“A faith without fruit, and fruits without faith are collectively bitter things that are of no spiritual or genuine benefit to anyone baring them. But a faith bearing fruit and those fruits born in faith are precious gems of our good stewardship and God’s love unto the world. May we all be good stewards of our faith, bearing good fruits into the world, that by them, the whole world may know Christ.”
We Must be Fruitful
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; One God! Amen.
In today’s Gospel and Epistle readings we hear much about fruit. We hear much about good fruit and bad fruit; of false prophets and slaves to holiness; of good trees and bad. Yet, what does it all mean? Throughout the totality of scripture we read, see and hear various parables and metaphors about fruit-bearing, and it seems to present an idea for us of what it means to be a part of Him, a part of the vine to which we have all been grafted. Let us recall the words of Christ in the Gospel of John:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He [a]takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. “
As the vinedresser, God is a patient and purposeful farmer who seeks a spiritual harvest from each of us, His branches, grafted to His Son. As such he expects us to be more than just branches, but fruit bearing branches; to do more than just hold an ethical and religious identity, but to become living icons of that identity; to do more than just consider ourselves Christians, but to actually be and become Christian, living out our faith in such a way that we not only become good fruit of the vine, but bear the good fruit of faith in our lives, bringing forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that our whole lives may become a harvest of holiness for our King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
We are grafted to the vine through holy baptism and chrismation. We are watered by a persistence of prayer, both in our own lives and corporately within the body of Christ, the Church. We are thus fertilized by the teachings of both the Scriptures and the Fathers, the fullness of Truth found wholly within Holy Tradition. And we are pruned and preserved through our Orthodox praxis of faith and ascesis, those spiritual exercises so important to us all- prayer, fasting, and alms giving, but also a simplicity of life, unfettered and unburdened by the superfluity of this world. It is only here, and only in this manner, that we may become fruits of the vine.
But what does Fruit mean in this context? The underlying Greek work translated as “fruit” is Karpos (καρπός), a word used 66 times throughout the canon of the New Testament. Anyone who has studied koine Greek in at least a cursory fashion will know that context is important in the proper understanding of what is being said in all things. In one sense the word quite literally means fruit, or harvest. Towards that end we are all living fruits of the vine, that is Christ. We embody truth and embolden others to partake of it, becoming that which is pleasing to the hearts and minds of all men, that they may see Christ in us and through us. We do this in faith, but we also do this in fearful remembrance of the fig tree for which Christ cursed and condemned for bearing no fruit. Love has no season, and Truth has no end. Christ is unceasing, and so should we be also.
Another meaning of the word karpos is deed, activity, or “produce of a person.” In this we are understood to be bearers of good fruit. Just as we need the vine for life, for there is no life apart from it, the vine needs its branches so that good fruit may be born into the world. If Christ is the head of His Church, and we are living stones a part of that body, then we are His hands and feet within the world. The Orthodox Church wholly rejects any theology that violates the free will of men, but Christ calls each of us to Him, and it is our choice but also our duty to lead others to him by our own examples of faith, by our good fruits given to and done unto others, by the Grace of God and the Holy Spirit. Christ calls all men, that we may be brought into the fullness of Truth, grafted to the vine, and spiritually nourished by the sacramental life therein.
What does good fruit look like? Saint Paul tells us in his Epistle to the Galatians “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Notice here that fruit is singular. These are all attributes of a single fruit. Love is first and foremost. If we possess a Godly love, and truly love God as we should, then we will possess all the other attributes listed here. Yet, if we have love, or simply say we have love, and lack any of these, then the love we possess is neither Godly nor the love of God. Yet, such love can only be achieved through the acquisition of the Holy Spirit
How does one acquire the Holy Spirit? We turn to the words of Saint Seraphim of Sarov regarding the acquisition of the Holy Spirit:
“Prayer, fasting, vigils and all the other Christian practices may be, they do not constitute the aim of our Christian life. Although it is true that they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end, the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God. As for fasts, and vigils, and prayer, and almsgiving, and every good deed done for Christ’s sake, are the only means of acquiring the Holy Spirit of God.”
Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, the three great ascetic practices of our faith, the exercise and growth of our spiritual lives. Yet, our spiritual life is far more than just our thoughts and feelings, and inward spiritual practices of our faith, but in fact it comprises the whole human experience, the full depth of our humanity: thought, feeling, heart, soul, vision, mind, and body. Not only this, but our spiritual lives should consist of our everyday experiences – work, school, our social life, family life, home life – and not just be compartmentalized to Church on Sunday mornings. This is what it mens to become good fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, that peculiar fruit we are to bear unto the world, that by it and through it we may lead others into the fullness of Truth, the Life of Christ and life eternal. It stands as a perfect counter image to that of Eve enticing and leading Adam into sin through her half truth, or heresy, bringing death unto the world.
Who, by your example of faith, have you brought into faith, and the fullness of Truth? Whose life have you enriched, enlivened, and elevated by being the light of Christ in their life? Who have you helped and uplifted by meeting the other wherever they had need? What joy have you brought into the life of another? What kind words have you spoken today? What prayers have you said for those who hate you, and for those that others would deem worthy recipients of such enmity? Where have we sown peace, and have we been a cause for any enmity or discord anywhere within the lives of others? Are we honest with ourselves when we look upon the contents of our own hearts?
A faith without fruit, and fruits without faith are collectively bitter things that are of no spiritual or genuine benefit to anyone baring them. But a faith bearing fruit and those fruits born in faith are precious gems of our good stewardship and God’s love unto the world. May we all be good stewards of our faith, bearing good fruits into the world, that by them, the whole world may know Christ.
Oh Lord, Jesus Christ our God, by the prayers of thy most pure mother, the holy and God bearing fathers, and the saints, and the martyrs and the angels, have mercy on us and save us.
Amen.