Wolves Like Sheep
The Eighth Sunday After Trinity
JESUS said unto his disciples, Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. - Mt. 7:15
Our focus during this Trinitytide Season is on transforming the very core of our being. Everyone desires and strives for transformation. Most people, whether consciously or unconsciously, don't believe that real or meaningful transformation can be caused or influenced by something outside of themselves. For most people, transformation is a self-improvement project centered around how the self can better itself by paying more attention to itself. What's often missing in such life projects is the wholesale disregard for original sin and a belief that individuals can save themselves. This is coupled with a distorted self-optimism that does not need external assistance. However, such individuals still seek personal transformation driven by their own pure and unadulterated reason and their deeply important emotions. This is what authentic life is about—living true to oneself. The inner life and soul don't need to overcome sin, which makes the endeavor of self-directed transformation embedded in earthly pursuits.
Our culturally heightened emphasis on education is a good example. Cultural orthodoxy preaches that education catalyzes personal development, fostering skills, knowledge, and perspectives that contribute to an individual's growth. One must get a college degree to have the financial ability to "live one's life on one's own terms." The remarkable prominence of "spiritual pathways" like climbing Machu Pichu or completing an Ultra-Marathon promises human transformation through experience and accomplishment: we're better people for having done this or that because we've gained new insights about ourselves or discovered new competencies and capacities. We "pushed" our natural limits and, at the same time, felt something spiritual as well.
Sexuality has certainly become a cultural pathway of self-directed transformation through self-discovery, a multiplicity of experiences, and freeing the emotive impulse. Since these pathways always take place within a closed-world system, though they offer new and exciting experiences, they cannot provide the means by which we encounter the transcendent God of Heaven. Without such a Divine inbreaking, no one can truly be transformed. Christians aren't immune from operating in a similar closed-world system. We know what sin is, that we can't save ourselves, and that we need (even desire) to be transformed into something beyond this present imperfection. The Bible, the Liturgy, and Prayers preach the impossibility of transforming ourselves by ourselves, yet how easily we live and operate as secular humanists who don't believe that something or Someone from without can change what is within us.
How can water and the sacrament of Baptism make me a new creation? Can God, by his Spirit, bring a dead person to life, eternal life through such sacramental waters? Scripture says yes. God does something to us that we simply cannot do ourselves. Is partaking in the Holy Communion more than an opportunity to remember something? Can eating this spiritual bread and drinking from the spiritual cup strengthen my body, wash my soul, and restore my relationship with Jesus our Lord? Yes, both the scriptures and our Liturgy say so. Can the words of Holy Scripture pierce our souls, cut us to the quick, make us sorry for our sins, and lead us to repentance? How can an external word stir up faith, make me reconcile with my wife, or turn from this or that sin? Can Jesus' words transform our lives? The answer is yes. All of these, the Scriptures, Prayers, and Sacraments, are separate from us but given as God's means of breaking into our lives with grace. If we desire transformation with eternal repercussions, then only the grace of God will do it. Because only He who made us can transform us into the likeness of Himself. This is why we need to listen to Jesus and receive his words.
What we've heard from Jesus over these past several Sundays in Trinitytide is very practical teaching, always setting the main and plain demands of the Christian life before us. Answering the most fundamental questions: How must we Christians live in this world? What must our priorities be? How does Jesus want us to love one another? What must be our aspirations, expectations, and hopes for this life and the next? How are we to act in this situation or that? Yet we shouldn't just hear Jesus speaking in the Church Sunday to Sunday; we must consider and weigh his words daily in our hearts - we need to think about them, pray about them, and then conform our lives to them. They genuinely become practical teaching only when we put His words into action. By acting upon His word implanted in our hearts and minds, we are transformed.
"JESUS said unto his disciples, Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits."
Today, Jesus is warning us to beware of false prophets who come in sheep's clothing, yet underneath this costume are ravening wolves! Wolves have always roamed among God's people. In ancient Israel, 'false prophets' were those who claimed to speak the word of YHWH but weren’t. When people listened to them, they ended up going headlong into disaster. As it was then, so it is now: the threat and reality of false teachers in the Church is alive and well!
