Mission Possible: Fruit of the Spirit

Fruit of the Spirit window, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland 


Galatians 5:13-16, 22-25

  From Galatians 5--You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only don’t let this freedom be an opportunity to indulge your selfish impulses, but serve each other through love…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this.

The scripture this week might seem to be a little more mission IMPOSSIBLE than possible, but our founding father of Methodism sees it differently. 

In a sermon called "On Zeal," John Wesley describes how the whole practice of Christian discipleship leading to sanctification works.  He says at the center is love... which radiates out to our holy tempers (like the fruit of the spirit). We practice love in works of mercy to others (love your neighbor) and nurture love with works of piety (hearing and reading the Word, public and private prayer, communion, fasting, abstinence, etc).  The outermost circle is the Church universal which, in gathering together to praise and worship God, provokes us to love.  Wesley suggests that if we don't continuously work on these tempers, we succumb to the passions of the flesh (hatred, bitterness, bigotry, pride, anger, idolatry, persecution, etc), which are basically anything not joined with and directed by love.

I go through all this to remind us that the core of our denominational faith, at least in the eyes of it's accidental founder, is love.  We may see signs in our own denomination and others of succumbing to hatred, bigotry, persecution and the like, but that is not who we are, or what we were founded on.  

Love first.  Love at the center. Love at the heart.  This leads to all the other fruit of the Spirit. And ultimately, as Paul suggests in the letter to the Galatians, this leads to freedom.  Freedom is love. Love is freedom.  Anything that is not wrapped in love is binding us in slavery instead of freedom.  And love is the only key with which we can unlock the chains that bind our hearts.

I am not generally a single issue thinker. I see connections everywhere to everything, good and bad and in between.  I think, though, to survive in the current climate of polarization and unrest, to make the mission of serving Christ POSSIBLE, I might need to become a single issue thinker for a while.  To concentrate fully and singularly on LOVE.  Love of self, love of neighbor, love of other, love of the whole world. 

Lin Manuel Miranda, winner of the Tony for writing this year's best musical Hamilton, said it best in his acceptance speech, 

"We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger

We rise and fall and light from dying embers,

Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love,

cannot be killed or swept aside..."

How do you create love in the world?  Why is it so hard to just LOVE?

Email me at peverhart@niwotumc.org or click on the comment link below.

What the world needs now is love, sweet love.