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When the 1960’s ended, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. They had children and got married. But they didn't name their children Melissa or Brett. People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing Frisbee with little Time Warp or Spring Fever. And eventually Moonbeam, Earth, Love and Precious Promise all ended up in public school. That's when the kindergarten teachers first met Fruit Stand. Every fall, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus. So it was for Fruit Stand. The teachers thought the boy's name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it. "Would you like to play with the blocks, Fruit Stand?" And later, "Fruit Stand, how about a snack?" He accepted hesitantly. By the end of the day, his name didn't seem much odder than Heather's or Sun Ray's. At dismissal time, the teachers led the children out to the buses. "Fruit Stand, do you know which one is your bus?" He didn't answer. That wasn't strange. He hadn't answered them all day. Lots of children are shy on the first day of school. It didn't matter. The teachers had instructed the parents to write the names of their children's bus stops on the reverse side of their name tags. The teacher simply turned over the tag. There, neatly printed, was the word "Anthony." I don’t know if you have ever been mixed up about spiritual fruit and spiritual gifts. If you are, then today is the day to understand the difference. You may have heard talk here at St. John about spiritual gifts. We have a workshop where you can discover your own spiritual gifts. About 80 people have been through the workshop. My hope is that we will become known as a gifts-based ministry. In other words, we will be involved in ministries that use our spiritual gifts. In our epistle for today Paul writes to the Galatian Christians, not about spiritual gifts, but about spiritual fruit. Here is the difference. Spiritual gifts have to do with ministry, with tasks such as teaching, giving, helping. Spiritual fruit has to do with our inner character, how loving and patient we are. Spiritual gifts relate to what the Spirit empowers us to do for God’s kingdom. Spiritual fruit relates to who we are becoming in Christ. One of the principles of the natural world is that plants are known by the fruit they bear. If you see apples on a tree then you know it is an apple tree. If you see raspberries on a bush then you know it is a raspberry bush. In the same way if you see a person being kind, loving, joyful, then you know that the Spirit of God is present in that person in some form. How much of the spiritual fruit is showing up in your life? Does your fruit stay on your branches for a long time, ready to be picked by others when they need it? Or does your fruit blossom for a brief time only to fall off the tree and rot? Isn’t it interesting how our perception of ourselves is often different than that of others? What would those close to you say about the fruit in your life? How about those who don’t know you as well as your family? What is your own view of how loving and kind and generous you are? When I think about my childhood I can recall many times of being emotionally wounded by other kids and adults. I had no choice but to take these wounds into my adolescence. When you are hurt at the deep places in your heart it is easy to work out your hurts and your anger on others. But inside you still want to believe that you are a loving and friendly person. I remember hearing my mother speaking on the phone to a relative when I was 17. She said, "Dave is becoming a warm and loving person." What struck me was, "You mean I haven’t been warm and loving up to now?" It was a revelation for me. When it comes to spiritual fruit it needs to be said that some of our fruit is in seed form. Growing generosity and self-control in our lives is a process that moves from seed to mature fruit. We understand this. We do not expect a teenager to have the kind of mature spiritual love as a 60 year old. We do not expect to see acorns on an oak seedling. How many of the spiritual fruits show up in our lives as mature fruit? How many are in "seed" form? Which fruits do you sense God speaking to you as needing some mature growth? Which ones do you want in your life? Let’s take some time to be fruit inspectors, not for someone else’s life, but for our own. The first fruit listed in Galatians 5:22 is probably the most important…love. Perhaps it can even be said that all the rest of the fruits stem from this one. From his earliest days in politics, Abraham Lincoln had a critic, an enemy, who continually treated him with contempt, a man by the name of Edwin Stanton. Stanton would say to newspaper reporters that Lincoln was a "low cunning clown" and "the original gorilla". He said it was ridiculous for explorers to go to Africa to capture a gorilla "when they could find one easily in Springfield, Illinois." Lincoln never responded to such slander; he never retaliated in the least. And when, as