Freedom Fruit
Paul is not talking about the star-spangled freedom we hold dear in the United States.
Teaching on the Fruits of the Spirit outlined by the Apostle Paul was once my favorite confirmation lesson to teach. I mean, the lesson practically taught itself. The night before the class, I would go to two or three grocery stores to purchase a variety of fruits from as many regions and continents as possible. On Sunday morning, my sixty confirmands and their teachers and mentors would work in teams cutting the fruit and assembling Fruits of the Spirit sculptures. A competition to build the tallest tower using fruit and toothpicks. As the teams worked on their sculptures, the students would read from Galatians Five.
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
The adult mentors in each group would lead a discussion about how or where the students had seen the Fruits of the Spirit at work in their lives.
“Loving my family and friends.”
“Not being violent with my siblings or neighbors.”
“Trying to be patient and kind with strangers.”
“Acting gently when caring for a pet.”
Like many witnesses testifying before Congress, the answers provided by my confirmands were enough not to be held in contempt but vague enough to have not said anything. The answers offered by the students and adults were always enough to answer the question without answering the question.
For the previous two chapters of his letter the Galatians the Apostle Paul has been talking about freedom. Paul is not talking about the star-spangled freedom we hold dear in the United States. No, Paul is talking about freedom from the Law for Gentile Christians. Paul is explaining why Gentile Christians do not need to adopt the Jewish Law.
In verses two through 15 of chapter five, the parts we skipped this morning, Paul lays out his argument against being circumcised. But that is a sermon for another day.
Paul states the Galatians are freed from the flesh and freed for life in the Spirit. Paul says we are free from a life focused on “selfish desires” that are “set against the Spirit.”[i]
When the Apostle Paul invokes the Holy Spirit, he invokes the same Spirit that swept across the dark water when God fashioned the universe.
Paul is calling upon the same Spirit that overshadowed Mary.
The same Spirit descended at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River and Pentecost.
The same Spirit is at work in you as a result of your baptism.
The real presence of God, here in the space right now, is present with you at the breakfast table or while praying alone at night, crying out from the depths of your soul.
I have always wanted a do-over on the Fruits of the Spirit confirmation lesson. In hindsight, I spent too much time (and money) curating the right fruits for sculpture building and not enough time focused on the lesson the Apostle Paul is offering the Galatians and Church today.
My Fruits of the Spirit confirmation lesson got off on the right foot. A group working together. A group identifying the Fruits of the Spirit in one another. A group of disciples working together to identify the movement of God in their lives. Then, like a bonehead, I started the process of taking the work of the community and making it individual.
“All of my loving people in this corner.”
“Patient and kind people over there.”
“Gentle people, along that wall and the controlled people in the middle.”
I had taken the gospel’s Good News and turned it into Law. I had taken the freedom in Christ Paul wrote about in verse one of our reading and turned it into Law.
Paul wrote, “Christ has set us free for freedom.”
And I asked, “If you do not have one of these gifts of the Spirit, how might you go about deepening the missing gift(s)?”
With that question, I had fallen into the crisis American Christianity finds itself in. American Christians have a habit (color me guilty) of making Christianity into a religion of good people getting better. In reality, as Pastor David Zahl points out, Christianity is a “religion of bad people coping with their failure to do good.”
The Fruits of the Spirit identified by Paul are not attributes to which you or I should try to aspire to on our own.
The Fruits of the Spirit are not a code of conduct for you or the Church to follow. Paul is not writing a general rulebook for the Galatians or us.
Paul’s letter was not written with a specific person in mind. His words were not written to you.
One of the follies of Western Christianity is to think that we can have a personalized faith. This is one of the reasons why we pick and choose what texts in our Holy Scriptures to pay attention to and which texts we will ignore. A byproduct of the Billy Graham crusades, American Christianity, runs the trend of looking to the scriptures for personal revelation. This is how we have ended up with political arguments sprinkled with handpicked religious texts that sound good in a tweet or soundbite but miss the overarching story of God’s amazing grace.
In an interview, Dr. Stanley Hauerwas was asked, “Christians often talk about having a personal relationship with God, and they describe it as a kind of friendship with God; is that a useful category for those who are looking on and trying to understand what Christianity is all about?”
Dr. Hauerwas’ response: “No, The last thing I want is a personal relationship with God. Our relationship with God is mediated, and that’s the reason thats why without the church, we know not God. My little tag is ‘Know Israel, Know Jesus; Know Church, Know Jesus.’ Our faith is a mediated faith through people by word and sacrament. I would never trust myself to have a personal relationship with God.”[ii]
Paul’s letter was not written for you.
Paul’s letter, Paul’s letters, and all of the Holy Scriptures were written for the Church. The Body of Christ is assembled through the love of God our Creator, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Paul writes, “the fruit of the Spirit is.” Singular. Not the “fruits of the Spirit are.” Do you notice the difference? The Fruit of the Spirit is one gift, requiring one another, produced through the Holy Spirit and not individual Christians. Through Christ’s body. The Fruit of the Spirit – the Spirit-Filled Life – is to learn to be a disciple and live a life where we require others in our lives.
The Fruit of the Spirit describes the Body of Christ, made flesh in the world through the work of the Holy Spirit.
We need one another.
Life centered on the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
Life made possible through Word and Sacrament.
Life free from religion for the sake of self-improvement instead freed to live a life only possible through the work of the Holy Spirit. Life centered on who you are – beloved and free – where who you are not is no longer interesting.
Life where I need you, and you need me. We need one another.
Life, new life, in Christ.
[i] Galatians 5:17
[ii] https://theologicalsweets.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/personal-relationship-with-god/