The dangerous subtlety of false prophets is that they appear Christian. Let's be honest: False teachers rarely wear Wolves’ clothing but are more often sheep-like, Christian-seeming, and look like the real deal. Some wolves are attractive and appealing because they appear to embody the content of cultural success that people strongly desire for themselves: they are attractive, great communicators, display perfect marriages, are physically fit, on top of it, in the know, on the cutting edge, they’re influencers, with incredible reach, and have all the answers. Yet, they maintain a distance between themselves and their flock- they never let you get close, and neither do they attempt to truly know you; they're a personality, not a pastor. Yet, these desirables lure people in, not to Christ, but to themselves. And after they've gotten what they want, they spit you out.
Modern technology, through the proliferation of social media, has deepened the woods where wolves like to lurk. They no longer simply reside in local churches but influence Christians through a myriad of social platforms and mediums. Thousands of wolves are online and ready to agree with your heresy, provide the answer you knew was right, affirm your sins, and lead you away from Christ. These disembodied experts are nothing but blind guides, wolves monetizing Christian confusion and need, or worse, intentionally lead God's sheep into destruction by preaching a false Gospel.
Jesus doesn't want us to feel helpless before such false teachers; twice, in this short passage, he says that we shall know them by their fruit. By fruit, he means "what is produced" from their lives, what they actually teach and then do, how they truly live their lives, and how their preaching and teaching match how they treat others. In effect, fruit is the course and tenor of every aspect of their life, whether in the pulpit or grocery store. Wolves live duplicitous lives, a two-sided card: one side false, the other true. But we don't judge by appearances. Jesus says we shall know them by their fruit. "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?" Of course not. And neither can the wolf care for the sheep. We sheep can identify the true shepherds (not perfect) but faithful, godly pastors and teachers by the fruit they produce. The apostles and church fathers speak of the twin test of truth and life.
First, do they preach Christ and him crucified? Do they lead people to the narrow gate of salvation found in Jesus Christ, for there is no other mediator between God and man? Do they believe that what is necessary for salvation is contained in the Holy Scriptures, and do they refuse to teach anything contrary or repugnant to them? Are the Sacraments of Christ's Holy Church rightly and duly administered to God's people? Do they pray in Spirit and in truth while instructing others to accomplish the same? This is the test of truth. And second, what of their lives? Is what they profess to be true actualized in word and deed? Do they serve or demand to be served? Though imperfect, are they pursuing virtue by ordering their lives and shaping their loves by habitual prayer? Do they love the sheep? Would they lay down their lives for them? This is the test of life. Those who pass the twin test of truth and life are to be followed and believed, as long as their doctrine agrees with the Bible, in accordance with Apostolic teaching and the Great Tradition of the Church, but not a minute longer if the fangs come out. We are to try them "by their fruits." Sound doctrine and holy living are the marks of true prophets. Let us remember this. In the end, the mistakes of any pastor (whether sheep or wolf) will not excuse our own. "If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch."
Therefore, every Christian must beware of hypocrisy and becoming a wolf themselves. Any Christian who puts on the appearance of religion and deceives by a false appearance of virtue and holiness is a wolf. Wolves are led by unholy desires and earthly aspirations; they want to transform themselves by devouring those around them. And let's be honest, we all have our 'wolf' moments and temptations. Sometimes, we follow this lower instinct and produce fruit in keeping with sin. But grace says that a wolf can always be transformed back into a sheep. This happens when we take responsibility for the bad fruit in our lives, confess our sins, and return to Jesus, the Bishop and Shepherd of our souls. Repentance is a sure sign of the Holy Spirit acting upon us, and seeking God's forgiveness shows that we are his children. In the words of St. Paul, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons [and daughters] of God.
My friends, when we act like wolves and sin in our hypocrisy, don't condemn yourself; don't give up on the faith. Rather, embrace the gift of God, allowing you to see your error and be sorry. For, we must realize the need for God's transforming grace before we'll ever turn and seek it. And the inbreaking of God's transcendent power, mercy, and love will surely transform everything you are. Amen+
