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.