Jesus Creed
Glossy, Air-brushed Christians
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’
My first thought whenever I read this list of ingredients for a genuine Holy Spirit-made Christian: ‘Cra@. I’m doomed.’
It’s true.
Thank God ‘truthfulness’ isn’t on the list because then I’d have to be honest with you. I’d have to own up to the fact that not even my own mother would use 8 of those 9 attributes to describe me.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? That’s not me. I’m not that person.
I’ve been a Christian- or at least I was thought I was- for 20 years. I have 2 theology degrees. I have thousands of books on Christianity in my office. I know several psalms by heart, and I can recite John 13 from memory- in Greek.
But if this is what a genuine, Holy Spirit-filled Christian looks like, I’m screwed.
I mean, I’ve got ‘love’ down, I guess.
I love my kids.
I tell my wife I love her, and sometimes I show her it’s true.
I tell myself I love God and that I even comprehend what that means.
I’m good at blogging about how we should love our enemies, but I’m not even sure if ‘Chase’ is my neighbor’s first name or last.
So, I’ve got ‘love’ down. 1 out of 9.
But if this list is what the Spirit is supposed to yield in us, if this is the Holy Spirit harvest in someone who’s genuinely following Jesus, then I’m screwed. The Holy Spirit’s work on me has been slower than beltway construction.
20 years and I’m 1 for 9.
I hate this list. I hate this scripture passage.
Paul, who wrote this scripture passage, had only been a Christian for about 10 years when he wrote it. Less than half the time I’ve been pretending to be a Christian.
Paul! A Pharisee who stood idly by while one of the apostles, Stephen, was tortured to death. I may be an SOB but I’ve never offered to hold the rocks for a lynch mob.
Paul did, but apparently the Holy Spirit’s work in him was just so awesome that in 10 years he scored 9 for 9 on this list.
I hate him too.
Maybe it’s just me.
Maybe I’m Holy Spirit resistant, Pentecost flame retardant.
Maybe you read this list of what the Spirit’s supposed to yield in you, and you think ‘Sure, I’ve got those. That’s me.’
If so, I hate you too.
It’s not as if I don’t try.
I wake up every morning with every intention of being patient and kind and all the rest.
But then, after I wake up, I’ve got to deal with- you know- actual people. And a lot of those are church people so it’s doubly hard and it’s in no time that my love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control all deteriorate faster than a Roger Goodell press conference.
This list- it isn’t me.
If this, 1-9, is what a genuine Holy Spirit-filled person looks like, I don’t measure up.
Last Sunday night we took the boys to the Jack White concert at Merriweather Pavilion. And watching my kids dance and clap along to the blues filled me with joy, absolute joy. And knowing I had to preach on this text this coming Sunday I thought to myself ‘Alright, not bad, 2 out of 9, making progress.’
But then I remembered how we got in to the concert in the first place.
You see, I’d gotten the tickets back in May. When they arrived in the mail, I stuck them in the desk drawer with the bills and, like the bills, forgot all about them until Thursday when I couldn’t find them. Anywhere.
And so what did I do?
I called Ticketfly and I said to the customer service lady: ‘Yes, I ordered tickets for this Sunday’s Jack White concert back in May for my little boy’s birthday and I’d forgotten all about it but I just realized those tickets never came in the mail. They must’ve gotten lost. In the mail.’
So that night at the Jack White concert my Facebook status looked like this: #whitelieformysonshappiness.
But my list, my Holy Spirit inventory, looked like this: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
And that Monday I was at Safeway in the Express Line, the Express Line, the 10 Items or Less Line- 10 Items, or Less, Line.
I was in line behind this old blue-haired woman who had 28 items in her cart. 28. I know because she was moving so slow I had time to count the 28 items in her cart at least 28 times while we stood in the 10 items or less aisle.
But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t sigh out loud or point to the Express Line sign that she should’ve been able to see since it was nearly as big as her perm. I didn’t point out that calling hers an express purchase was like saying water-boarding is not torture.
No, I didn’t complain.
I didn’t gripe that I had places to go and people to see. And I didn’t complain when she pulled out a stack of wrinkled, mostly expired coupons to try to haggle the price down.
No, I did good. Jesusy good.
But then when it came time to pay, the old lady reached in to a purse the size of El Salvador and after searching in it for…oh, I don’t know…forever…what did she pull out?
That’s right: a checkbook.
It was big and fat and had like 8 rubber bands wrapped around it and old deposit slips sticking out everywhere.
And after she then searched for her ‘favorite pen’ she filled the check out like she was signing a Middle East Peace Treaty and then she carefully tore the check out of the checkbook and then she marked the transaction down in her checkbook register with crossword puzzle care and then- finally- she handed the check to the teenager working the cash register, the teenager who had clearly never seen nor processed a check in his life.
“Oh my God! You should just keep a goat in that purse because the barter system would be a quicker way to pay!”
I thought I’d said to myself.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
And then on Tuesday some jerk pastor somewhere in the country left this comment about my last sermon on a clergy Facebook Page: ‘I hope you understand the Holy Spirit better than you [don’t] understand prayer…for your congregation’s sake.’
My thoughtful reply to this jerk pastor has since been removed by the webmaster, but suffice it to say:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
And on Wednesday my son Gabriel had his first baseball game of the season. I’m managing his team this year. This is the first time I’ve ever managed a little league team before so I didn’t know what that really means is that I’m managing the little leaguers’ parents. Especially the dads.
So there we were, playing our first game. It’s the first inning. We give up 4 runs and one of the dads decides to come up to me and ask when I’m going to make ‘defensive adjustments’ because, he says, his son’s ‘exceptional skills are being wasted in right field.’
I was about halfway through my measured reply to him before I realized all the players on the field and all the parents on the sidelines were staring at me. Or listening to me is more like it.
#blesshisheart
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self–control
I hate this list.
On Thursday night, I led a prayer vigil in Aldersgate’s sanctuary for Hannah Graham, the missing UVA student who is/was a part of our Aldersgate community.
And during the service I led a long litany prayer emphasizing the goodness and sovereignty of God even as- in my head and in my heart- I was questioning those very things.
Questioning God’s goodness in a world like ours. Second-guessing God’s wisdom for making our world the way he made it.
And during the silent prayer time and the lighting of the candles I listened to the hundreds of people gathered there, crying and sniffling and pleading softly under their breath.
And I couldn’t utter a single prayer, silent or otherwise, because really what I wanted to say to God was ‘@#*& *&$ God! Where the #$%^ are you?!’
As Dennis offered the candle-lit benediction that night, I looked like this:
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Thank God ‘truthfulness’ isn’t on this list, because then I’d have to confess how much I hate this fruit of the Spirit passage.
Because if this is what a real Spirit-filled Christian looks like, then all this picture does is remind me of what I’m not, what I’m lacking, how inadequate and imperfect and incomplete I am.
This passage is like a glossy, air-brushed, cover-shoot picture of the Christian that Paul in advertising thinks I should be instead of the blotchy, blemished, and thoroughly ordinary Christian that I am.
I hate this passage.
I hate this fruit of the Spirit passage because, intentionally or not, the message it conveys is no different than the message we see and hear 3,000 times a day:
You’re not good enough.
This passage- it’s like that Ciallis commercial. You know, the one where the husband and wife are relaxing in separate claw-footed bathtubs- outdoors- enjoying a breath-taking view and then the woman suggestively brushes the man on his hand.
Because, you know, scenes like that unfold all the time.
Translation: Your marriage isn’t passionate enough.
This passage- it’s like those Dos Equis commericals featuring the world’s most interesting man and the gorgeous women who want to be with him and the men who want to be him, which of course is awesome until you pop the top on a bottle and no fawning beauties or admiring men appear.
Translation: You’re not really all that interesting.
Just as you already suspected.
This fruit of the Spirit passage- it’s like those iPhone 6 commercials that all but say the iPhone 5 you bought 4 weeks ago makes you an outdated, antiquated, hopelessly uncool loser.
I hate this passage because all I hear in it is the same message I hear everywhere else: I’m not good enough.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
When it comes to lists, I score a lot better on that other list, the one Paul gives just before this list of fruit:
- Fornication: Game of Thrones, binge-watching, 5/14
- Moral Corruption: Ordained in the UMC, 6/07
- Doing Whatever Feels Good: ask grandmother, ‘you’ll go blind…’
- Idolatry: M-F, Weekly
- Drug Use: 2nd Hand, Jack White Concert, 9/14
- Casting Spells: Renaissance Faire, 10/13
- Hate: Joel Osteen Ministries
- Fighting: Bishop’s Cabinet re: Guatemala Toilet Project
- Obsession: Baseball
- Losing Temper: Joel Osteen Ministries
- Oppositional: see: personality, Jason
- Selfishness: ask: Ali, wife of Jason
- Jealousy: Joel Osteen Ministries
- Conflict: Starbucks Barista who doesn’t know how to make an Americano, 9/26/14
- Drunkenness: college, ’96-’00
- Partying: see above (and graduate school ’00-’03… and last Saturday)
When it comes to this list, the life of the flesh list, I’m 16 for 16, 24/7, 365 days a year.
But I hate this fruit of the Spirit list.
20 years in and most days I’m just 1 for 9. It’s just another reminder of the same message we see and hear a thousand times a day.
#youarenotgoodenough
Paul, here in Galatians, is like that Mom I’m friends with on Facebook. Every day- every day- she posts pictures of her kids’ perfect, healthy, nutritious, all-organic, bento-boxed school lunches.
#perfectparent
Meanwhile I send my kids to school with leftover gambling money where they buy smiley fries and pancakes cooked in plastic bags.
#baddad
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
#badchristian
#godsdisappointedinyou
If this list is an advertisement for what being a Christian is like, if it’s like a commercial for who you will be on Jesus, then like all advertisements it’s too good to be true.
Because, trust me, I know way more Christians than you and, most days, even the best ones are lucky to go 2 for 3.
It’s too good to be true.
Actually, it’s worse than too good to be true.
Because where it says ‘there is no law against such things’ in verse 23, in the Greek it actually says ‘there is no shortage of such things.’
As in, the Holy Spirit’s cultivating kindness and patience and faithfulness and joy all over the place- there’s no shortage of such things- so what’s the problem with you? 1/9 faux Christian?
I hate to break it to you, but it’s even worse than that because the word Paul uses for ‘fruit’ in Greek is singular.
As in, it’s all one gift: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
It’s all one gift.
You either have all of them or you have none of them. And if you think you have one of them, you actually have not one of them.
They all go together.
Require one another.
The fruit of the Spirit- it’s singular.
But maybe that’s not bad news after all.
That Thursday night I led the long litany prayer affirming God’s goodness and wisdom even as the words stuck in my throat and rang false in my heart.
Sitting there in the pew, doubting God’s goodness and wisdom, my mind wandered to the one thing I could be certain of- my own kids and my love for them.
1. Love
After Dennis offered a candle-lit benediction, I stood in the sanctuary aisle and I noticed a man sitting in the middle of a pew behind me, an ordinarily gruff man just sitting there staring straight ahead as the people on either end of his pew leaned over and furiously whispered their prayers.
The man in the middle- he just sat there calmly.
He didn’t say excuse me. He didn’t try to scootch past them. He didn’t sigh like he was in a hurry. He just waited for them. For them. For as long as they needed.
- Patience
And after the service as the crowd thinned out I watched as some of the youth, touched by Hannah’s disappearance in a way I can’t fathom, gathered around the altar rail together and got on their knees and prayed. Even as the guy in the collar *me* was having a hard time praying at all.
- Faithfulness
And in the sanctuary aisle I saw our new youth director hug kids he barely knows and ask them as though he’d known them forever how they were doing.
- Gentleness
And in the lobby I watched as a mom, whose own daughter is Hannah’s best friend, held back tears and anger as a nosy reporter peppered people with questions.
- Self-Control
And after the reporter went her way, I stood next to the mom and listened as other parents, one by one, came up to her and asked her to relay a message to Hannah’s parents: ‘Tell them if there’s anything we can do for them…’
- Kindness
- Goodness
And eventually those offers of help turned to reminiscing of each other’s children and the friendships that bound them.
- Joy
As I walked out to my car that night another mother, her car parked next to mine, spoke about ‘perspective’ and, as she fumbled for her keys, she mentioned to me that she felt like she should call her own daughter with whom she hadn’t spoken in a long, long time.
- Peace
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.’
It’s singular.
It’s all one gift, there’s not one without the other.
It’s all one gift, and- Paul says- there’s no shortage of such things. The Spirit’s fruit is everywhere if you but look.
But where Paul wants you to look is not to the individual believer but to the Body.
You see if this list is a description of what a genuine Holy Spirit-filled believer looks like- if it’s like an advertisement for what being a Christian is like, then like all advertisements it’s too good to be true.
Because, let’s face it, even the best of you score barely better than 1/9 me.
Some of you are not patient or gentle. Some of us are not consistently kind or self-controlled. I know I’m not always faithful and I know some of you struggle with loving the people in your lives.
Some of you have no peace and for good reason. Ditto when it comes to joy.
If this list is meant to be a commercial for who you will be on Jesus then like all commercials it’s too good to be true.
But this list, this letter- it’s not written to you. It’s not a promise meant for you.
It’s written to us. It’s a promise for us.
And that makes it completely different than the message we hear 3,000 times a day.
Because the promise, the incredibly good but still believable news- the gospel- behind this list is that the Holy Spirit can take all you impatient but good people and all you joyful but out of control people and all you people with great faith and kindness but little peace and all of you who love God but have a hard time loving others- the promise is that the Holy Spirit can take 1 for 9 people like you and put you into a community that we call Church and somehow, by the grace of God, you all together- we- can look like Jesus.
This list, this letter, it’s not written to you. It’s meant for us.
And that means the proper reaction to this fruit of the Spirt list is not:
“Crap, I’m screwed.’
It’s:
“Crap [turn to the person sitting next to you] I need you.”
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In