September 1, 2006
NINE FLAVORS FOR BETTER LIVING
Reading: Galatians 5:19-26
What I want to do this week is slow down a little…take some time to talk at length about the church and its people, all of whom have access to the fruit of the Spirit as divine power within them.
Why does the church exist?
We do fun things together, but so do the people at a country club, or the cheaper version of a country club, the tailgate party. We perform acts of service for the good of our community, but so do the Lions and the Rotarians. We help people with their problems, but so do psychologists and social workers and life coaches. We provide a safe environment for people to gather and discuss important issues, but so do the PTA and the League of Women Voters. We want to make the world a better place, but so do the Democrats and Republicans and Greenies.
Why does the church exist?
Gal 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let’s be guided by the Spirit.” I hold that the Church has one excuse for opening its doors, and one excuse only—to offer the Jesus Christ message to people who hunger for a spiritual dimension to life. We are blessed to be a blessing. We are called to practice practical Christianity, to look beyond the physical dimensions of life and see the world meta-physically. To respond as people of faith to the call of Almighty God.
When we respond to the call, what happens?
Well, among other things, we become…a little more mellow? The Apostle Paul—who nobody could accuse of being a mellow guy—laid out some elements of character which believers in Christ Jesus begins to show in their lives. He called them “Fruit of the Spirit” and differentiated them from the “Gifts of the Spirit” which he listed in his First Letter to the Corinthians.
Gifts of the Spirit
The “gifts” are very specific, and Paul goes out of his way to insist that not everybody has the gift of teaching, or prophesy, and so forth. However, the “Fruit if the Spirit” should be growing in everybody’s spiritual orchard. So, this week I'd like to take a moment and reflect with you on the nine “fruit” listed by Paul. And I'd also ask your indulgence as I try to match each of these spiritual fruit with an edible fruit available at your local supermarket. Maybe the next time you munch on an apple or peach you might contemplate the spiritual quality which corresponds, however arbitrarily, with the natural snack you are enjoying.
NINE FLAVORS FOR BETTER LIVING
Ask yourself what comes to mind when contemplating each “flavor” below. Here are some of my thoughts, and it is admittedly a work-in-process.
Love: Binding force of Cosmos
Fruit: Apples
The Greek word here is the familiar agapé, often thought to mean selfless love. Paul described agapé at length in his famous “Hymn to Love” found at I Corinthians 13. It is worth noting that the kind of love Paul advocates has nothing to do with feelings, unlike modern understandings of the word. In fact, Paul is almost Buddhist in his doctrine of love. Not a feeling but a way of relating to others.
Although I am a zealous advocate for feelings of love and falling in love, I am beginning to adopt this larger, Pauline-Buddhist model of love as compassion rather than simply passion. Our lives should out-picture love, but that doesn't mean we must feel lovey-dovey/pitter-pat for all God’s fuzzy creatures, or we’re not using the gift of love.
I think Charles Fillmore nailed it when he said, “Love is the power that joins and binds in divine harmony the universe and everything in it.” [1]
To me, the apple represents the wholeness and holiness of the Cosmos. It is the traditional gift given to teachers. It is also the most heart-warming of fruits, properly baked into a pie and sprinkled with cinnamon, its aroma almost begs you to eat and share it with others.
So, nibble an apple, or a slice of apple pie, and contemplate your world with compassion for all.
Joy: Celebrating life
Fruit: Strawberries
Interestingly, the Greek word chara which is translated usually joy in this passage, has the same root as the word for grace. It is also the same root which forms the word charis-mata, gifts of the spirit. So, by this “fruit of the spirit” (which was supposedly available to all) Paul provides a link to the special “gifts of the spirit” concept. Strawberries are like that. Both available to everybody and yet specially designed by God for me.
Something mystical happens when you pop a ripe strawberry in your mouth. A cool breeze of refreshment wafts over your face as little barbs of sweetness jab at your tongue. It is pure joy, and only the stern can respond inaudibly. Next time you devour a strawberry—they are never simply eaten, you know—meditate on the gift of joy and all those who have given it to you.
Joy is one of those forces which, when properly channeled, can power your life.
