If God Could Sell Your Fruit
Psalm 50:14-23, Matthew 21:33-44
“The kingdom of God will be...given to a people that
produces the fruits of the kingdom.” (Mt. 21:33-44)
A Communion Meditation by Thomas J. Boone, Ph.D.
Central Presbyterian Church, March 9, 2008

Fruit can be deceptive. Take cantaloupe for example. When I was thirteen my grandfather taught me a lesson about finding a good cantaloupe. I saw him pick some up and put them down, until he found a couple and put them into the cart. So I asked him, “Spencer (he wanted me to call him by his name), why are you doing that?” He taught me his secret for finding a good cantaloupe, which was to press the top of the cantaloupe. If it was too hard it wasn’t ripe enough, and if it was too soft it was overly ripe. It’s not enough to judge a fruit by the why it looks.

And take lemons. To the casual observer, unless a lemon is rotten it’s hard to judge the quality of a lemon by simply looking at it because they’re all pretty much the same shade of yellow. Now after the service you can correct me if I’m wrong, but what I’ve heard is the way to tell if you’re buying a good lemon is to check how heavy it feels in your hand. A good lemon is heavier than one that’s not so good.

Good pomegranates can be tough to spot, also. I love pomegranates, and I remember one time picking out what I thought would be as fine a specimen one could ask for. When I finally got to it, I was disappointed because when I peeled back the skin, out came a bunch of brown, rotten seeds. There was hardly any of that red juice that makes my mouth water just to think of it. Instead, it was just rotten and I threw it away.

The point I’m trying to make is that when it comes to figuring out good fruit, it’s not always as simple as looking at surface appearances. Instead, you often have to look beneath the surface, or be able to see the fine details that separate the good fruit from the bad.

That’s why fruit’s an obvious analogy for discipleship. First, fruit is good, but it’s not always what you see is what you get. Second, about all bad fruit’s good for is compost. Third, it provides a better alternative to the analogy of sheep. There’s not too many people who like to be compared to sheep, but being told we’re bearing good fruit is another matter altogether.

So when Jesus says “the kingdom of God...will be given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” it makes our ears perk up a bit for a couple of reasons. First, it may be surprising to hear from Jesus that the kingdom of God won’t be granted just to anyone. If you want to be in the kingdom of God then you’re going to have to bear the kind of fruit that shows you’re a member of the kingdom. Matthew must’ve felt pretty strongly about this particular element of Jesus’ teaching because neither Mark nor Luke recall that Jesus said it. The second thing to wonder about then is what this kingdom fruit is. So much of what Matthew has been describing in these last chapters of his gospel has been that there’s a deeper issue than just doing good deeds or being a follower of God in name only. This bit about the fruit isn’t anything new for Matthew, just a different twist on his major message.

The word for fruit occurs 57 times in the New Testament, and in Matthew more than any other book. In 12:33 Jesus says that a tree is judged by its fruit, so in 21:19 when he encounters a tree that hasn’t born any fruit he curses it with harsh words. “Let no fruit grow on you ever again,” he says. If you’re wondering why Jesus would say such a thing to an innocent tree, then consider how Matthew presents the story. Jesus has been walking for a while and comes upon a tree in season, it had leaves and should’ve had fruit, but didn’t. It was, in a sense, a tree that had fooled Jesus and others into thinking it had fruit, when in reality it had none.

The Jesus of Matthew has no qualms about making unequivocal statements about discipleship, and this case is no different: the kingdom of God has no room for fakes. But, to whom is Jesus saying this? Jesus saves his harshest indictments like this one for the religious elite of his day. They had all the book knowledge, but had no heart for the Lord. They had all the right garb and trim, but were empty shells. They could put on airs and fool people with their religiosity, but Jesus knew what to look for and in the end saw they had no fruit. They were the figureheads of religious zeal, the preservers of tradition, and the gatekeepers of all things “correct” about faith, but when it came to their fruit they had nothing to offer.

They, and plenty of others, thought they had the kingdom of God in their hands, but to them Jesus says it “will be taken away from you” and given to those who bear kingdom fruit. That’s pretty severe when you think about it. Evidently, Jesus thought bearing fruit was a serious matter, because without it those who think they’re in are really out.

But, let’s pause on that point for a moment. Jesus was speaking to people who thought that being God’s children meant going through the proper rites, and he hadn’t yet been resurrected. Those to whom Jesus was speaking knew more about the prophets and the Law than we’ll ever dream to know, so what we may think was the problem probably wasn’t. They were family who had forgotten what it meant to be in the family. God’s children had so many feasts anticipating the advent of a messiah who would redeem them, but when the redeemer came they didn’t recognize him. Their hearts had become like muddy water, and they couldn’t see grace even though in Jesus there it was right in front of their faces.

The past two weeks I’ve been talking about Matthew with this point in mind. It’s not enough to just do the works of God because for Jesus it’s the heart that matters. We can act like Christians all we want, but unless we have a heart of faith then what’s the point? If we think that being “good Christians” means doing “good works” or doing the things that we think Christians should do then we’re only seeing half the truth.

Bearing fruit is a matter of the heart, which both the parable and Psalm 50 make clear. Listen to what God says in the Psalm. “What right have you to recite my statues, or take my covenant on your lips?” Evidently there was a disconnect between the covenant that the people were reciting, and the condition of their heart. They read the laws against treating family badly, but went ahead and slandered kin. They weren’t allowing the covenant, God’s laws, to transform their hearts. As I said before, they were in the family, but had forgotten what it meant to be family.

And that’s where it seems to me that both the Psalm and the parable speak truth to our hearts. We aren’t Pharisees, but both texts warn against the danger of being in God’s family yet forgetting what family means. Being part of God’s family means having a heart broken by grace and transformed through love. And that’s where I’ve had to examine what Jesus is saying for myself with silent humility and thoughtful reflection. I have to check constantly my actions and words against my heart, which only I and God know for certain.

Now sure, on this side of heaven we’ll never have it completely down. We’re going to make mistakes, and we’re going to have to beg for forgiveness from others and ourselves many times before we arrive in paradise. But, let’s not lose sight of what we have. If we’ve accepted Christ as our Savior, then we have the Spirit dwelling in us. And the Holy Spirit is always working to transform our hearts, not through religiosity, deeds, and dalliances because these amount to nothing more than over-ripe pomegranates. Rather, the Spirit transforms our hearts through God’s Word, worship, and fellowship as He has done since the start of the church. This is our identity, our charge, and the source of our blessings. Amen.