc?id=867

Question of the Week:
How am I building The Kingdom? How can we as a Catholic community work together in this endeavor?