Perpetual Fruit

Exodus 20:1-17 Matthew 7:15-20

I had a visit the other day from a Jehovah’s Witness. He stopped by, as by my experiences is usual, to hand off a tract and go about his business. Although I’ve heard of others who have had unpleasant experiences with some, including my wife, I have never been challenged, threatened with hell fire, or preached to. They all, like this fellow, hand me some reading material and are on their way.

I cannot say that I know much about Jehovah’s Witnesses although my very first experience with a practitioner was not very nice. It happened to be a co-worker in Dallas who was extremely pointed and downright rude with me when I asked her to sign a birthday card for a co-worker. It turns out they don’t do birthdays or any other holidays. And when she was done being pretty darn mean, I wondered if it was that everyone was supposed to be born knowing what she thought she knew to be true.

Oddly enough, the most interesting thing about JW’s is that their contemporary practices and beliefs look a lot like the 1st and 2nd century church. They are very simplistic, they are far removed from the contemporary culture, and their beliefs are firmly grounded in Holy Scripture. They don’t have the equivalent of our Book of Discipline to my knowledge nor a particular catechism, a system of teaching doctrine. They do not participate in government on any level and, as far as I know, they don’t vote. Military service is also not an option for the genuine JW.

Today, however, the JW along with the Mormons are looked upon with more than a little suspicion. It is almost a reflex that if they approach the door, we are already geared for battle. We are pretty sure they are going to attempt to convert us, and we are going to do our level best to knock them off their “holy” perches. Isn’t it strange how they are the ones most often associated with door-to-door evangelism and yet we mock them as not being “real” Christians because their beliefs are considered to be “strange” even as we know very little about them and won’t even let them talk to us? I suppose they have just found it easier to hand off their materials, wish the recipient a nice day, and move along as has happened - at least with me - in each encounter.

It was interesting that the tract this brother handed off to me was along the lines of what has been on my mind these past days. Every election year things get rather heated, and the name-calling and mud-slinging seems to get worse with each passing year. We have politicians who are desperately trying to present themselves as our last great hope if we ever want to live decent lives in safety and comfort. And if any of us has a particular gripe or concern, you can believe that the politician will be right there with us agreeing with everything and “sharing our pain”.

It gets worse when churches sponsor political candidates and initiatives or allow them to speak to a congregation from the pulpit. It can also be very dangerous for church “spokespersons” to speak or write publicly – ostensibly in the name of that particular body - about any particular political issue or candidate. For my way of thinking, this practice is at the very least legally questionable.

The tract that the JW brother offered to me was about false religion. It begins: “What is false religion? Are you distressed about crimes committed in the name of religion? Do the warfare, terrorism, and corruption perpetrated by those who claim to serve God offend your sense of justice? Why does religion seem to be at the root of so many problems?”

“The fault lies not with all religion but with ‘false’ religion. A widely respected religious figure, Jesus Christ, indicated that false religion produces bad works, just as a ‘rotten tree produces worthless fruit.’ What fruit does false religion yield?”

Our own UM Book of Discipline lines out what we believe, what we do, and how we should go about doing it. The Catholic Church has its catechism which teaches the faithful about church doctrine and why the church teaches a particular thing. I have never considered either of these as tools of a “false religion”, but it would seem that the JW might suggest that anything outside of the Bible can be misleading because these systems are strictly man’s own understanding of the Holy. These are how we try to make sense out of things which can sometimes seem to make no sense at all. Like the Bible, however, these are records that are perpetuated from generation to generation. Unlike the catechism, however, the Book of Discipline is modified every four years however slightly.

Yet Jesus seems pretty clear in Matthew’s passage about what constitutes “false religion” even if He does not make a specific reference to “religion” itself. Yet what else could it be? Because the fruit to which Jesus refers is manifest fruit worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, it becomes necessary to think in terms of religion and faith. The problem with the term “religion”, however, is that it is not necessarily equated with terms of faith anymore than politics is equated with “good government” even though politics and government in general have become synonymous. Either way, good and positive results of our labors is expected and in spite of what some may tell us, we cannot separate our life of faith and religion from our public life in the political process. Our necessary fruit “production”, according to Jesus, is not seasonal from which we can take a break.

In light of verses 4-6 in the reading from Exodus, it would also appear that what we do now and what we teach our children and others will affect the “fruit harvest” for generations to come.

I think maybe the Exodus passage has been misunderstood or misrepresented by far too many who wonder how a God of “love” could be so spiteful. After all, to be held accountable for the behavior of past generations is about as fair as our generation now to be held accountable for the sin of the practice of slavery. We were not even there and so were not part of the process by which the buying and selling of human beings amounted to nothing more than the buying and selling of live stock. So why does the Lord seem intent on holding future generations responsible for the sins of generations past?

I don’t think this is the proper application. In the context of what Jesus is talking about, it would seem to me that what the Law is referring to is precisely the “fruit” to which Jesus refers. If we do not teach well, then generations to come will be the poorer for our failure.

It is not unlike the cycle of violence and abuse in the home that moves from generation to generation. If one is abused and neglected at home as a child, the cycle is too often carried forth from that generation and into the next because for the victim, it is the norm. It is what has been taught and learned. It is what they know to be true even as they can painfully recall the hurt and the harm done to them. It is still a mystery to me how these victims can be so mindful of the pain, the fear, and degradation they endured at the hands of abusive parents and instead of learning from that, they learn instead to perpetuate the violence.

But what about individual responsibility? Just as it is not fair to be held responsible for something over which we had no control, it is also not fair for those who live well and do good that those who do not are given an alibi because of their past. Our society has moved in such a direction in which we claim to understand that they have come by their harmful behavior at least honestly, but the cycle of pain is perpetuated because those who are guilty of such behavior do their level best to assign blame to the past.

Consider the case of former Florida congressman Mark Foley and the ensuing page scandal. When this adult congressman’s behavior was revealed, he resigned his congressional seat. He then checked himself into rehab for alcoholism and revealed that he had been abused as a teenager by a clergyman.

Whether any of this can be proved to be true is not directly relevant although alcohol has the potential to render any reasonable person “unreasonable”. Before he can ever hope to be “cured” from whatever it is that ails him, however, Mr. Foley is going to have to step forward and accept responsibility for his own behavior and not seek to lay blame elsewhere.

Notice, however, the “light at the end of the tunnel” in verse 6 of Exodus: “…but showing love to a THOUSAND generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Notice the contrast between the judgment against the “third and fourth generation” and the “thousand generations … who love Me.”

The wisdom of the Spirit of the Lord God insists that these cycles of negativity can and must be broken for the sake of future generations, for the sake of the “fruit” to which Jesus refers. Even though there is a definitive reference to sins of the past perpetuating into the future, there is still the element of hope. The determining factor will be whether we accept the judgment from the past or the hope for the future.

Amen.