Cycle (C)
8th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sir.
27:4-7; 1 Cor. 15:54-58; Lk. 6:39-45
The first
reading from the book of Ecclesiasticus contains wise and precious advice on a
number of topics. Today’s reading deals with human speech, and tells us that
the character of a person is revealed in his conversation. Today’s Gospel also
confirms the same message. Every tree can be told by its own fruit. Out of the
good treasure of the heart, the good person produces good, and out of evil
treasure, the evil person produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the
heart that the mouth speaks." If a bottle of acid trips over, milk
won’t come out of it, but only acid. The same way what is in the heart comes
out through words.
Jesus says a
tree is judged by its fruit. Sometimes a tree can give false impression that it
is laden with fruits. Once Jesus saw such a fig tree and went over to it and
found nothing on it and he cursed it. There was another such a tree that gave a
huge impression of having a lot of fruits but brought out only sour ones.
This is the
story of a religious founder who lived in the 7th century and whose followers
form the second largest religion in the world. He was so vile that even Hitler and
Stalin would come only next to him in matters of atrocities.
He beheaded 700-900
Jews in a single day after capturing the Jewish settlement of Banu Qurayza
after besieging them for 25 days. After falsely charging them for siding
with the enemies of the Muslims Muhammad orchestrated for a verdict that all of
their men should be killed, their property divided, and the women and children
taken as slaves".
The
following is the quote from the book, life of Muhammad written by a Muslim. “Then
the apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today)
and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for the captives and struck off their
heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches. There were
600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900.(The life
of Muhammad,(A translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Allah) A. Guillaume,
Oxford University Press, New York, 1978),p.464.
One man
writes: I was among the captives of Banu Qurayzah. They (the Companions)
examined us, and those who had begun to grow hair (pubes) were killed, and
those who had not were not killed. I was among those who had not grown hair. (Sunan
Abi Dawud 4404, Book 40, Hadith 54)
Another
incident is like this: Some people from a far of village came to Muhammad and
they said they were sick. Muhammad sent them to drink camel urine and milk. And
when they got well they raided the camels of Muhammad and drove them off. They
killed the herdsman of Muhammad who was a believer. Muhammad sent (people) in
pursuit of them and they were caught. He had their hands and feet cut off, and
their eyes put out. And they were thrown in the hot sun to die and when they
asked for water he forbade them any water. (Grade: Hasan, Sahih, Sunan Abi
Dawud 4369, Bk. 40, H.19).
An 80 year old
poetess who wrote distasteful poetry about Muhammad was killed very brutally.
Her hands and legs were tied to two camels from opposite sides and pulled
apart. Another young poetess who did the same thing, and who had four young
children, was sleeping at night with her little baby sleeping on her belly was
her head cut off, for denigrating/disparaging Muhammad.
There are a
few cases where Muhammad allowed his henchmen to tell lies to befriend people to
deceive them and kill them stealthily. A man named Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf told some
unpleasant things about Muhammad and so Muhammad allowed his henchmen to tell
lies to him about Muhammad so that they can befriend him and get closer to him
and one held his hair and the other stuck knife into his heart. Muhammad allows
Muslims to do Taqiya, means lie.
The Quran
says: “The punishment for those who oppose Allah and His Messenger is:
execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite
sides, or exile from the land: Q.5:33— Yusuf Ali
A couple of years
ago a college professor from my home state in India, named a fictitious
character in a question paper as Muhammad. Some Muslims attributed it as
blasphemy for naming Muhammad a funny character and when he was coming back
from the Mass with his wife and his sister who was a nun, some Muslims stopped
him and got him out and cut his one foot and the hand from opposite side as prescribed
in the Quran. So, when some people say the Muslims do not practice the
atrocities ordered in the Quran, that is not true.
Allah says: I
will cast horror into the hearts of the disbelievers. So strike their necks and
strike their fingertips.” (Q.8:12 — Dr. Mustafa Khattab, the Clear Quran). After killing mutilate the body.
We have to
judge a tree by its fruits. A religion is to be judged by what it professes,
not by what some followers practice. Christianity is not to be judged by you or
me but by what Christ taught us and what is in the Bible. The same is true with
Islam. That is why Jesus said, judge the tree by its fruit. If the tree is bad
the fruit also will be bad.
Our Lord
teaches us not to judge people, but he does teach us to judge actions: evil
people do evil things, just as good people do good things.
In order to
lead a blind person, one must be sighted; in order to teach, one must be knowledgeable;
otherwise, the blind person and the student will be lost. The point of this
image of the blind leading the blind is that we must be careful when choosing
whom to follow, lest we stumble into a pit alongside our blind guide. We are
Christians who have Jesus as our guide, Jesus who said, I am the light of the
world. Let’s pray that we be given the light of grace to be good fruit bearing
trees manifesting the glory of God to people around us.
