Where is Your Fruit? Where are Your Roots?
During my high school and college years, I worked quite a few summers at a local feed and seed store here in Wichita, KS, which happens to also specialize in grass seed and lawn care products. And for those of you who have put in a new lawn at your own house or do so for a living, you know that well, it can be a pretty time-consuming process.
Not only do you have to pick the right grass seed and fertilizer, but you have to get the soil ready for planting, and then once the seed has been planted, you have to water, and water, and water it again…not just so that the grass will come up…but so that the roots will go deeper and deeper into the ground, because roots naturally follow the moisture…and without a good (deep) root system, that lawn won’t make it in a Kansas summer heat. Even then, we still have to water it at times.
Now your typical fescue lawn is probably the most common grass for Kansas lawns (OK, I know this sounds like a lawn and garden education class but stick with me). Your typical fescue lawn has roots that are about 12-14 inches deep into the ground…now that sounds somewhat deep…but if you’ve ever driven on Interstate I-35 between Wichita and Kansas City, you’ve seen and driven through the Flint Hills…And the roots of the native grass on those hills, believe it or not, are 12-14 feet deep in the ground…and so because of their root system, they’re able to handle the summer’s heat (without sprinklers) and the winter’s cold so well…and that’s why native grass grows back even after a fire.
And so as I was reflecting on the Parable of the Sower and the Seed in Matthew’s Gospel (Ch 13), the question popped into my head: “Where are my roots? Where are the roots of my spiritual life? What type of soil is my soul? What kind of fruit am I producing?”
Am I rooted in God or in the things of this world?
In reading the parable we come to realize that we are the soil, the seed is the Word of God, and the sower is Christ. And yet, this particular sower, our Lord and Savior, is always hopeful, even in places that do not look very promising for the harvest. How humbling it is, that God Himself is giving you and me the chance of yielding a bountiful harvest, even though at times, our lives are found on the path, in the rocky soil, or overgrown with thorns and weeds.
And yet, no matter where are roots might lie right now, we are still created for more…we’re still called to cultivate the soil of our lives…we’re still called to sink our roots into the Word of God and to water it with God’s grace found in the Sacraments, especially in Confession and the Holy Eucharist.
Because as Jesus says in the same chapter of Matthew’s Gospel:
“To anyone who has, more will be given and he will grow rich; from anyone who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
We have been given much with our Catholic faith, but what are we doing in return? Am I rooted in God or in the things of this world? Do I want to grow in my relationship with God, or do money, my possessions, or my career take precedence…do I let them take first place on my priority list, or is God #1?
What kind of fruit am I producing? Is it 30, 60, or 100 fold? Is there fruit at all to the Faith that I claim?
Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, in his book, My Jesus, Encountering Christ in the Gospel, writes the following:
“Jesus is directly asking me the decisive question: How does the field of your life look? Are you as inaccessible to God’s word as a hard-trod path on which the seeds remain lying? Does the soil of your life have too little depth, so that it suffices for a short moment of enthusiasm, but, when the heat of the day comes with its difficulties and obstacles, there is a lack of endurance…? Or are you like the thorny, overgrown soil, where the weeds overpower the good seed because of all the other things – the worries of everyday life, the distractions, or your own interests?”
My brothers and sisters, if we are not rooted deeply in God and in Sacred Scripture…and if we do not water it with the grace found in the Sacraments…than we will have a very difficult time when the droughts, the fires, and the floods of life come our way.
As I was growing up, my family and I lived out in the country, just outside of Colwich, Kansas, a little town just northwest of Wichita. And like a lot of country homes, after a good rain, our driveway would become a great place for weeds to spring up…to the point that we kids had to take turns pulling the weeds to make the place look presentable. And early on, my mom and dad would always stress to us kids: “Don’t just pull the tops off, get the roots as well”…because if you didn’t get the roots, well, sure enough those weeds would be back again.
Now I’m not saying any of us are weeds…And none of us have been written off by God as a waste time…but like those “plants” in the driveway, the grass in our lawns, and the native grass of the Flint Hills, let us seek to sink our spiritual roots more deeply in God, and let us water them with the grace of the Sacraments, so that when the difficulties, the storms, and the droughts come in life…when we feel pulled apart or broken down inside, by God’s grace, we can say with confidence, that we’re still grounded in Him.
And so, returning to the questions that I mentioned earlier, let us ask ourselves these questions today:
Where are my roots? Where are the roots of my spiritual life? What type of soil is my soul?
Where is my fruit? The sign of a healthy plant is producing good fruit? The better the roots the better the fruit.
Fr. Michael Linnebur is originally from Sacred Heart parish in Colwich, Kansas. He spent his first 4 years studying philosophy and theology at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, and then completed his last 2 years of theology at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. Fr. Linnebur was ordained to the priesthood on May 24, 2008 by Bishop Michael Jackels, and is currently Chaplain at Newman University in Wichita, KS.