Gospel Reflection on Lk 6:39-45

March 2, 2025

Jesus told his disciples a parable, “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. “A good tree does not bear rotten fruit,

nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles. A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”

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We invest a lot of time in taking care of our bodies. We doctor. I know I have exercises my physiotherapist tells me to do, and I try to do them. I have tasks I have to take care of, and I make sure that I'm putting time aside and doing the homework that will make them successful. But the Gospel today invites us to consider how we take care of our hearts.

Our hearts in a sense are the place where we encounter God. In some ways, our hearts are our garden of Eden. Our heart is where we walk with God in the cool of the day. And the issue is, is our heart a hospitable place, a fruitful place? We hear how wisdom literature, a good person out of the store of goodness in their heart produces goodness, but an evil person produces evil.

I think what Jesus is asking us is to examine what's growing inside of us, what's growing in our hearts. And often, we're not really aware of it until shoots appear. And some of the shoots are not healthy. Some of the shoots that appear from the garden of our hearts are murmuring about others, about spreading poison with our criticism, about tearing down the fruitfulness of our neighbors. And if our words are doing that, then the garden of our hearts is not a fruitful place.

We can make all kinds of plans and complicated arguments, but if fruit doesn't appear in our life, then the garden is not a healthy place. If the plants that Jesus talks about are allowed to remain in our garden, eventually, they will overflow and they will be destructive, not just of our own garden, but also of the gardens of others. When we allow those infected roots to remain within us, they destroy the soil, and they destroy the fruitfulness of our gardens. We need to turn inward and look at what's growing inside of us and ask ourselves, 'is what's growing inside of us going to bear fruit? Is the garden of our hearts a place of hospitality? Is our garden a place that's capable of nourishing others?' A place where we do want to walk with God in the cool of the day.