Spirit into Action
Daily Advent Devotional
English - December 07, 2022 11:10 - 2 minutes - 45.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingReligion & Spirituality advent christmas phillips seminary doc disciples of christ united church of christ united methodist church unitarian devotional Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Week Two
December 7, 2022
Spirit into Action
Matthew 12:33-37
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. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. Matthew 12:33-35
Most if not all of us have had the experience of expecting good fruit to emerge from bad trees. We grow frustrated with ourselves when sermons don’t write themselves after we’ve neglected our personal studies. We’re discouraged when our compassion isn’t as sharp as we’d like following a season of disconnection from our communities. We become disappointed with others when we’ve failed to mentor them as they deserve.
Institutions are partly to blame for this recurrent experience. Many of us are expected to be machines who generate fruit at rates that exceed photosynthesis, yet others are surprised when we arrive at a critical moment without sustenance for those around us. It seems none of us can keep up with the demands of the fruit market.
Yet, Jesus’s admonition to his “brood of vipers” is not a mere matter of victim blaming. This is no pep talk on the merits of self-care for maintaining corporate productivity growth. He is speaking to the cultivation of our moral and theological imagination. Our words are shaped by our spiritual formation, which means they are the fruits we bear to those around us—and which organize our spirit into action.
The challenge of a pericope like Matthew 12:33–37 is that it speaks to the spiritual capacities that unlock our understanding of it. A diet of spoiled pears will leave us fixated on the wrong fruits. We encounter a hermeneutic circle that demands of us spiritual practices and fortitude to navigate without spiraling.
Dr. Peter Capretto
Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care in Religion and Culture
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