Sirach 27:4–7
1 Corinthians 15:54–58
Luke 6:39–45
Today we are blessed to be hearing from two wisdom teachers. There is Ben Sira trying to lay out the wisdom of Israel to a diaspora community in a Hellenistic world. He is looking to put before the community the riches of their tradition from lived experience. His goal is to show what traits will reveal a person’s true character and integrity. Then there is Jesus who is trying to put in front of his disciples a way of integrity that will lead them to bear good fruit in due season. Jesus has been a teacher for his disciples and for us the past few Sundays. Jesus as the teacher of wise living not only speaks well and graciously as we heard a few weeks ago; he also lives out his word in a life of kindness and compassion. Last week he pushed us to the limits of that kindness when speaking of the depth our love must have. It must include those we label other or enemy.
Like a good teacher and in line with many a wisdom teacher, our two teachers today use exaggeration to make their point and employ metaphors taken from daily life and the natural world. The familiar biblical image of a tree seems to have caught their attention. Jesus notices that some folks actually have a plank or beam in their eyes. But having a log of wood in your eyes does not make one a very efficient speck-remover for someone else’s eyes. It would seem that a beam in one’s eyes would mean that you are blind. A sense of superiority distorts our vision of our neighbor and ourselves. We start giving advice when we ourselves know very little or have little experience of the matter at hand. We can be great at making snide remarks or giving false praise but to make sure we are on top in our interactions. We find ourselves quick to be on the offensive against others, making sure they and everyone else knows their faults. We are quick to place ‘ought to’ on others as if we were teachers of the first order. And at the same time, some of us could win prizes for the way they use words to defend ourselves.
A characteristic of a wise man or woman is not that they have a good vocabulary. Rather they exhibit wisdom in knowing themselves well enough to be aware of the appropriate moment of when to speak and how to speak. Classical wisdom says that a fool uses a volley of words, they come spewing out. The wise person does not judge but speaks from the fullness of their heart. Self-knowledge is key to the wisdom tradition and a Kingdom way of seeing and hearing. If we do not know ourselves, we have the tendency to paint a wonderful picture of ourselves or even to paint ourselves as innocent and pure. We then view the imperfect world around us as if we are not a part of it. We live in disdain of it rather than with compassion and mercy as we learned last week. The only way to approach others is to know well our own story. The wise person, the person in the Kingdom, walks humbly before God and with themselves.
There is a story told about Gandhi that might be helpful when it comes to a plank or beam in your eye.. It sheds light on how one wise person approached a situation.
A woman brought her granddaughter to Gandhi and commanded, “My granddaughter eats too much sugar. Tell her to stop.”
Gandhi said, “Bring her back next week.”
The granddaughter and grandmother returned the following week. But Gandhi put them off again, saying the same thing, “Bring her back next week.” This happened three times.
Finally, Gandhi said to the granddaughter, “You should not eat so much sugar. It is not good for you.”
The grandmother was bewildered. “We waited four weeks for this simple remark.”
“Ah!” Gandhi sighed. “It took me that long to stop eating too much sugar myself.”
Jesus ends his wisdom sayings with a simple but profound line: “From the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.” In our biblical tradition with its wisdom, the spiritual center of a person is called the heart. It bears the source of our identity. A good tree bears good fruit. A good heart speaks truth and love and recognizes goodness and beauty. The heart is the hidden source of speech. It has within it an abundance, a treasure that the mouth draws on and makes available to the outer world. The heart then appears in the outer world and can be judged through what a person says. If the person spins out evil imaginings, then we are assured the heart is not good. If a person’s words weave scenes of reconciliation, hope and peace, we can be assured that their heart is in touch with the God of reconciliation, love and forgiveness. What you say reveals who you are.
Jesus makes it clear that a disciple of his can be recognized by the words that he or she speaks. The integrity and identity of the person will easily become known. Words matter, language matters. Jesus uses images of blind and seeing people, logs and splinters and trees to drive his point home. The tree is an ancient symbol of the human person. Different aspects of it are used to speak of various qualities of being human. Sometimes it is about stability, about drawing life from the right sources, or about bearing fruit. Today all these combine to producing fruit, that is speech that flows from a good heart, a heart that loves our Father above all else and that loves others for who they are.
In his book The Hidden Life of Trees, the German forester Peter Wohlleben has a chapter early on entitled “The Language of Trees.” He is aware that the reader will be surprised that trees can communicate, that they speak. He gives some examples of trees that live together in the woods and forests and their communication methods that are quite visible and tactile. But he also shares what science has recently come to know: that the trees are also communicating where it cannot be seen, underground through their root systems and their fungal networks. With this system, the trees talk to one another, help and defend one another in their community of forest. We outsiders do not see or hear this, but a language is maintaining a community and sustaining it.
Perhaps today the wisdom teacher will want to draw on this part of the image of a tree to remind us of the quiet power of our simple day-to-day words to support, nurture and look after those we live with. Hidden it seems from the outside but in effect assuring that the tree bears leaves and fruit.
Jesus’ words come from his heart. We hear them as grace-filled. We see in his life that what he speaks, he also walks and lives….
Lent is upon us. This is the time to get our heart back in order so that we can speak again “Alleluia” “Praise the Lord” from the heart and build up one another in love with words that carry life.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB