Greetings! How are you today? Hope you are well. There’s a relatively well-known phrase that’s been around for a while that states, “If you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve got to walk the walk.” A variation of the phrase when cooking some delicious Asian cuisine is, “If you’re going to make the rice, you’ve got to wok the wok!” That’s just a lame joke for you on another chilly day.
The original phrase is reminiscent of the old adage that “Actions speak louder than words.” The great American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson had a quote along the same lines in that, “Your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.” These famous phrases, quotes, and adages can find several passages from sacred Scripture that reverberate the truth that there ought to be an integrity between the words that someone says and the manner in which he or she lives.
In the Gospel according to St. Matthew we read that, “…every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them” (7:17-20). These words from Jesus are formulated in a slightly nuanced way in the Gospel for this weekend according to St. Luke, “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit…A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks” (6:43-45).
Moving along in the New Testament there is a particularly relevant direct quote from the First Letter of St. John that states, “Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth” (3:18). There were multiple moments in the ministry of Jesus that he spoke about the hypocrisy of religious leaders of his day and age who spoke beautifully and eloquently but did not live well morally. The same phenomenon is still with us today across all spectrums of life with politicians, celebrities, leaders of faith traditions, and if I may be so bold even among ourselves. It should be noted, briefly, that not everyone who fails to live up to the teachings of Christ is an outright hypocrite. As a wise spiritual director once told me, “A person who fails and doesn’t want to change is rightly called a sinner, but a person who fails and yet strives with God’s grace to change is rightly called a saint.”
The main message that Christ and his Beloved Disciple and the various quotes offered throughout this reflection is that we are called to be people whose words and actions are in resonant harmony with one another. To quote the Great Patron Saint of our Archdiocese in his Letter to the Colossians, “…whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (3:17). Let that be our focus at the close of Ordinary Time and the onset of the Lenten Season as we talk to Jesus and walk with him.
