Back home now at the end of a week where the passage of weather has been marked by no more than changes of cloudiness or humidity – no rain. The walking was good.
From the Lectionary for 13th June, in Psalm 92, we read this little nugget…
“The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the LORD; they flourish in the courts of our God.
In old age they still produce fruit; they are always green and full of sap.”
…Well, I live in hope that one day I’ll be old enough!
Not sure what kind of ‘fruit’ is meant here… I first assumed that it was ‘outcomes’ of our activity – but I was forgetting the OT obsession with having children (and hence the meaning of ‘sap’). In my simple mind, the faith of the Old Testament is propagated by reproducing, which subtly morphs in the NewTestament into propagation by hearing and taking to heart the ‘Word’ of God. And what Jesus says about knowing people by their ‘fruits’ is a play on the concept that his hearers would have known already – about the ‘fruit’ of someone’s loins, remeaninged into being about the fruit of speaking God’s word.
FWIW my prayer is that in old age I’ll be able to contribute something of use.
