Sermons

"Fruit of the Vine"

Delivered from the Pulpit of First Congregational Church

of Anchorage by The Reverend Mark E. Long

on October 18, 2009

Lections:  Hosea 14.4-9

                  Gal. 5.16-25

                  Mk. 7.17-23

Humans divide things, other than themselves from each other, to understand them.  This is a process by which we "take things apart," "break it all down," or "get to the root" in parts because we can't quite "get it" as a whole.

Our best example for this in the Church is the Trinity.  The trinity is nowhere to be found in the Bible but different roles of God are - creator, savior, and sustainer.  These roles get personified and the Church spends the next centuries trying to explain the Trinity that it has created.  When the truth is, there seems only God and the rest is our human tendency to create parts to better understand the whole.

I bring this up not because I want to talk about the Trinity but something else where the Church breaks the whole into parts to better understand the whole.  But I wonder, as with the Trinity, is there anything lost when we do so?  There is a clue in Galatians that there might be. 

But let's begin somewhere besides speculation.  We know the "fruit" of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  They are, according to Paul, the experiences of those who live in the Spirit or way of God as Jesus taught.  If we "bracket," (set aside) the quest for heaven as the Christian goal, then this is our "here and now" quest.  The end of the rainbow for Christians is to enjoy the fruit of the spiritual vine that grows as a birthright in everyone.  We know this.

It happens in the same way that we enjoy the fruit of a physical vine; we have to get it off of the vine and into our lives.  If we want to experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; then we have to do them.  We have to practice the "fruit of the Spirit" in order to receive its nourishment.

Fruit left on the spiritual vine goes the same way as fruit left on a physical vine; it goes bad in time.  Paul calls it the "works" of the flesh but this is really just the choice to live as though there is no spiritual vine, or no fruit on that vine which can turn our experiences for the better. 

God is missing or seems to be from our experiences.  Paul gives a list of these experiences in his letter to the Galatians.  A while later Mark claims that Jesus had his own list.  We know a number of these pretty well from both lists, at least I do.  The last of Paul's list, "things like these," makes plain the obvious that his list and probably the other one is not exhaustive of the trouble we put ourselves through.

But at least as Christians, we have a choice.  We at least know that the Spirit of God strives within creation to make itself known.  Not everyone does. We at least know that there is a spiritual vine that we may choose to pay attention to or ignore.  Not everyone does.  We at least know that there is fruit on this vine.  Not everyone does.  We at least know that the sum of the parts may not be the same as the whole.  Not everyone knows.

What we may not know though along with everyone else is why Paul refers to the number of virtues as one?  Why is it the "fruit" of the Spirit and not the "fruits" of the Spirit?  Can this be meaningful or just semantics?  You can probably guess that I believe it to be more than semantics.

Something unintentional happens at times when we divide a whole.  We see it with the trinity - the parts, human creations, aren't just separated from each other but each takes on an independent life.  We talk about God, Jesus, and the Spirit as though they are independent things rather than the same thing from different angles of perception.  Augustine probably better than any one else first understood that the relationship between God's parts was more a matter of the way our minds work than anything else.

In the same way, the Spirit is not the sum of nine fruits but rather God is expressed into the world, says Paul, in these nine ways.  They are different angles of perception of the Spirit's work, the fruit of the Spirit not the fruits of the Spirit.

Why does it matter?  The danger in this is that we loose the connection with the spiritual vine on which the fruit ripens.  If you doubt this, just look around the world.  Are there not those of the world singing the praises of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, who have no belief in God or recognition of the spiritual vine from which these virtues blossom?  And what may happen to the fruit of the Spirit when the fruit is disconnected from the Spirit?

Let me give you an example out of the life of Frederick Buechner.  Buechner was a visiting professor at Harvard Divinity School, this just happens to be where it was; I am not dissing Harvard, it could have happened any number of places.  Buechner during his lecture one day asks the class to tell him about their faith.  Among the responses is one that perplexes and disturbs Buechner, a young man says that he has "faith in faith."  Buechner remarks you can believe in God, the Easter Bunny, or any number of things which you may believe rightly or wrongly but to say you have "faith in faith" says nothing meaningful.

The same could be said for any number of the virtues.  If we regard the part no longer related to the whole from which it has its root then we have lost our "hitching post" to God.  We may end up saying or doing things which are not helpful or even coherent.

Virtues have to be connected to their source or there is danger that they will become something different.  In a state of spiritual detachment, there is real danger that lust passes for love, happiness for joy, capitulation for peace, procrastination for patience, appeasement for kindness, bribery for generosity, compulsion for faithfulness, timidity for gentleness, and self-denial for self-control.

Hosea lived in a world something like this.  He watches as Israel, after the division of David's kingdom, aligns with Assyria and its array of gods, makes a late effort to get back with the Lord but too late and without sufficient repentance to prevent invasion by the Assyrian army.  Hosea chastises the faithless people and their offspring but finally assures Israel that for those who will return to linking their lives with the spiritual vine of the Lord a better day is coming. 

Hosea concludes God is the spiritual vine to which Israel's destiny is rooted.  Israel shall "blossom like the lily;" Israel shall "strike root like the forests of Lebanon;" Israel's "shoots shall spread out" just as the vine from which they take root.  Israel shall be like the vine, says Hosea.

It is the experience of Israel and any others that will get the fruit of the Spirit off the vine and into their actions.  For those who will walk in the ways of the Lord, says Hosea with encouragement as relevant to us today as much as for the Israelites then, there is assurance of a life beneath the "shadow" of God - a place to blossom, spread out our shoots, and flourish as a garden nurtured from the vine which guides our actions.

For the slow to hear who will keep the fruit on the vine or who pick it and eat it without thought of where it has been grown, they should expect more stumbling along than walking upright.  It is the caution Paul and Hosea give us as we begin considering God from nine different angles of perception.

This is how I see it ready to divide to understand better but not so much as to lose the very understanding we seek.  Next week - kindness.  Amen.