As I have done in previous Lents I am sharing a daily reflection as part of my Lenten discipline. This year I am using the “Wilderness Wanderings” theme compiled by the “Lent Photo a Day” group. The word appointed for February 26th was  “Fruit.”

Messiah Lutheran Church passed a remarkable milestone this weekend. For the past six years, the congregation and volunteers have brought bags full of food (and other essential supplies) to worship every fourth weekend of the month. This has come to be called “Food on the Fourth.”

This weekend, the fourth weekend of February, the congregation passed the 100,000 lb. mark. That’s 50 tons worth of food since the program began, and there is no stop in sight.

I share that story because in thinking about fruit, both in light of the idea of “fruits of the spirit,” and this weekend’s gospel passage from Luke 13:1-9, this is the kind of fruit is possible when a tree is planted. Two congregational members had an idea, and what it has grown into and sparked is a ministry that has filled the shelves of food pantries, and met the needs of many neighbors in the community.

What kind of fruit might your idea bear? What kind of fruit have your ideas already bore?