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Sermon – St Matthew’s, 12 November 2017
‘Whole-life fruitfulness’
Galatians 5. 13-26; [Matthew 15.1-20]
Our Seven-Whole-Days sermon series brings us today to ‘whole-life fruitfulness’ – bearing the fruits of the Spirit in all aspects of our life. I think we’ve got the message that church is not just for Sundays: at least, that our Christian faith is not just for Sundays: our Christian faith is what our whole lives are for.
A quick recap: we began with the whole-life gospel, and looked at that first chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians, where we see that Jesus is essentially human flesh put on the bones of God: human flesh, as the good news is for the whole of our human lives – it’s not just ‘Sunday best’. We looked at the whole-life wisdomwe find in the Bible,and how much more wisdom is than mere information: wisdom builds on experience, and gives real knowledge, and good judgment to inform our daily lives. And importantly, last week we found whole-life purpose in the message of the prophet to God’s people living as exiles in a foreign land: their exile wasn’t going to last for ever, but it was to be for a lifetime, and they were to be committed to the world they were in even if a more permanent home was promised for later on: this was a clear message for us, as we are instructed to be in the world but not of the world.
And so today we have the reading from St Paul’s Epistle to the Christians in Galatia to look at, about the effect which Christian faith has on our lives: we can call itwhole-life fruitfulness. And we had those two lists which St Paul is rather fond of: what he calls ‘the acts of the sinful nature’, contrasted with ‘the fruits of the Spirit’[the first list corresponding with Jesus’s list of evil thoughts which come out of the heart].
The point Paul is making is that being a Christian makes a real difference in our lives. We can think about the difference Christianity has made in the world: in this country as in many others, in serving the community through education, through health services, through the foundations of the welfare system (it was local vestry councils who provided the safety net in both urban and rural societies). And we can think about the Christian qualities we see in individuals: not just in the saints in the story books, but in the lives of ordinary, everyday Christians at home and abroad who have had an impact on the communities they live in, on the large scale or just in their immediate vicinity: people who’ve shown godly qualities which benefit others and which encourage us all. And I’d invite you to think – this is your homework – to think about the qualities you see in others which really encourage you. And perhaps how you can encourage others not by ostentatiously doing good works, but just quietly living the Christian life.
So now, let’s look at the bible passage. Do look it up in the pew bibles if you’ve got one near you. It’s on page 1172 – chapter 5 of Galatians, from verse 13. Page 1172, Galatians 5, from verse 13.The first point which Paul makes here is crucial. ‘You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.’ So often we think of freedom asa free pass to allow us to do as we like – being free of restraints or obligations: free to look after our own interests. But St Paul is making it clear that we’re given freedom: not to abuse it for our own benefit, but to use it for the benefit of others, to serve one another in love. Quite a different concept.
Verse 14: ‘The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself”. And Paul goes on: ‘If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.’Later, at the end of our passage in verse 26, we see: ‘Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.’ We’re good at biting and devouring, and envying each other, aren’t we! In church communities just as in the other societies and groups we take part in, there’s always backbiting and pointless competition. It’s not just Christians by the way: when we were in Iran, Joan and I saw in a public park in Isfahan these noticeboards arranged round the fence with quotations from the Qur’an in Arabic and Farsi and English, one of which said, ‘Do not be inquisitive about other people’s lives, and do not backbite about one another’! We’re all good at backbiting! And this is all part of the difference that Paul always draws out, between living by the Spirit and living by our sinful nature– here it is in verse 16: ‘So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.’
There’s a danger here of misinterpreting St Paul, who seems to make much of the difference between human nature and spirit. There seems to be a dichotomy between our physical lives and our spiritual lives. ‘Flesh and spirit’ are the words used in older translations, and the old KJV had ‘the lusts of the flesh’ which take us down a different road altogether – a very particular road which has led to the common assumption that sex and religion are incompatible. But our versions here translate ‘the flesh’ as ‘our sinful nature’, and so we can see that St Paul isn’t just talking about sex – I know that sexual sin does seem to loom rather large in his catalogue of the evils of human nature but let’s leave that on one side for a moment; he isn’t talking about sex at all but human nature which is, after all, fallen nature: human nature that fell from God’s grace in the Garden of Eden, so that instead of looking first at God and our neighbour, humanity tends to look first at number one, putting ourselves before others. And the freedom which God offers, as we said before, releases us from that and allows us to live in community.
