The fruit that kindness is paired with this morning is the date. These grew pretty commonly during the days of the Bible and they still do today. Despite being common, the fruit was sweet and prized. Date palm trees grow slowly. They don’t produce good fruit for about 7-10 years. But they can grow as much as 100 feet tall. Imagine living in the ancient world and harvesting from a tree that’s up to 100 feet tall! Not only that, but the bunches of dates don’t become ripe at the same time. So, to get all the dates you can, you have to go up and get them multiple times in the same season. For all that effort, a single mature date palm tree can give you 150-300 pounds of dates.1 That’s a lot of dates!
Giving with a good heart and a humble spirit, giving what works and upholds the dignity of the person being helped – that’s a pretty tall order. That might even feel like it’s 100 feet tall. But see how much fruit it produces! It’s more than one person could eat, more than one family could eat. This abundance is enough to lift a community. When we practice the fruit of chréstotés, the fruit of kindness, the little things that we do have an impact that go beyond a single act. For our own joy in helping, we extend a feeling of being cherished, which gives that person the grace and abundance to practice kindness in their own right. Chréstotés breeds chréstotés. Kindness shared is kindness multiplied.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_palm