A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. You can tell what a tree is like by the fruit it produces. You cannot pick figs or grapes from thorn bushes. Good people do good things because of the good in their hearts. Bad people do bad things because of the evil in their hearts. Your words show what is in your heart. —Luke 6:43-45 (CEV)
On the surface this text is quite simple and perhaps even obvious. Of course only a grape vine will produce a grapes and you can’t get grapes from a thorn bush. Why would anyone think differently? So of course people who are good do good things.
Well, duh.
And yet isn’t trivial. Let’s take a step into the world of plants to see why this isn’t as obvious as it seems. Plants, particularly trees, can be grafted. Grafting is when two plants are fused together—either naturally or by human action—so they share the vascular system. It is generally agreed, from textual evidence, that this practice was well established by 500 BC, which means that it was started before then.
So, while a thorn bush isn’t producing grapes, the practice of using shoots grafted onto root stock to grow clones of a particularly good grape species was already in full use in vineyards by the time Jesus spoke these words. In other words, a plant that doesn’t produce grapes can provide all the nutrients to a plant that does produce grapes, and they no longer live without each other.
This is great news for us sinners. We are still valuable. Even though we all have fallen short of producing wonderful fruit, we don’t have to be thrown into the fire. We have value and just need to join our vascular system to Jesus. We can still learn to have a good heart and let the generosity of Jesus flow through our words and actions. Kind words can come from us even if in the past we have not always been kind. Initially, you might be slightly terrified of this prospect, but grafting is a slow process that takes time and care. You have to come back to the graft and tend it and provide support. Jesus doesn’t expect immediate transformation, just a gradual process of learning to be together.
Grafting is a creative process that gives us so much in return. There is mass use of it to grow a wide variety of fruit and flowers, from grapes to apples to rubber plants and roses. While some of these things we could live without, our life is so much richer for having consistently delicious fruit, having the ability to produce tires for our cars, and growing beautiful flowers to see and smell.
One of the things that is a less used in grafting but that I find fascinating is the production of trees that bear multiple kinds of fruit. For instance, you can graft a plum shoot and an apricot shoot onto the same root so that you can get both kinds of fruit from one tree.
From all of this I am reminded how much Jesus cares for all aspects of our lives and has so many surprises for us. In my reading of this scripture, Jesus isn’t trying to say that we are stuck with who we are. He isn’t saying we must live out our life on the path that we were stuck with when we sprouted from the dirt. No, he is saying that we can become his fruit bearers if we become part of him. What an overwhelmingly loving message that is. A message of inclusion rather than exclusion. A message to use our strengths in support of the good news that we all are good.
Jennifer Helbley is a generally unsuccessful but ever hopeful gardener. She and her family have been grafted into the Liturgical Service at La Sierra.