So we come on to verses 19 to 21, and the list of the ‘acts of the sinful nature. Here we go, on one of Paul’s favourite rants? They may not all apply to each one of us – ‘Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery – ? – ; idolatry and witchcraft’ well, if the cap fits …!But you’ve heard Paul elsewhere define idolatry as treating the things that we prize so highly as if they were our gods, whether we’re talking about our cars, or our investments, or our position in the company or in society … We’re all idolaters to some extent if we’re not very careful. And here we are: ‘… hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness’ – yes? – orgies and the like.’ So it’s not all sexual sin at all: these are the things that damage and destroy relationships throughout our families and communities.
To set against these we have the list of virtues, the fruits of the Spirit. And these are all the things that instead of damaging and destroying relationships: that nurture and sustain relationships. Relationships in church; in the home; in the workplace. The dimension of relationships is a strong feature in this passage. We don’t cultivate the fruits of the Spirit alone: we need other people to be patient with, and to exercise kindness and gentleness to.
So here are the fruits of the Spirit, in verses 22 and ’3: ‘love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control’. All of these need other people, they’re never purely individual spiritual virtues. They overlap, of course, they work together, and they are in a sense dependent on each other. You can’t say you’re demonstrating ‘love’ if you’re not also showing ‘patience’ and ‘kindness’. There are other lists in Paul’s Letter to the Colossians and in St Peter’s Second Letter, that are similar but different: the virtues they list are representative rather than an exhaustive list.
‘Against such things there is no law,’ says St Paul. Well, obviously not! but what he means is that laws may prohibit the sort of behaviours in the first list, but these virtues are above the sphere of law. The system of command and control can’t enforce acts of kindness: they can only grow in an altogether more genial and softer soil, under the influence of the Spirit.
[As Jesus showed in our Gospel reading: the law can prohibit certain things or enforce certain things like the rules of cleanliness, but what pollutes us is what comes from within.]
Verse 24: ‘Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.’ We live in the new age of God’s dealings with humanity. We’re no longer bound by the old law of Moses nor imprisoned by our human nature –that way of life was marked by alienation from God and from each other; those things are still part of our human nature, and we need a measure of self-denial to deal with them, but they no longer rule us. Instead, we belong to a new era in which the Spirit brings to life our relationship with God, and which cultivates his fruits in us.
In St John’s gospel [chapter 15] you’ll remember that Jesus uses the image of a vine to speak about his expectation that those who ‘remain’ in him will bear fruit. There there’s a balance between the effort we have to make to remain in the vine and bear fruit, and the work of Jesus and the Father in calling us, and pruning and loving us. And there’s the same relationship as we see here in Galatians between what we are called to do and how God works in us through his Spirit.
So how do we see the fruits of the Spirit ripening in our own lives? And what fruit would we like to cultivate more? These are questions we can ponder. We’re set free to be guided by the Spirit, living in a way that will bear those fruits, and when we see it, in others and in ourselves, we can be encouraged to know that God is working in us. St Paul doesn’t deny that there are difficulties; there’s conflict, and struggle. Growing fruit can be a slow process. We can find help, though. Verse 25: ‘Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.’‘Live by the Spirit’ in this passage can also be translated as ‘walk in the Spirit’, and the idea of walking is used here and elsewhere to describe a way of life. Walking suggests a regular, ongoing pattern, which takes place in the everyday situation wherever we are: at home, at work, in the checkout queue. In all of those contexts, it’s the consistent, everyday actions that make a difference, as we continue to walk step by step in the Spirit while the Spirit works in our lives.
Please don’t forget your homework – to think about the qualities you see in others which really encourage you. And perhaps how you can encourage others not by ostentatiously doing good works, but just quietly living the Christian life.
This is whole-life fruitfulness! Sincewe live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit; let’s make sure that we walk the walk, and don’t just talk the talk. ‘Sincewe live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit, Seven Whole Days!’
Amen? – Amen!