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Hello and welcome back to With & For. I’m Jill Westbrook, Senior Director at the Thrive Center and one of the With & For producers.
Jill Westbrook: We have a very special episode for you today.
We’re sharing a sermon that Dr. Pam King delivered at Fuller Chapel, recorded by our friends at Fuller Studio.
Shout out to Patrick and Lauren and team.
I know you are all used to Dr. Pam King as psychologist, but she is also Rev. Dr. Pam King, a Presbyterian minister. Her knowledge as a psychologist informs her choice of scripture passage and, of course, her interpretation.
This sermon feels really important for these turbulent times, so we wanted to share it with you. We’ll continue to drop special With & For episodes as we lead up to January 6th, 2025, when Season 2 officially launches. In keeping with With & Four’s practical approach, this sermon offers practical advice and practical tools.
We can all use a little perspective these days. So listen to the end when she talks about taking the perspective of a benevolent third party. Dr. Pam says, if we want to bear good fruit in our lives, we must have strong roots. Good fruit must lead to love. And as she says, root into love so that you can live out love.
The sermon begins with a reading from Luke 6:43-45.
Student: Luke chapter 6, verse 43 to 45. No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good.
And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.
Pam King: Ultimately, I believe this scripture, which is inserted in a larger sermon, redefines reality and redefines fruit. You have to indulge me. I am a child of the 80s. I came of age and big shoulder pads are back. Just wait. I’m going to get a perm and have even bigger hair. But one of my favorite movies was, is The Princess Bride.
Okay, who knows the line? The, the audible meme of The Princess Bride is, Oh, that’s a good one. But I was, How about Wuv, twoo wuv, right? So twoo wuv is proclaimed, declared, whispered, and even moaned on what we thought was going to be Wesley’s deathbed. And Billy Crystal realizes true love will cure him. And he claims true love.
is the greatest thing in the world. And I think that is what this short and familiar parable is about. Before I get in, I need to make two confessions because I don’t know, it just seems like part of who I am as a Presbyterian because you always have confessions in service before you preach the word. Um, I was opportunistic in picking this scripture.
I’m the executive director of the Thrive Center at Fuller, and I can’t tell you how often I am asked, what is thriving? How does one thrive? What does thrive have to do with Christian faith? And so I thought, hmm, what’s a thrivish, flourishing parable? And in my homiletics, I was really not trained to be opportunistic with my own personal mission, uh, message that I wanted to proclaim, but I have been taught to attune to what God wanted us to hear.
So I’m, I’m hoping God and I are co acting and cooperating today. Um, my second confession is I realized in this process I am not a parable gal. You know, there are often these, like, familiar sayings, we’ve heard them a thousand times since Sunday school, and they’re kind of short. And I like longer scriptures to be read, because I’m always nervous before I come up.
But what I found in revisiting commentaries, which has been a deep passion of mine, I was actually that student who loved taking Greek and loved taking Hebrew, loved. my best attempt to get closer to what I thought God intended us to hear through his living word, and I was not disappointed again. To me, my ability, my time, um, spent in, in really gaining from what other people have written and learned about this parable, uh, was very fruitful for me, no pun intended.
But leave it up to the living word of God to pull a fast one on me and offer lots of opportunities. for learning. Jesus did something that I have found, our dear Jesus, to do something very classic. Take something common, take something colloquial, good trees, good fruit, evil trees, evil fruit, and use it in an absolutely subversive manner.
We get drawn in by the familiarity. of a common saying, old dog, new tricks. That’s beginning to get more familiar as I get older. Um, but your guard is down and you’re like, Oh yeah, I got this. Yeah. Good trees. Good trips. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you think, well, wait, what is good? In the context of which Jesus offered these words, good is redefined.
And I have to say, the question of what is good is something I have taken very seriously in my last 20 years at Fuller. I’m a positive developmental psychologist. And so my job is actually to understand and teach what is good development. So, professionally, I’ve decided good is actually a four letter word.
