I think it is safe to say that we all want to produce good fruit.
We are all here because we want to be good trees!
How can we produce good fruit?
Desire alone will not get it in our lives.
Coming to Church alone will not get it for us.
What are the elements that help
the tree of our life to produce good fruit?
We do not need to be horticulturists to understand
that soil of the tree makes a great difference.
A good fruit will not come from a tree that is planted in bad soil.
Then what is the soil of our lives?
We have to be honest.
If we are involved in an office environment that is toxic,
our family will know it as we are going to carry that home with us.
That toxicity becomes part of us and
pours out of us or oozes out of us
whether we like it or not.
If all those bad jokes or put downs that are happening at work
then we are going to bring that home with us, not intentionally,
but it seeps out maybe in an odd phrase here or there
because we are surrounded by it, that is what happens.
It is also true that whom we spend time with if they are toxic,
we are going to absorb that and it becomes the soil of our lives.
We are going to absorb in all those bad phrases;
all those bad thoughts;
those bad ways of thinking;
all of that is all just going to get subsumed in
and it will become the fruit in our own lives.
It is not just who we spend our time with
but what news channel we watch.
What is being fed into our lives?
The algorithm of the computers on social media are brilliant.
They just feed you what you “like” and they just keep on feeding it.
It is unfortunate that a self-negative reinforcing circle
keeps feeding us what we are looking at.
And that is not good for us.
The challenge is “with whom” and “with what” are we spending our time.
It’s a real challenge because that is the nutrient of our soil.
We have to be careful and we have to be honest about that.
Is Jesus Christ and is God one of those sources we spend time with?
Do we spend time with God each day?
Do you spend time just listening and absorbing
in just like we do with the internet,
just like television,
just like the news channels?
Do we spend time absorbing in the news of Jesus Christ?
The challenge is that we can fool ourselves into thinking
swe are so busy that we do not have time to pray.
But we have time to do all these other things.
The challenge for us is to acknowledge then
that these inputs have a real impact on
whether we are going to produce good fruit.
We cannot produce the good fruit
if we are not reading from the good book;
if we are not listening to the good Lord;
if we are not participating in the good Lord’s community.
I want to say it is great that we are here at Church
but this is never, ever going to be enough for the whole week.
One hour out of 168 hours is just not going to be enough.
Never will be. And never can be.
We have to have more time to absorb inside
the nutrients of the Lord in our life.
A great metaphor here is the story of the Chinese bamboo plant.
The Chinese bamboo plant once the seed is planted
shows no apparent growth for five years.
It grows deep down into the soil.
Then after five years, it grows 90 feet in 90 days
The roots have gone down for five years
and they are full of nutrients and ready to go.
Then there is this explosion of growth that takes place.
Now I am not suggesting we take five years to grow
but we do have Lent starting this Wednesday.
And I am going to suggest that we take 40 days
of going deep down into the soil of our hearts;
to really deepen our roots into God’s Word and Christ into our lives.
That is going to require sacrifice.
You do not have anymore than 24 hours a day like I do.
So we are going to have to give up something
to get some time with the Lord.
So give up some news channel.
Give up some internet.
Give up some television.
Give up something to get that half-hour extra a day
so that you can spend time digging deep into the soil of God’s Word.
I promise you the growth will happen
but you must be patient.
It will not take you five years
but it might take you all 40 days of Lent to get that growth.
If you hold on for at least the 30 days
as required to develop a habit
then you will find that your speech is transformed;
like this first reading warns us.
Sirach is warning us that what comes out of us is only what,
in a sense, what we are grounded in.
The Lord reminds us that then what happens is
we become less judgmental of others because we realize,
well, we have our own stuff to deal with
and if truth be told when we start to spend time with the Lord,
we know we cannot live the life of being a disciple without his grace;
and neither can anyone else.
We become a little bit gentler and kinder with others
because we know life is hard.
We know there are many influences in our lives.
The soil of our lives is not as pure as we would like it to be.
And there are many influences that bring that.
But if we can go deeper with Christ and
spend time with the Lord.
That might mean spending 20 or 30 more minutes a day in private prayer;
or maybe you would want to come to daily Mass for the whole of Lent.
We have Mass at 6:30am and Mass at 8:30am every single day.
So maybe you could do that before you go to work or school.
I do not know what will work for you
but whatever it is, try something new.
Try to go deeper into God’s Word and
to listen to Christ in your own life.
I promise you the growth will come.
Be patient. The Lord is patient.
Be gentle and kind not only with yourself
but also with those around you.
Today, let us choose Christ and go deep with him.
