>>Okay, I want you to have in your mind – taped on your brain – Christ saying, “I’ve come to give them life, so that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Okay. So the following of Jesus Christ in the spiritual life, in the sacramental life, and in the moral life is always about the fullness of life. So God is there to give us the best possible way of living. So with that in mind, I want to talk about sin.

Okay. This is a heavy topic. We don’t like to talk about sin, we often see sin as something that puts a burden on us. That makes us feel bad, heavy, guilty, shameful, and so forth. But I want us to look at sin using the image of a fruit tree. And I’m using that image from my names sake, James, in our second reading. You know, we are the firstfruits – God’s creation.

Okay, a fruit tree. So say you are struggling with the sin of gossip. Okay. Gossip or impatience – those are two sins I hear a lot. And I myself am guilty of that. Right?

So, you just go to confession and you say, “Okay, I sin. I make gossip.” or “I’m impatient.” If we just look at sin and we just stop right there, it’s not enough – life is a burden the gossip is the fruit. Okay. So, the pear – if you will. What then is the tree that’s producing the pear? The tree that produces the gossip is, think of the seven deadly sins, something that you’re struggling with – more of a tendency.

So you’re angry, or you’re lacking charity, ah, envious, lustful, whatever it might be. Okay. So that’s the next step that we take.

We identify the sin, we go to the source of the sin – which is the tree – but that’s not it for the tree. Right? There’s something deeper in the tree and that is the root. What is the root that is causing the anger, or the envy?

So maybe it’s, um, insecurity, maybe it’s a fundamental self-doubt, or mistrust of who you are or of who God is. That God created you just as He wants you. You don’t believe that, right? So there’s something a root within you that’s producing the vice or the simply tendency in that it’s leading to the fruit.

So we don’t just want to stop and say, “Oh, I committed gossip.” but we want to go deep. And the way we go deep, obviously go to the sacrament of reconciliation of course, but prayer. Okay.

So you catch yourself gossiping a lot or being impatient a lot. You know, what’s going on in your heart? That’s where Jesus wants to meet you.

That’s getting into your heart and that’s what Moses is saying and the Lord is saying to the pharisees. A God of just the pure law, an external religion, isn’t a God that wants to get into your heart. He just doesn’t want you to gossip anymore. But that’s not Jesus Christ. That’s not the Father, the Holy Spirit that we know. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit want to be intimately in you. Getting to those roots, those wounds, those core wounds, and helping heal you. So that you can live in freedom and happy abundance of life.

Amen.