Fruit of the Spirit

Sermon

When I was in seminary, around this time of year, the end of the semester, a professor or two would inevitably offer a chance to do a special project, and it was always with the best of intentions: in lieu of an academic paper, outline a sermon or a Bible study or show how you would share this information in a hospital; do art! They gave us a lot of freedom and grace, at times, so that we could develop something that felt current or perhaps useful to our work. I knew a guy who wrote a Biblical Greek translation paper as a zombie short story. I hope he’s still using it for something interesting. Zombies have stayed very current in popular culture. I usually did something boring and less memorable, like a sermon outline.

But every time a professor did this, gave us this freedom, entire classrooms were immediately filled with anxiety and dread and questions, so many questions—like what’s the word count? How strict are you on the word count? What spacing and margin size should I use? What font should it be in? Can I write it while chewing gum and walking? All that freedom, and all we had were fearful questions. We were so afraid of screwing up, we often missed a chance to grow and do something new: we’d rather hide under a paper.

That’s not unlike where it seems the Galatians are stuck in our scripture for today. Paul says, it is for freedom you have been set free! And then it sounds like he goes on to calm down a room of scared students that seem to be asking, “Well, great, what are we supposed to do with that?” To their credit, Paul often sounds like a collection of great bumper stickers: “live by the Spirit,” “keep in step with the Spirit.” Things that sound good and catchy, but when I get to thinking about it, I have no idea what he means. They could mean anything! That professor could have meant anything, any project. And what if I pick the wrong one?!

We have customs, laws, and rules. The Galatians lived in a time with customs and laws and rules. It makes sense that anyone would be afraid when they are told that freedom is what freedom is for—freedom for and from what?! And Paul, ever the bumper sticker writer but also often repetitive, makes it even more confusing when he reminds them: well-actually-maybe freedom doesn’t mean you can do just anything. The guy I knew in seminary who wrote a story about zombies being a part of the Gospels, he couldn’t just do that and pass; he had to show where in the language you really could make an argument for this Biblical Greek word to mean zombie. And he did, and that’s what made the assignment awesome.

Likewise, Paul says, it’s not the custom or law or rule that you uphold that makes you awesome, it’s not the word count or the margin size. He makes a list of things you shouldn’t do, things that aren’t of God, but this isn’t an exhaustive list. They’re examples, and if you read them in different translations the variances of these terms are funny and scary and confusing: they seem to range from laws to customs to outdated social rules. But though the list isn’t exhaustive, you might find it exhausting, since it sounds confusing, judgmental, or punitive, at best. And because this list is now in the Bible, a regarded sacred text, if someone wants to use the Bible as a weapon, they could say someone is impure, immoral, or carousing, a sorcerer, and have reason to judge them—and that’s what makes this aw-ful.

In the month of June, the traditional month of Pride, in the week of the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, few things exhaust me like a list of things we “shouldn’t” do in a sacred text. It is dangerous. If we read with grace, it’s hard to imagine Paul was making a list to keep people out or turn folks against one another—since the list says not to do that—don’t dissent into factions! But this is still scarier than most zombie stories.

Earlier, thank God, Paul says: do not bite at or devour one another. The only thing that counts is faith working through love. If you need a law, then there is one command: love your neighbor as yourself. And even though Paul is quoting Jesus there, who is quoting the centuries-old law from what we call the Old Testament, he still kinda sounds like a bumper sticker, right? What does it look like to love your neighbor as yourself? To live by the Spirit? To keep in step with the Spirit? Paul told us some ways not to live, which wasn’t all that helpful, but what is this Fruit of the Spirit? There are a lot of old Sunday school songs you could sing about to remember the verses, but we can’t because of possible copyright infringement, which in one translation Paul does list as something you can’t do and inherit the kingdom of God.

So, instead of singing, I’ll repeat: the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I was surprised, when we talked about this verse as staff this week, how much we had to say—despite the often repetitive and sometimes punitive Sunday School lessons many of us had learned about the fruit.

In addition to the danger of a list of things you shouldn’t do or be being in the Bible, we pointed out the words in the Fruit of the Spirit that bother us, too. We mentioned that words like gentleness can be overly gendered—and that even though they’re listed as something you want to do, “a Fruit of the Spirit,” these words, too, can be used to control and punish. We have a tendency to do that, as humans living in a society with laws and rules that are often unfair—we’re given freedom, and we’re given this good thing, this Fruit of the Spirit, and we use it to tell ourselves we aren’t always joyful so there must be something wrong with us, something to be fixed, and we aren’t always gentle, so we give up on being gentle at all.

But these fruits, or what look like individual fruits, are meant to be together and support the whole. They’re meant to be done and recognized in community.

And so, like the children shared with us, the Fruit of the Spirit really could be an apple or a strawberry. I think about the food drive we’ve been doing (we have another round coming up next week, and to be clear, it is not fruit, it is pasta—don’t get confused because I am now basically making an argument that pasta is fruit and bring fruit—bring pasta) and how that is absolutely Fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit is alive and working amongst us.

I think about this wonderful thing that Julie and Chelle have been doing for us this year, this time of decorating cookies and cupcakes and how it’s been one of the better intergenerational things I’ve seen, where folks of all ages can sit at a table and do something together. That is fruit. It is fruit that is cookies and cupcakes, but it is still fruit.

Breathing is fruit. Rest can be fruit. We wear green during this season of “ordinary time” to remind us to grow, to remind us that summer is a time of growth. How might we grow during this season? Like watermelon or weeds, the Fruit of the Spirit, like the Spirit, is not something you can control—you can’t will yourself into it. This isn’t a list of things we don’t do and can feel self-righteous about so we can judge and persecute others, alongside a list of things we should be, and therefore make us feel self-conscious. It is for freedom you have been set free, do not yoke yourself to your self-righteousness or your insecurities.

The Fruit of the Spirit isn’t something you can grow on your own. For example, I have found the word patience especially striking this season; other translations cite it as forbearance, but one I hadn’t seen before this week was explicit: not seeking revenge when you are justified in seeking revenge. To want an eye for an eye is human and is even the custom in some cases, but it is of the Holy Spirit when we can grow in joy, peace, kindness, generosity, with self-control, faithfully love and not seek revenge. That’s not something we can do on our own.

But if we can’t control the Spirit, if we can’t will ourselves fruit, what can we do?

Breathe. Take a nap. If you’re finishing the school year, as a student, a parent, a teacher, any of those—definitely take a nap. I’ve talked to many of you in the last ten days or so and it’s been a hard week or a hard month, or longer. Sometimes all you can do is wait and rest. Remember that fruit is seasonal. Trust the process; believe the bumper stickers. Maybe you try something new; sing in the choir next week or say yes when someone from the Nominating Committee calls you. You don’t have to write a paper proving that zombies were maybe present in the Gospels.

But I feel confident that this summer, in ordinary time, we’ll have fruit.

Amen.

The Reverend Lindsey Hubbard-Groves

Westminster Presbyterian Church

Sunday, June 9, 2024