29 May 2015 - trying to fig-ure it out.

Let us allow Jesus to purify us. 

We don't want to be barren fig trees. We want to bear fruit in due season (cf. Psa. 1:3). We want to be the faithful and prudent servant who distributes food at the proper time (cf. Mat. 24:45).

We can't buy these fruits from temple money changers. We really wish we could. We wish that the careful arranagement and use of our own strength and resources could yield the results which Jesus desires. He will not let these illusions persist. He drives the money changers out. He wants our Church and therefore each one of our hearts to be a house of prayer. It isn't about effort. Money and other things of this world aren't problems until we begin to try to use them to buy entrance to the kingdom or fast passes to sainthood. So let us allow Jesus to drive these money changers from our hearts. They have nothing to offer us.

Instead, let us receive the fruit from the only place from which it comes: the Holy Spirit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (cf. Gal. 5:22-23).

The upside to not being able to buy it is that it is not dependent on any conditions or circumstances of this world. Even if it is "not the time for figs" our faith is the door through which the Spirit enters us, fills us, and bears his fruit in us.

Amen, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain,
‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’
and does not doubt in his heart
but believes that what he says will happen,
it shall be done for him.

We hear this and begin to think that we have to earn it. We imagine that the reason that we aren't moving mountains is because we haven't achieved a certain level of holiness. But this is not the case. If we embrace the faith Jesus offers we too can move mountains even today.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways (cf. Jam. 1:6-8).

This is how we leave a legacy that endures even if we ourselves are forgotten. Our legacy becomes part of the legacy of the covenant fidelity of God to his people. Rather than simply being remembered we give the world a form of wealth which remains: the love of God.

Their wealth remains in their families,
their heritage with their descendants;
Through God’s covenant with them their family endures,
their posterity, for their sake.

The Lord wants fruit, true wealth, and festive dance for his people. He purifies us precisely because he "takes delight in his people" and wants the best for us. May he purify us so that we truly rejoice.