Because, really, who gets to define good? How do you define good? If you’re like the kids at Knox Presbyterian Church, where I attend, and, um, shout out to Pastor Matt here, there’s always a right answer in the children’s service. So when I say, what is good, you say, Jesus. She goes to Knox too. Well, that’s a good and safe answer in a Christian context, but you are right.
Jesus is good. And in Luke 6, actually is when Jesus is Luke’s presentation or description of him calling and identifying the 12 disciples to be apostles amongst a larger group of desire disciples and a larger group of people or followers. And in that, he says, makes it known in the context of the sermon, that I’m the teacher and you are to be like me.
And that’s familiar to us as Christians. We know we are to be conformed to Christ, who is the perfect image of God. And we are all made like him. So, he plants, pun intended, uh, this common adage in the middle of this sermon, in which he really, again an 80s thing for me, forgive me, has a DTR. Do you guys know what a DTR is?
Define the relationship. We probably do that by Instagram now, or text, not conversation. But this DTR, sermon is a define the reality sermon. After he identifies the apostles and calls them, he starts to preach to this group of those intimate or that will become intimate, the 12 other disciples and other followers. And he starts this discourse on the constitution of a new community with a list of beatitudes and woes.
with a new list of do’s and don’ts. And in that, they embody a radical reordering of values and a re sanctification of sanctioned behaviors. He describes the kind of conduct that is appropriate for this kingdom that he will be leading. It is love your enemies, Do good out of love. Give generously out of love.
Lend without expectation. Love your neighbor. Luke is in a way describing a new symbolic world. Fruit as a symbol is redefined. It becomes a symbol of love.
As he does this, Jesus is not just presenting some eschatological reality that we are to live towards. He is inviting us, or he is invoking a new reality that we are to live into that love. We need to root into that love. In the present time, Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnally Linz, in a newer book called The Home of God, talk about time bending when they talk about consummation and the completion of creation.
And I love this concept of time bending because you’re reading theology and suddenly it feels like sci fi. But they talk about the future world that is completed. Bending time through love, when there are nodes of love, experiences of love, they describe the spirit in breaking and bringing what is to come to our present reality.
And we are in breakers. We are invited to be loving people. So that what is to come is coming now.
I think this is really important for this moment now, because just as Jesus, in the context of talking about what the Sabbath was for, when you can heal, when you can’t heal, and really challenges the sanctified norms of the day. We are in an era where kind of all bets are off. That even like our worship silver lining playbooks that we created in COVID for Zoom worship, they’re not working so well.
There’s a lot of flux in congregational life. And I think this call to love This reminder that Jesus redefines the world based on love is very timely. Something else he adds and throws in that maybe as a psychologist I’ll make a bigger deal about than he should, I should. But there’s something about particularity in this short parable.
He says you don’t find figs on a thorn bush, right? You find the fruit that belongs to the particular tree. And if you’ve taken my class. I read The Reciprocating Self. You know I’m really into particularity, not just because I enjoy wearing denim from head to toe. Good news is we’re all fruit. We’re all a little fruity.
And we are all invited to be our particular fruit. So although we are invited and asked, no not asked, commanded, to become like Christ, that that is a telos we share as Christians, to become like Jesus. We, that conformity is not synonymous with uniformity. we are each invited to bear fruit out of our own giftedness. And you have all come to this one institution, or this system, the fuller verse, to be equipped to teach, but to be equipped to bear fruit as yourself. Now I’ll be the first to confess, every time I prepare for one of these messages, when you bring out, I bring out the word of God, I get anxious.
I think of all the great people, Cynthia Erickson, who gave a dean talk last week. Beautiful messages from Pastor Matt, others that have stood behind this podium. And I think, oh, oh, I could just have your enthusiasm, like, I just think, oh, if I could just be like that, wise like Kenneth. And I think, no, God created me to be me.
And thank you, Lord. I get in the elevator this morning. Like I have for 30 years. Came up the elevator and Ann Nolte is in there. If you don’t know Dr. Ann Nolte, she’s a professor in the school of psychology. And she was moving a little slow. I said, Ann, how are you this morning? She said, I’m a little tired.
And she said, how are you? And I’m like, I’m a little anxious. I’m really awake. I’m I’ve locked my key in my car. I’m preaching in chapel and I’m, I confess I’m a little anxious. And I said, and then I just feel ashamed at 55. Really? Am I struggling with performance issues and still really worried about my ego and how impressive, funny, or wise, or profound I’m going to be in Travis auditorium again?
And she looked at me and she said, Pam, with Anne’s unique sparkle and merciful eye, she said, Pam, you’re a good Pam.
Praise God for Anne. And right there, I was disarmed. I was seen, I was known, And I was loved, not just by Anne, but by God. And darn it, that slow, sometimes getting stuck elevator turned into the holy of holies for me. It will never be the same. Look for Jesus in that elevator, especially if it gets stuck.
So what I want to say about bearing fruit is that, that is, we bear fruit by living out God’s love. in this world as ourselves. And that is an important call. And in an era when all bets are off, this is an important lesson to heed. Now, Luke gives us a little clue and says, a person with a good heart. bears good fruit.
A person with not such a good heart does not bear good fruit. Looks a bit less helpful about how we get that good heart or how a good tree becomes a good tree, but you know what? The tree image is quite frequent in the Bible. And when I was on the ministry team in high school, in my Presbyterian youth group, Psalm 1 was one of the first psalms we memorized.
I’m a very visual person, and I know the room I was in, and I remember this image of a tree firmly planted, or some versions rooted, by streams of water that does not get blown when the winds come by. And I don’t know about you guys, Especially for those of us who have been on staff or faculty at Fuller, it’s been a gusty time for a while.
Brueggemann, um, commends Psalm 1 as a psalm of orientation. A psalm in which we find God’s creation in perfect order. and one in which we experience that when we abide, when we are oriented or rooted in God’s ways. And that is so much what Psalm 1 is about, is rooting, Brueggemann says, into Torah, delighting and meditating on God’s law day and night.
But he reminds us that God’s law, Torah, is not just the Israelite moral values or ideals, but it also represents God’s will and purposes. And so how do we root into moral beliefs, moral values, but also how do we root into God’s will and purposes? This is a question I want to ask you to think about for a second.
You know on all these social media apps you get to create an avatar. Just want to give you a moment for you visual people out there. Tree avatar. Pick your tree. Does it represent country of origin, region of origin, your family? What does it look like? Is it thick? Is it tall? Is it a sequoia? Pick one that has a good root system.
What are the roots like? Imagine the roots as practices, as your spiritual practices, as you’re delighting, as you’re meditating on Torah, on the law, on the word of God, rooting into God’s love, which is our purpose, to live out his love. What enables you to do that? Is it scripture reading? Is it Lectio Divina?
Is it mindfulness exercises? Does that allow you to be more regulated? Think about what those are.
I want to offer one particular practice that I’ve learned about through psychology. That’s perhaps not terribly, um, conventional. This comes from a gentleman named Eli Finkel at Northwestern, who actually writes about marital relationships. And he’s found through his research that when there’s a marriage and conflict, that if people take the practice of imagining, meditating, thinking of the person in conflict, Which I want to invite you all to do is to think of someone that you might experience conflict with, whether through, um, differences, issues of polarization, interpersonal.
Imagine that person. He then invites the couple in this context, but I’m going to invite you to think about, pray for that person. Imagine how God sees that person. Imagine how God’s heart beats for that person. Imagine how God prays for that person. What they found is that when people take a benevolent third person view in the Christian worldview, God’s perspective, and they actually write those things about a person, the conflict is still there, but they’re able to interact and care for that person more effectively and see that person more wholly.
I think in this day and age where we are so divided in many ways, that practice is like that. allow us to experience and offer more love. And something I’ve really enjoyed in my work at the Thrive Center is actually taking, uh, science backed practices and infusing Christian practices with things that we’ve come to learn that help us emotionally regulate or that help us have more compassion or that help motivate us and elevate us.
But as Christians, we need to root into God’s love. And I encourage you to think about how you grow roots. Whether through scripture, through meeting with people, through service, through contemplative exercises like that. Because for such a time as this, we need Christian leaders who are loving. We need Christian leaders who see first through Jesus eyes of love.
Statistically, we know 80 percent of Americans young people are lonely. We are in a cultural mode of despair in many ways. We are losing our relational capacity. I confess, I text my parents more than I call them. I realize this is eroding at the depth of our relationship. We need to be intentional about practices of love and connection.
And as Christian leaders, we need to help our people do that. In fact, we need to not just help Christians, but we need to help all of God’s people be connected.
For when we root into love, then we will be able to live out love. And so today I leave you with thoughts on thriving. to be a thriving good tree that bears good fruit. Lean into, root into God’s love, and live out God’s love. Reach those branches out as yourself, not for your own sake, but for the sake of the world, in God’s glory.
Amen.
With & For is a production of The Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary.
For more information, visit our website, thethrivecenter.org, where you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose. I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of the Thrive Center and our With & For podcast team.
Jill Westbrook is our Senior Director and Producer. Lauren Kim is our Operations Manager. Wren Jeurgensen is our Social Media Graphic Designer. Evan Rosa is our Consulting Producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy.
I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King
Pamela Ebstyne King is the Executive Director of the Thrive Center and the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science in the School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Her life’s purpose is to help people thrive. To this end, her academic work focuses on psychological and theological perspectives of human thriving and social flourishing. Her psychological research focuses on spiritual and moral development; the role of transcendent beliefs, narratives, and emotions in virtue development; and environments that promote thriving for diverse people. TheThriveCenter.org translates research into resources that promote wholeness, thriving, and spiritual health, and she is the host of the With & For podcast.
Episode Summary
If we want to bear good fruit in our lives, we must have strong roots. Good fruit must lead to love. As the Rev. Dr. Pam King offers in this episode, “Root into love so that you can live out love.”
Speaking on Jesus’s parable of the Tree and Its Fruits in Luke 6, she draws on theological and psychological resources to reflect on the role of active and intentional love in a thriving life.
Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
Show Notes
- Luke 6:43-45: “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of the heart, produces good. And the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil, for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.”
- “I believe this scripture … redefines reality and redefines fruit.”
- True love in *The Princess Bride — “Wuv. Twoo Wuv.”
- “True love is the greatest thing in the world.”
- “Root into love so that you can live out love.”
- What is thriving? What New Testament parables of Jesus express thriving?
- Redefining “Good”
- What is good?
- “Good” is a four-letter word
- There’s always a right answer in Sunday School: “Jesus”
- Defining the Relationship? Or Define the Reality?
- A reordering of values
- “… a radical reordering of values and a re sanctification of sanctioned behaviors. He describes the kind of conduct that is appropriate for this kingdom that he will be leading. It is love your enemies, do good out of love. Give generously out of love. Lend without expectation. Love your neighbor.”
- Fruit is a symbol of love
- Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz, “The Home of God”—what is to come is coming now. “Inbreaking”
- Flux in congregational or community life
- The Reciprocating Self
- Conformity is not synonymous with uniformity
- “We are each invited to bear fruit out of our own giftedness.”
- “Bear fruit as yourself.”
- “Pam, you’re a good Pam.”
- “We bear fruit by living out God's love. in this world as ourselves.”
- Tree imagery in the Bible
- “A tree firmly planted, or some versions rooted, by streams of water, that does not get blown when the winds come by.”
- What kind of tree are you?
- How do you root into God’s love?
- Eli Finkel and third-person perspective taking
- “When people take a benevolent third person view in the Christian worldview, God's perspective, and they actually write those things about a person, the conflict is still there, but they're able to interact and care for that person more effectively and see that person more wholly.”
- “80 percent of Americans young people are lonely. We are in a cultural mode of despair in many ways. We are losing our relational capacity.”
About the Thrive Center
- Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
- Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
- Follow us on X @thrivecenter
- Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter
About Dr. Pam King
Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.About With & For
- Host: Pam King
- Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
- Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
- Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
- Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa
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