ABCs of Spiritual Formation: Y is for Yield
“Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a saltwater spring yield fresh water.”
-- James 3:12
Y is for Yield
Here in North Texas, we have enjoyed a wet spring. The average precipitation from March 1 through May 31 from 2003-2023 was 11.3 inches. This year it was 19.9 inches. Being in Texas means we are expecting triple digit temps for a couple of months once July hits, which is why we are thankful for the rain now. Everything here is green and blooming. Our backyard is paradisaical when the sun is out.
You know what the flowers and vegetable plants and trees are NOT thinking about? Bearing fruit. They are not considering how to produce a greater yield. They are simply doing their thing as God created them to do. The conditions are right, and they are yielding to the created order. Let's dive into this today...
In the Bible the English word, yield, is used in two ways. To yield as in to give in or submit and yield as in a harvest. Both apply to us as we mature in Christ.
YIELD = GIVE WAY
In Deuteronomy 13:6-11, Moses writes,
“If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you embrace, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let’s go and worship other gods’—which neither you nor your ancestors have known, any of the gods of the peoples around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other— do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him. Instead, you must kill him. Your hand is to be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death for trying to turn you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. All Israel will hear and be afraid, and they will no longer do anything evil like this among you."
Later, Proverbs 25:26 says,
"A righteous person who yields to the wicked is like a muddied spring or a polluted well."
I don't feel a need to dive into the issues moderns have with God's calls for purity here, but I want to focus on the call of both passages to stand firm in our faith. We can get lost in the weeds and miss the simple call to stand firm in a complex world.
TENSIONS
Is attending an LGTBQ wedding a loving act or yielding to the culture? Is calling someone by their preferred pronouns when those pronouns go against their birth sex being respectful or cowardly? How do we parse paying a bribe required by a corrupt government official? What about downplaying my faith when I'm trying to get or keep a job at a secular company? How do we classify writing what a professor wants to hear even when we don't believe it in order to get a good grade? What examples would you give?
Some of these examples may seem cut and dried for you while others may feel grayer. If we were to have a big group discussion, perhaps it would become quite heated.
As we grow in Christ, we grow in love and grace and faith. Does that mean these kinds of situations become easier? In my experience God is in the tension. When we feel a tension between two points, we tend to see our anxiety rise which leads to a feeling of dysregulation or disorientation. Our interior systems work overtime to bring us back to equilibrium. The easiest way to do that is to choose one of the poles and camp on it. However, if we can recognize that urge and instead sit in the tension and let God hold us there, we will find a place of maturity we didn't understand before. Jesus did this all the time. A great example is Luke 7:36-50 when he is dining at Simon the Pharisee's house, and a disreputable woman comes in and makes quite a scene weeping and washing Jesus' feet. Jesus is totally non-anxious as he allows the woman to do her thing and lovingly converses with Simon to show him his lack of love and hospitality. Every time I read that story I feel my body tense up just pondering what I would be experiencing if I was sitting there. How about you? Sitting in the tension, being present with all that is happening, talking to Jesus, and letting him lead us is not easy for me, but it is a sign of growing in Christlikeness. This is one of those things that a mature Christian does. We don't yield. We love the oppressed and oppressor (though it looks quite different). We don't get caught up in taking sides in the culture wars. Note: there are no winners in the culture wars. Try to picture a YouTube video entitled, "Jesus owns the Libs!" or "Jesus destroys the Cons!" Hard to picture from an attitudinal perspective. Jesus never gloated. Jesus' behavior was often scandalous because he stayed in the tension. Think of the woman caught in adultery in John 8. He shuts down her accusers and tells her to stop sinning. He yields to neither side. He is always on his side and being there is where we are called to be. Writing that is much easier than doing it, a sign of my continued need for maturity and grace.
What are you feeling as you read this?
INNER CONFLICT
I'm feeling some inner conflict. I want to be understood, and I want everyone to agree with me. I fear that this will be read as a call to compromise. Interestingly, conservative and liberal believers both think they are right in not yielding. I find the battle is to care most about God's opinion. This does not make it easier but requires a nuance that is uncomfortable. I guess what I am saying is that I have come to the place of seeing God calling us to not yield to our anxiety, but to stay in the tension and love God and those on both sides of whatever situation we are facing. Even as I write that I feel the weight of the passage in Deuteronomy quoted above. Jesus clearly was not about killing the disobedient in his first coming, so we have to work that out, but I'm not going to do that here. Are you surprised that I'm okay staying in that tension for now?
GRACE
As I do every time let me say again this is about grace and growth. If you can't sit in the tension, Jesus is still with you. There is no condemnation. He is inviting you to awaken to this dynamic and grow in trusting him. Wherever you are in this, he is moving you towards discomfort. If that sounds bad, it is time to rethink it. The life we are meant to live is in that place of tension, that place of loving our enemies. Jesus is committed to conforming us into his image which means into people who can live in the tension, among other things. I find that I have a long way to go on that road, but Jesus seems content to walk with me for as long as it takes. The same is true for you.
YIELD = HARVEST
Now, back to where we started... Yield as harvest like the plants in our garden this spring.
In English, it appears 24 times in the Bible (CSB) and the constant theme in the Old Testament is that a bountiful yield is a sign of God's blessing whereas a poor yield is a sign of God's anger. Here are a few examples to capture this idea. I could have listed many more.
Leviticus 25:18-19
"You are to keep my statutes and ordinances and carefully observe them, so that you may live securely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, so that you can eat, be satisfied, and live securely in the land."
Ezekiel 34:26-28
"I will make them and the area around my hill a blessing: I will send down showers in their season; they will be showers of blessing. The trees of the field will yield their fruit, and the land will yield its produce; my flock will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the power of those who enslave them. They will no longer be prey for the nations, and the wild creatures of the earth will not consume them. They will live securely, and no one will frighten them."
Contrasted...
Hosea 8:6-8
"For this thing is from Israel—
a craftsman made it, and it is not God.
The calf of Samaria will be smashed to bits!
Indeed, they sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
There is no standing grain;
what sprouts fails to yield flour.
Even if they did,
foreigners would swallow it up.
Israel is swallowed up!
Now they are among the nations
like discarded pottery."
In the New Testament Jesus uses this metaphor in one of his parables. In Matthew 13:23 he is telling of the seed sown on the four soils and the good soil yields abundantly, "But the one sown on the good ground—this is one who hears and understands the word, who does produce fruit and yields: some a hundred, some sixty, some thirty times what was sown.”
This concept is repackaged around discipline in Hebrews 12:10-11, "For they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them, but he does it for our benefit, so that we can share his holiness. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it."
FRUIT
Of course, we can't talk of yield without fruit, a common metaphor in the Bible. Here we must deal with a common misconception because it hinders growth and skews our view of mature spirituality. The English word fruit appears close to 200 times in the Bible and only a few times refers to new believers through evangelism (Romans 1:13 is probably an example). I'm not saying that new believers are not a form of fruit or that it is wrong to speak of them as fruit, but it can be detrimental when the only reference to fruit is for new believers. This disproportionately puts the emphasis for Christian growth on being an effective evangelist. Please grow as an evangelist, but don't misunderstand the Bible to be saying that the number of people you have saved defines your maturity. It does not.
In the New Testament fruit refers to many things but mostly to character growth. We see it in reference to repentance (Matthew 3:8), character/actions/what we exhibit (Matthew 7:16-20), what the people of the kingdom exhibit collectively (Matthew 21:43), what we exhibit when we are connected to Jesus (John 15:5), the results of certain lifestyle choices (Romans 6:21), what the Spirit produces in us (Galatians 5:22), the result of a righteous life in Christ (Philippians 1:11, James 3:18), actual fruit (James 5:7,18), and other things.
In all of these, the idea the NT writers are conveying is that just like plants yield a harvest, our lives yield a harvest. Growing in Christlike maturity means the fruit will align with righteousness and the Holy Spirit. To be consistent with the metaphor, the point is not to focus on the fruit but to follow Jesus’ instructions in John 15 and focus on abiding in him. Fruit will come no matter what. One guarantee in life is that we will yield a harvest. The only question is what kind.
FRUIT AS SIGN
This means we look to the harvest our lives are yielding, the fruit, and act accordingly. We focus on Jesus. Remember the goal is not to obey but to become the kind of person who obeys as a matter of being. We are becoming the kind of persons who love God and our neighbors.
How am I doing? How are you doing?
The fruit will make it clear but rarely is it 100% one thing or another. For most of us, we can point to both rotten fruit and deliciously ripe fruit. Someone thanks us for the encouragement or lets us know how we have impacted his life. Somebody else is dealing with the wounds we inflicted. One person comes to us and receives patient, loving help. Another person receives our angry outburst. This is part of the process.
The key is what I do with this revelation. The temptation is pride or fear of pride on the one side and self-condemnation or defensiveness and self-justification on the other.
Growth means we become the kind of people who receive praise or gratitude and look to Jesus with joy and gratitude. This happens through an honest process. On the other side we see the ugly fruit and dive in. We let Jesus reveal what is going on in our hearts. Perhaps we confess and repent and make amends. In addition, maybe we seek counseling and/or prayer to get the healing needed for that part of ourselves. Whatever the fruit is we let it point us to Jesus.
CONCLUSION
This is a spiritual discipline, a practice or exercise we let Jesus develop in us in community. This is about humility and grace and faith, but it is also quite practical. We take steps and implement practices. We make it a part of our lives and invite others to join us. We are not only becoming the kind of people but the kind of community. This is a sign of maturity, and a fruit of what God wants to do in each of us.
"Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion."
-- Jack Kerouac