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"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here."
- Matthew 12:33-42
Yesterday, we read that a man was brought to Jesus who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. And all the multitudes were amazed and said, "Could this be the Son of David?" Now when the Pharisees heard it they said, "This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons." But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad. Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."
"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." Jesus calls these men of the Pharisees "brood of vipers," as John the Baptist also referred to members of the leadership (Pharisees and Sadducees) who came to be baptized by him, when he said to them, "Brood of vipers! Who told you to flee from the wrath to come?" (see 3:7-12). Brood means "offspring," and the term refers to their deception and malice -- and also indicates a Satanic influence. We may contrast this with 'wisdom's children' referenced by Jesus when He spoke of both Himself and John the Baptist. Here in this context the term brood of vipers gives us something important to think about, as these are the men who have just accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of "Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons." John also connected their 'inner hearts' with the image of trees, warning them to "bear fruits worthy of repentance" and that "even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees." John added, "Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."
How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." My study bible points out to us that the heart in Scripture refers to the center of consciousness, the seat of the intellect and the will, and the place from which spiritual life proceeds. God's grace, permeating the heart, has the effect of mastering the body and guiding actions and thoughts. But on the other hand, when malice and evil capture the heart, a person becomes full of darkness and spiritual confusion. Jesus expands on the image of trees and fruit (see paragraph above) to teach the importance of the words we use as part of spiritual discipline. Not for the first time, we hear His emphasis on language; it was also an important teaching of the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus likened name-calling to murder and also taught to "let your 'yes' be 'yes' and 'no,' 'no'" (5:21-22, 37).
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, "Teacher, we want to see a sign from You." But He answered and said to them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here." Again, Jesus uses the language of the prophets in His terminology describing these men who demand a sign in order to have faith. Adulterous generation echoes the illustration used for Israel by the prophets when Israel was unfaithful to God -- see Jeremiah 2; Hosea 2:2-13. And once again, the importance of Judgment is evoked. There are those foreigners -- who lacked the spiritual preparation of Israel -- who repented at the preaching of the prophet Jonah (the Ninevites), and the queen of the South who came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, which was given by God. But these men, the religious leaders of Israel, demand a sign as proof of Christ's authority and identity, despite the fact that those Gentiles understood the wisdom of God that was presented to them. So much depends on what we are prepared to know and to understand, and where we fail to heed the wisdom we're already given. Jesus alludes to the sign of Jonah, three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, as the one sign they will be given. Yet, clearly, from His words He suspects they will fail to read that sign as well (His death and Resurrection after three days). In the Judgement, all rise and live at the same time: this generation will be compared to those who, with far less benefit from grace and God's revelation, did not fail to recognize that wisdom was being given to them.
The question, "What did he know and when did he know it?" may be characterized as part of a legal proceeding, generally conveying an impression of deciding liability. That is, responsibility for a particular failure to prevent a crime from taking place. Here, we could apply the question as Jesus' implication against these men. They know better. They are experts in Scripture, which they study even down to the most minute details, and argue as their daily process of work and authority. But, as Jesus will say of them later on in Matthew's Gospel, "they strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" (23:24). They are so busy looking for and finding minutiae to condemn that they will miss entirely what is happening in their midst; but this is down to hardness of heart -- and they are responsible for what they already know and are failing to acknowledge. Matthew's Gospel will report that even Pilate recognized that Jesus was handed over because of envy. Over and over again, Jesus will emphasize that responsibility comes with having been already exposed to something, given the grace of revelation, and the preparation of the prophets. These men who are supposed to be the spiritual leadership of Israel are the ones educated and steeped in Scripture, who are more fully aware than the common people of the spiritual history of the people of God. He emphasizes here that even every idle word will be counted at Judgment. We are responsible for what we choose, what we already understand, and what we fail to grasp simply through hard-heartedness, selfishness, a refusal to see. And these men have engaged in a typical psychological game of projection: they claim He must work by the power of demons, but in fact it is they who work against God, siding with evil against God's work in the world, blaspheming the Spirit (see yesterday's reading). We have to ask ourselves why the Gospel story is revealed to us in this particular way, and why Jesus' life is given to us in this form as the story unfolds. It is a story of betrayal on so many levels, but mostly that betrayal comes down to a deliberate hardness of heart. That is, the failure of human beings to uphold responsibility for what has been given to them -- and to do so out of a sense of claimed superiority, protection of one's coveted place, of selfishness. God's love will always try to stretch us into the place of God's beloved -- the persons we're created to be, the capacities we're capable of manifesting. This happens through revelation of wisdom, and our positive response within ourselves. Jesus' work of faith that He presents to us as holy work is just that: the job of faith given to us, to grow in the image we're given, to stretch with the wisdom given and revealed to us. We are to grow beyond our own limitations and the worldly concerns of competition among ourselves that stand in the way of the call of Christ to the heart to expand. So often we seem to focus on fixing everybody else or the problems that are beyond ourselves, but Jesus teaches that, on the contrary, "sufficient to the day is the evil thereof" (Matthew 6:34). We always have problems right before us that we need to work on, and we are called to work on our own faith and our own growth before we can help anybody else (Matthew 7:3-4). Projection takes place when our own blindness refuses to see where we need the work to make the tree good, so to speak, to heed the warnings we're given in wisdom. If we are to take Scripture seriously, then, it is we who look to the example of betrayal we're given, and ask in prayer where God would lead us and lead our hearts. This the job of faith. It is right in front of us, and that is what we don't want to miss.
