Homily 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time - February 27, 2022

 Readings for today can be found here.

            At a home I once lived, we had two fruit trees in our back yard, a pear and an apple.  The pear tree produced two to three bushels of pears every year.  It required very little work through the season.  I would spray it twice and we would get huge pears that were perfect.  Even if I pruned the tree way back in the fall, it would still produce a ton of fruit the next year.  The apple tree, on the other hand, was a lot more work.  We would get a lot of apples on it, but regardless of what I did, we had a hard time getting apples that didn’t have spots, holes, etc.  I would spray several times a year, prune it, do everything I could to get good fruit.  It seemed I wasn’t getting much out for all the effort I was putting into it.

            Today’s Gospel continues Luke’s readings on discipleship.  It began two weeks ago with the Beatitudes and continued last week with the instructions to love our enemies and not to judge others.  Jesus reminds us today that we should strive to be like Him, our teacher.  Jesus tells us that being a good disciple requires seeing clearly.  The test of how well we are like Jesus is the fruit that we produce.

There are some people like the pear tree I had.  Being a disciple of Jesus seems to come more naturally for them.  They seem to be graced with a kind of holiness that is easy for all to see.  However, I think most of us are more like my apple tree.  We want to be a good disciple and produce good fruit, but it takes a lot of work.  It can feel very difficult at times.  However, Jesus calls us, as disciples, to do difficult things.  Last week, Jesus told us we should not only love those who care for us, but also those who harm us.  This week, Jesus asks us to do something just as difficult: be careful when we criticize others.

Jesus tells us that before we try to remove a speck from our neighbor’s eye, we should remove the beam from our own eye.  We have the tendency to point out the little faults we see in others.  How often have we judged others based on how they look, or the music they listen to, or the choices they make in life?  Do we ever sit around the table with friends or family and criticize what someone has been doing?  I must admit I’ve been guilty of that.  Instead of judging or criticizing others, we should look inwardly instead and ask for the grace to overcome our own faults, whatever they may be.  A good start might be to ask Jesus for the grace to see and love others as He did.  By focusing on others, we begin to see them more clearly.  Another step is to examine our consciences regularly and take advantage of the sacrament of Reconciliation.  By repenting of our sins and striving to do better as Christians, we can learn to focus on others more.

Our readings today warn us to be careful in our speech.  Our first reading reminds us that just as the fruit of a tree shows the care it had, so does a person’s speech reflect their thoughts.  Jesus goes further saying our speech shows what is truly in our hearts.  Out of a store of goodness, our hearts will produce good and so the things we say will reflect that.  How do we speak about and to others?  Not just when we’re with them, but most especially when we’re not.  It’s easy to be polite when speaking with a person directly.  But what about when they’re not around?  In today’s world of electronic communication, we can forget that there’s a real person at the other end of the keyboard or electronic device.  Have we ever fired of an angry email saying things we wouldn’t have said if the person were in front of us?  Have we left a snarky, condescending, or self-righteous comment on a social media post?  What kind of fruit are we producing in what we say to others, whether with our lips or our fingers?  Perhaps, before firing off that comment or email, we should stop and think about how it would sound if we made that same comment with the person right in front of us.

Jesus calls on us to be disciples and act in ways that may be difficult for us.  He tells us to open our eyes so we can see clearly.  We should look to Jesus to be our teacher in what it means to be a disciple.  By removing the beams in our eyes and focusing on others, we can bear good fruit and be known by that fruit.