31 Days of UnityНамуна

(Re)flect: Are you good at picking out produce? Can you look at a fruit or vegetable and know whether it is ripe or whether it will taste good? What do you look for? Is it color? Is it texture? Are you someone who has to feel it and gently squeeze it to test it out? What experiences helped you learn to pick out good produce and avoid the bad stuff?

Scripture is filled with produce imagery. Fruits, vegetables, trees, and grains feature prominently in the metaphors of scripture. God is good at giving us deep truths in simple packages so that when we encounter the chaos and confusion of life we have a clear foundation to return to.

Jesus was masterful at taking the mysteries of God’s kingdom and revealing them through simple stories or metaphors. In this passage, we have several different images that point us back to the same truth of the kingdom: the path to God’s kingdom is very specific, and if you know what to look for clearly discernible. Jesus challenges his disciples to continue on the narrow path of God’s kingdom and gives them tools to discern what is of God’s kingdom and what is merely of this world. God’s path is narrow, not because only a few are allowed to walk it, but because it is specific. God has a clear plan for our lives and invites all to walk this specific path.

Unfortunately, many who claim to walk this path are walking the wide road of destruction. They are not what they seem to be. They claim the name of God, but it is not their words, but their actions and the fruit of their lives that demonstrate whether they are truly following the way of God. This is a passage that is deeply challenging to all of us because we have to ask ourselves whether or not we are walking the narrow path or if we have strayed. Are we following the false teachings of those who claim the name of God but have no fruit to show?

The path to unity requires us to become produce experts. We must learn to discern the fruit of God’s kingdom: love, joy, peace, hope, healing, reconciliation, grace, mercy, justice, compassion, and kindness. We must learn to discern whether these are the fruit of our own lives and whether the path others are calling us to will lead to this fruit or the bad fruit of our world: division, violence, hatred, arrogance, exclusion, suffering, and injustice. Unity is part of the good fruit of walking the narrow path. All are invited, but there is only one path that leads to good fruit. May we, through the Spirit, learn to discern this path in love.

After you read the passage, ask yourself these questions:

• What fruit of God’s presence do you see in your own life?
• What does it mean to know God and to know the Father’s will?
• What fruit do you long to see in your community?
• How can walking the narrow path lead to cultivating unity in the church?

Our Prayer for (Re)flection:

Lord, reveal how we have failed to be obedient to you and to love one another as the children of God. We long to be unified through your love and as the body of Christ. Renew our hearts and minds through your unending love, and give us the courage to surrender ourselves to your Spirit this day. Amen