President, he needed a Secretary of War, he selected Edwin Stanton. When his friends asked why, Lincoln replied, "Because he is the best man for the job." Years later, that fateful night came when an assassin’s bullet murdered the president in a theater. Lincoln’s body was carried off to another room. Stanton came, and looking down upon the silent, rugged, face of his dead President, he said through his tears, "There lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen." Stanton’s animosity had finally been broken. How? By Lincoln’s patient, long-suffering, non-retaliatory love. Joy is the second spiritual fruit. Are you a joyful person? Do you know the difference between happiness and joy? Happiness often depends on outward circumstances. Great weather, a little extra money, a killer shopping bargain, not burning dinner can all help us be happy. But joy does not depend on such changeable factors. Joy is a fruit with roots deep in the heart of God. Joy can be present even when nothing is going our way. Peace. Are you a person with inner peace? Is it easy for anxiety to crowd out the peace in your heart? Would you like to see the fruit of peace more often in your life? Patience. On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the most patient, how would you score yourself? Are you the kind of person who depends on the patience of others around you? At some point we need to water and nurture the seeds of patience in our own lives so this fruit can show up more often. Kindness. This fruit can at times be displayed more to strangers than to our own families. Yes, we can continue to show kindness and let drivers in front of us in heavy traffic. But can we also show this same kindness at home? Generosity. Our attachment to money and the things it can buy can keep us from being generous. What is it that you have difficulty allowing others to share? Your golf clubs? Your car? Your expensive tent? Showing the fruit of generosity means knowing our real treasure is in heaven, not in earthly things. Faithfulness. One of my credos for life is that God calls us, not necessarily to be successful, but to be faithful. The world is filled with people who failed in some things but were faithful in the important things. Gentleness. All it takes is a visit to a preschool to convince you that children need gentleness. Guess what? Teens and adults need it also. Gentleness is a spiritual fruit badly needed in an "in-your-face" world. Self-Control is the last spiritual fruit. Free expression can be a good thing, but so can self-control. The writer of Ecclesiastes was right. There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to build and a time to tear down. Self-control can often be viewed as the amount of time you allow between a strong feeling and your reaction. A story is told of an artist who spent years in a foreign city, studying the works of the great masters. Then with glowing inspiration he cut in the marble the ideal forms of his own dreams and visions. The figures were packed and sent home. The boxes were carefully opened and the marbles were admired and praised by thousands. The artist's ambition was gratified, and he rejoiced in his triumph. But hidden in the straw in which the noble works were packed were a number of little seeds. The straw was scattered about the grounds, and the next spring rare foreign flowers sprang up beside the artist's doorway. The pieces of statuary were the intended results of those many years abroad. The flowers exhaling their fragrance were the accidental, unplanned results. So good men and women go on with their great purposes and plans, but there is at the same time an unperceived, unnoted ministry, which yields many a sweet flower. Perhaps the better part of most good and useful lives is the part that never gets into the written biography, that cannot be written. Perhaps in nearly every life this is the better part, that its unconscious, unwritten influences do more in the end, than the things done by labor and pains and thought of as making the real life-work. You and I can spend our lives doing things well. What is truly important is the hidden stream in our hearts that gives rise to everything we think, do, and say. That hidden stream is our character, our spiritual fruit. There may never be a host of people who know about your Christ-like character. But you will and so will your God. How did you do with your personal fruit inspection? Need some work in some areas? Keep in mind that this growth process is a highly personal one. Others will be needed to help us grow this fruit in our lives, but ultimately it is between us and God. Character is not a skill we can learn. It is not a task we can do. Character is the center of who we are becoming. When we become more loving, joyful, patient, and kind we are becoming like Jesus Christ. It is a gift of grace that we can be shaped and formed into the image of God. And it is a cause for rejoicing. |
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07/01/01 - Fruit Inspection (Galatians 5:1,13-25)
