The Tree and Its Fruit

As the Sermon on the Mount nears its end, Jesus returns to an idea that was prominent in the teaching of John the Baptist: that the true judge of what is good, true, beautiful, and holy in the world, is the impact it has on the world around it. Since it bears repeating, truth is not about a belief system’s internal coherence or beauty, or even its basis in Scripture or tradition, but is about what brings about goodness, life, and love in the world. Over the past decade, this idea has become the core of my approach to life and faith, and it was the single major theme of this blog in its first couple years (and I’ve since returned to it).

Jesus talks about this using the metaphor of a tree and its fruit:

‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7.15-20)

This is no one-off teaching. Psalm 1 for example compares the righteous to “trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither;” the wicked, by contrast, “are like chaff that the wind drives away.” And Jesus’ forerunner John the Baptist likewise taught:

Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. (Matthew 3.8-10)

Jesus returns to this teaching later in Matthew’s Gospel: “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit” (12.33). And, he does it again in the form of an object lesson in Matthew 21.18-21 where he curses a barren fig tree.

All of these teachings share the perspective that we know what is good in the world by the quality of what it produces. And it’s really what the whole ethic of the Sermon on the Mount has been trying to tell us. Faith is not so much about what we believe, which rituals we perform, or our religious heritage, but is wholly about how we actually live our life, how we treat others, how we walk in the world.

If you’re interested in this idea, feel free to read the posts and series linked above. But for now, I’ll leave it here because we’ll return to the idea at the heart of this analogy in the next post.