Please Pass Me the Fruit
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Christian Community Presbyterian Church, Bowie, Maryland
June 26, 2022
Have you heard the tongue-in-cheek definition of a Puritan? It’s a person who harbors the fear that somewhere someone is enjoying him- or her- or theirself. All of us happy-go-lucky Christians lack immunity to that kind of thinking. No vaccination and no N95 mask is to going to prevent our suspicions that someone is having more fun than we are, with the underlying, sometimes not-so-well suppressed coveting of that fun. No one has ever done a scientific poll about this, but my gut feeling is that of the two lists which Paul offers in this passage from Galatians, it’s the list of “no-no’s” that get more attention. After all, isn’t one of the first words we learn, “No”? Paul wasn’t attempting to be exhaustive in drawing up either list; you can imagine the “et cetera” at the end of either one. He was trying to illustrate the kinds of behaviors against which or for which he was speaking.
There is a fundamental difference between the two lists. The works of the flesh, as Paul calls them, are behaviors, and the fruit of the Spirit are character traits of people who live their lives in Christ.
There is something attractive about the list of the works of the flesh. The traditional list is almost too sanitary. Here’s how Eugene Peterson puts it in his Message paraphrase:
Paul was using a “take no prisoners” approach to talking about the ways people ignore God. He wanted to remove any notion that those behaviors were appealing.
Yet the list has an attractive quality to it. People can rally around it. Just as we talk about baseball, apple pie, and motherhood as symbols of a positive kind of life, so all these works of the flesh become a rallying point for all that is negative or wrong with people in particular and society in general. Who doesn’t thrill to point out those kinds of things?
Some psychologists say that what people hate most in others is what they fear most in themselves. Maybe that’s the suppressed puritanism coming out; people have to mortify their carnal feelings and urges lest, heaven forbid, they act on them. Some sociologists argue that much of religion is based on fear, the fear of doing wrong, the fear of not going to heaven. Philip Wogaman, a pastor and Christian ethicist, says that some degree of fear is present, even when the primary motivation appears to be positive.
It makes a big difference which is the primary motive, love or fear. When a person is acting primarily out of fear, their motivations are self-centered. That’s exactly what St. Paul had in mind when he wrote about the importance of grace. According to Paul, when obedience to religious law is central to our faith, we will be consumed by fear, for we know that we cannot perfectly observe the law. And even if we could, we would not be experiencing God as the God of love and grace.
How often that simple distinction between a religion of fear and a religion of love appears in the midst of the religious controversies of our time. We are constantly being invited to respond to fear: fear of holding incorrect doctrines, fear of confronting lies, fear of sexuality, fear of anything foreign, fear of future unknowns debunking tried-and-true nostalgia, fear of offending non-Christians, fear of division within the church. The questions that Wogaman thinks that Christians need to ask are: Should my spiritual life be so dominated by fear? And should the churches act out of fear?
Religious people (and their churches), who live mainly out of fear, tend to use force to make people do what the religious people think they ought to do. There is some need for that; this world is not populated by angels. But when we put the main emphasis upon force, we are mostly relying on our ability to make other people fear. That is an eye-for-an-eye mentality; that is lowering ourselves to the tactics of anyone we are in conflict with.
By listing the fruit of the Spirit after the works of the flesh, Paul employed a simple rhetorical technique which places the emphasis on what is stated last. He didn’t want to dwell on the works of the flesh, the things which are cause for fear. He could have. After all, he was raised a Pharisee. Paul could have listed things for pages, if he wanted to. But he didn’t. He moved on to the fruit of the Spirit. They are more important. Their presence is much more important than the works of the flesh. It is the fruit of the Spirit that Paul wanted to leave emblazoned on the memory.
Here is Peterson’s take on Paul’s list of fruit of the Spirit:
Isn’t that a wonderfully grace-filled, positive look at the life that Christ called believers to?
There is nothing unique about Paul’s lists — either one. The lists reflect nothing essentially new or different for Christianity from its Jewish roots. Nor is there much difference with the ethical imperatives given by the philosophical systems of Paul’s time or by other world religions. The uniqueness of the Christian ethic of Paul’s primary list — the fruit of the Spirit — is neither its scope nor the degree of what is demanded of us. Its uniqueness springs from an absolutely unique source — namely the God who lays hold upon us in Jesus Christ. It is not what we are to do but whom we are to obey that makes the Christian ethic what it is.
Not what we are to do, but whom we are to obey. Not what we are to fear, but what we are to live out in affirmation. Paul began this section of his discussion by saying, “For freedom Christ has set us free,” and he continues “you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.”
Theologian William Willimon, one-time dean of the Chapel at Duke University and now a retired United Methodist bishop, tells of a curious baptismal font, in the chapel of Belmont Abbey College, a Roman Catholic school in North Carolina. The font is hollowed out of a huge piece of granite. Mounted on the rock is a sign that reads, “On this rock, slaves were once traded. From this rock, people are now baptized and set free in Christ.” You and I were sold as slaves to sin, but now we are set free for loving, not fearing; for giving, not hoarding; for life, not death; for Christ, not checklists of good works.
The fruit of the Spirit which Paul lists are ways in which Christians may indeed affirm whom we are to obey. Rather than Martin Luther’s misquoted turn of phrase, “sin boldly, so grace may abound,” Christians are invited through Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit to live boldly so that the name of Christ may by seen and heard. We do those things not because we are afraid of what will happen if we don’t. We do them because it is Jesus Christ who calls us to do them. We do them as witness to the grace and mercy he has poured into our lives. We do them because all the things which otherwise raise fear in us have been crucified on the cross and vanquished. We are indeed set free.
We are set free in baptism. We are new creatures. We are Christ’s brothers and sisters. We are no longer stuck-in-sin creatures. Bible teacher Henrietta Mears knew the secret of true freedom, and she wanted her students to know it too. With young people in mind, she said that a bird is free in the air. Place a bird in the water and it has lost its liberty. A fish is free in the water, but leave it on the sand and it perishes. It is out of its realm. So, the Christian is free when she or he does the will of God and is obedient to God’s command. This is as natural a realm for God’s child as the water is for the fish or the air for the bird.
What are the fruit of the Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Paul calls us to stay away from works of the flesh and gravitate towards the fruit of the Spirit. We can’t overdose on any of these Spirit fruits. A number of years ago the U. S. Department of Agriculture created the “Eat Five a Day” campaign to get Americans to eat more fruit and vegetables. The Church needs an equivalent campaign, such as “Live Five Fruit a Day.”
The more we live in the Spirit and have the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, the more we pay attention to whom we are to be obedient, the less we have to worry about the works of the flesh and the less we have to fear that we may do something wrong. The path of life in Christ is clear. In the banquet of abundant, Spirit-filled life, let’s have generous portions of fruit.
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