Jesus once said rather curiously: "You will know them by their fruit" (Matthew 7.20).
I've been thinking much about this recently.
We would have expected him to say, "You'll know them by their orthodoxy, their doctrines, their interpretations of texts, their fidelity to creeds. You'll know them by the company they keep or how they baptize". But that's not what he said.
Jesus, here, used the metaphor of trees in talking about Christians.
In thinking through this idea, I've been confronted by images of Christians who have all the right words. They mention "God" often enough. They talk about being Christians who operate their businesses in Christian ways. They use their faith as marketing tools in business models to cuddle up with the Christian community. They rely on all the right words to convince folks they have all the right fruits.
But fruits are tricky things.
A fruit is more than just an outward act. It's also motives and character that display what's really going on -- over time, in specific actions that you see, over and over again. Fruits, you see, aren't just what you hear.
Fruit takes time to grow, in the right season. It's matured faith that blends what you believe with what you do, how you act.
Fruit is the test of Christ-likeness over time. It's not enough to put up the signs. To say in the advertising all the right words. It also comes in the patient bearing with one another. The virtues of hope and peacefulness. Of kindness. Without those, the fruit just isn't the beautiful kind. It's not healthy, edible fruit.
A bad tree isn't a rotten tree, you see. Because it's still producing its fruit. It's just not a healthy tree. Bad trees don't produce rotten fruit. It's just the wrong kind -- inedible.
Paul wrote that "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (Galatians 3.22). A Christian prided on orthodoxy and saying all the right things, but with anger or bitterness and hardness, is a dangerous Christian. Think the rest of Matthew 7 (particularly verses 22-23).
When I encounter folks who say all the right things, but lack that kindness and self-control, I have reason to pause. When I hear all the God-talk without the real revelation of patient love that bears the burdens of sisters and brothers, I have reason to pause.
I'm uncomfortable if God is your marketing technique. I'm even more uncomfortable if you're saying all the right things, but the fruit is bitter-tasting.
I've had cause to think about all this recently.
People are like trees, Jesus said. And sometimes the fruit we Christians bear is so bitter, so unhealthy.