Peace: Inclusion and Acceptance
Fruit: Peaches
Peace is not just the absence of war, nor is a life dedicated to peace immune to conflict. But a life centered in peace finds its strength from inclusion and acceptance rather than exclusion and rejection. Edwin Markham (1852-1940), who was a frequent quest at Unity Village, wrote a poem which summarizes the path of peace by inclusion and acceptance.
"Outwitted" by Edwin Markham [2]
He drew a circle to shut me out.
Heretic, rebel; a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win.
We drew a circle that took him in.
When biting into the soft and exquisite flesh of a peach, think of those words…The circle of the peach skin takes in all the sweetness and nectar, not to exclude but to hold together.
Peach is for peace.
Patience: Trust God despite appearances
Fruit: Kiwi
The King James Version rendered the Greek word makrothumia as long-suffering, but the word patience conveys a better sense of its meaning. Sometimes things are not what they seem. The harsh event today can become the moment of deliverance tomorrow. If you need an example, I give you the kiwi fruit. Tough and brown and bitter on the outside, soft and green and sweet within. To those who exercise patience, the goodness inside the tough wrapper may yet be revealed.
When cutting into your next kiwi, think patience and trust God.
Kindness: Living the Golden Rule
Fruit: Oranges
I am absolutely convinced the universal spiritual principle allowing healthy interactions with others is an application of the Golden Rule in some variation. All versions really say the same thing in two variations, either positive (“Do this…”) or negative (“Don't do that…”). The message is quite simple:
Be nice, because you want others to be nice to you.
Kindness is so much more intelligent than its opposite, cruelty. When expressing cruelty, you generate hate and an energy for vengeance. But kindness usually returns to you in the same vein, or at the very least keeps things from exploding back in your face.
Oranges always seemed like a kind fruit to me. When I was a child, my Christmas stocking always had an orange in it, along with the mandatory candy canes and other confectionaries. My grandmother explained that during the Great Depression of the 1920’s and 30’s, people in our family were so poor they couldn't afford candy or other luxuries, even at Christmas. But they always managed to buy a few oranges for the stockings, a special treat for those who lived in northern climates, especially during winter.
To this day, I put an orange in the stocking of everybody in my home each Christmas, and I remind my kids—now all grown—that our family has come through challenging time in the past and will do so in the future, and this little ball of orange-gold, represents kindness from the heart and a belief that life goes onward to its highest good.
Put an orange in your stockings this Christmas, and pass the kindness along.
Generosity: Prosperity principles
Fruit: Watermelon
One of the most basic principles of prosperity is that release and circulating is better than hoarding, because we get back what we put out. That’s why watermelon is a prosperity fruit to me. It is meant to be shared. Not just shared, but shared generously, because it’s usually too big for one person to eat it all before it spoils.
Share a watermelon and multiply your prosperity!
Faithfulness: Perseverance
Fruit: Grapes
The word here is pistis, which elsewhere is translated faith, but has a wider meaning which the NRSV faithfulness catches. An Old Testament story from the Book of Numbers links the quality of faith with grapes. (No, really!) Moses sends a team of scouts (spies in most translations) to check out the Promised Land. They come back with tall tales of a land flowing with milk and honey, and they bring back a bunch of grapes so huge they had to cut a pole to carry them. All is lovely and fertile, except there are “giants” in the land, the spies report, so if Moses leads the Israelites in they will be slaughtered. This is even acknowledged as an exaggeration by the text. The point is, they lacked faith in their own power to face the giants ahead, so they opted for more long years in the wilderness.
The next time you eat a grape, think about the delicious gifts which God is continually trying to give you, and rather than fleeing the make-believe giants of your fears, go forward to claim your promised land of goodness.
Gentleness: Be a “safe house” for others.
Fruit: Banana
Sometimes translated humility, the Greek word prautes can also be rendered courtesy, modesty, considerateness, and meekness, although this last term is meant in the archaic sense of mildness rather than the modern word which has overtones of naiveté and weakness. A person who demonstrates this particular fruit of the Spirit is someone who can be trusted, for he or she lives by the ancient dictum of the medical profession, “Do no harm.” This person’s sphere of influence is a kind of safe-house into which all may enter and be received with courtesy and humble acceptance. There is a child-like innocence to this gift.
