Wednesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time
The Lord remembers his covenant forever . . . What a great promise and surety we have in the psalm refrain today! God is indeed a faithful, covenant-keeping God; we can have absolute trust and confidence in God. The covenant with Abram (Abraham) is one of five major covenants (several others are recorded in scripture, too) enacted by God with God’s people (Covenant with Noah, Covenant with Abram, Covenant with Moses, Covenant with David, and the New Covenant in Jesus Christ.) In today’s first reading, God enters into covenant with Abram (and hence with us), whom God later renames Abraham when he establishes the Covenant of Circumcision with him. God promises Abram that he and his wife Sarai will not only bear children, but that Abram will become the father of many nations. Our scripture tells us, “Abram put his faith in the Lord, who credited it to him as an act of righteousness” (another translation says, “and he credited it to him as righteousness”). God accepted Abram, not because he lived a perfect life or that his works were deemed righteous, but because of his responsiveness to God’s promises. This verse is quoted three times in the New Testament (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23), underscoring the fact that our faith is salvific. Abram believed in God’s faithfulness, and so he placed his trusting faith in God. Righteousness is all about “right relationships,” and this encounter between God and Abram illustrates God’s desire for us in our relationship with God. We come to God in faith trusting in God’s faithfulness to receive us, to save us, and to bless us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus contrasts the fruit evidenced by good and bad trees. He warns of the false prophets – those whose fruit is false, or bad. A false prophet would preach a message other than the Gospel, one borne from faith in something other than God, or a distorted message about faith. A false prophet may have the appearance of faith, but in fact lack authentic faith in God, or be motivated by something other than faith. We are led to surmise, then, that a tree that bears good fruit is rooted in faith, in the true Gospel and in the faithfulness of our covenant-keeping God. As “good trees,” we bear fruit, not out of inherent goodness, but out of faith. Fertility and fruitfulness in the Kingdom of God is a product of our faith, which is itself the gracious gift of God. In Galatians 2:20, St Paul indicates that it is actually Christ’s faith that becomes our faith so that even the working of our faith is pure gift and not a work of our own. Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” In that key prepositional phrase, the original Greek reads “by faith of the Son of God . . .” God is so infinitely faithful that he even goes so far as to gift us our faith!
As “good trees of faith,” we are rooted in God’s love. The good fruit that we bear is all ultimately an expression of God’s abundant, unconditional love for us, received and then poured out for others. Just as trees take up water and nutrients through their root system and up into the body of the plant, so we soak up and take in God’s love which causes life-giving fruit to grow. Let’s spend time throughout today praying in gratitude to God for God’s covenant-keeping love and faithfulness toward us. Join me in asking God to increase our faith. I’m reminded of the father of the boy possessed by a demon who came to Jesus for healing. The father cried out, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24) In our humanity, sometimes we question God’s faithfulness. If you find yourself in a place of doubting or questioning, express that to God today and then wait and listen for God’s loving response.
My prayer for all of us today is this: “I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19).