Perhaps that’s why bananas come to mind as the appropriate symbolic fruit. As anyone who has raised a child since the middle of the 20th century knows, squashed bananas are fed to babies in great quantity. We are evolutionarily large primates, related to other two-legged banana-nibblers by massive DNA similarities. Once full grown, our hirsute cousins are probably not a good example of prautes, but the babies of most warm-blooded species seem to radiate gentleness. Baby mammals—humans included—express some degree of courtesy to others of their species, at least until they grow a little older and rivalries take over. Maybe that’s why Jesus told us to become as a little child in order to access the Kingdom of Heavenly possibilities.
Let bananas with their smile-like shape forever suggest the gift of gentleness and acceptance for all.
Self-Control: Moderation and balanced life
Fruit: Plums
The New Interpreter’s Bible, one of the references I've been consulting as I dribble out these thoughts, notes that the Greek word used here—egkrateia, or self-control—is found nowhere else in Paul. This is probably because he wanted to find a strong closing word, one that would contrast with the strong closing word in his list of offensive behavior which immediately precedes the passage on fruit of the Spirit:
“Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the
kingdom of God.” (Galatians 5:19-21, NRSV)
Paul ends the no-no list with a tirade against “drunkenness, carousing, and the like…” There was a time in my life when I would have argued with him on the worthiness in a night spent with a little bacchanalian revelry, but I'm sixty now, so the party has to end before Jay Leno’s monologue. Note, however, how Paul’s list of spiritual fruit closes with the opposite: Instead of riotous living, the gift of the Spirit is self-control.
Many of you know I am a retired US Army chaplain. I can recall one night when I was visiting the barracks of one of my units in Germany. It was late, and I was talking with the CQ (charge of quarters, the NCO who stood watch at night and acted as the official representative of the commander). A soldier literally crawled in the door, too drunk to stand up. The NCO grunted and called for a few other GI’s to drag the totally snookered young troop to a special drunk tank bed they had in a room on the first floor near the CQ desk.
It was like a hospital ICU without any equipment. Actually, it wasn't like an ICU at all, except that the soldier got monitored during the night. We had a young man die in the barracks of alcohol poisoning a few weeks earlier, and the commander wisely initiated this policy to save lives. He also leaned on the young men to control their drinking, but young people have their own agendas. He also command-referred (that means marched them off, like it or not) his people to drug and alcohol rehab when episodes like this occurred, so I knew this GI had some meetings in his near future.
I remember looking down at him as he lay there on the floor and saying—no unkindly, although I may have sounded a little frustrated at the time—“Had enough fun for tonight, soldier?”
How someone could go out and hurt themselves like this and call it fun was beyond me. But my friends in recovery are all shaking their heads now and saying, “Oh, yeah, Tom. Trust me. Some alcoholics do it.”
The name of the game, to me, is to find a moderate center, living a balanced life. That takes many skills, not the least of which is self-control. The good news is that self-control is one of the fruit of the Spirit, which means it lies within us if we learn how to manifest its power. To do this often requires us to plumb the depths. (Sorry…) So, now you know why I picked plums for the fruit of Self-Control.
I believe the Church exists to provide a place where people can grow spiritually, where we can learn about God and life and eternity, and where we can pass along our highest values and grandest hopes for a better tomorrow.
Anyway, these stray thoughts are meant to stir your mind a little. The church should be in the stirring business. Let me know if the ideas helped. And feel free to used the Nine Flavors in your writing and teaching—just give me a footnote and my ego will smile like a monkey with a bushel of bananas.
NINE FLAVORS FOR BETTER LIVING
Love – Binding force of Cosmos – Apple
Joy – Celebrating life – Strawberries
Peace – Inclusion and acceptance - Peach
Patience – Trust God despite appearances - Kiwi
Kindness – Golden Rule - Orange
Generosity – Prosperity principles - Watermelon
Faithfulness – perseverance - grapes
Gentleness - be a “safe house” - banana
Self-Control – Moderation/balanced life – plums
Galatians 5:22-25
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
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[1] Charles Fillmore, Christian Healing (Unity Books), p. 120.
[2] "Outwitted", poem by Edwin Markham, available online at multiple sites, to include http://holyjoe.net/poetry/markham.htm
