Sermons

Fourth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 27 June 2010 at 10am

David Paton-Williams

Readings: Galatians 5 v1,13-25, Luke 9 v51-end

Do you remember how the Cadbury's advert used to go: "Everyone's a fruit and nut case"

Message of our readings today is that God wants spiritual fruit not religious nuts

The apostles James and John were being religious nuts -
they were so offended that a village
had refused to accept Jesus that they wanted
to call down fire from heaven to burn up the village.

Sadly we have far too many of that sort of religious person in the world today.
So convinced of their rightness and so offended at the behaviour of others that they wage war on them or condemn them loudly in words.

And closer to home we can sometimes meet people who are a little bit nutty about religion. So absorbed in religion that they forget
that God is actually concerned with the whole of life and not just what happens inside the church.

Even ourselves - we can be a bit nutty when, in the words of our first reading, we are tempted to use religion to indulge ourselves
rather than as a way to love God and our neighbours more.

That's what Paul is talking about when he contrasts the flesh and the spirit. By flesh he doesn't mean our bodies but our selfish selves- in opposition to our true selves renewed by God's grace. So God wants spiritual fruit not religious nuts.

Important because sometimes when people see "bad religion" what can easily happen is that they turn off and give up altogether
- may become atheists
- or may just become apathetic,
and don't really try to follow Jesus

But the gospel tells us that the alternative to religious nuts is not giving up, but developing spiritual fruit.

What does that mean?

Well Paul gives us that wonderful description of the fruit of the spirit.

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Not just one quality/fruit - but nine
- a whole bowl of different fruit

What they have in common is that together they describe what Jesus was like.

So for the fruit of the Spirit to grow in us is simply for us to become more like Jesus. (what a wonderfully attractive thing that would be!)

Say simply, but it feels very hard thing to do. I'd like you to think about that list -
- some of us many find come relatively easily
- and others find very difficult.

Which qualities do you think have grown reasonably well in your life.

Which of them that you find it hard to spot at all.

So how do the fruit of the Spirit grow in us?

Cut open apple and find the pip inside.

Many years ago someone took a seed from an apple and planted it in the ground over the years it grew into an apple tree
and began to produce fruit

God has planted the seed of his Spirit in our lives
- possibly many years ago
- there in us from our birth, poured out upon us in our baptism and strengthened in us at our confirmation.

God's Spirit is there in our lives already.

That means that the seed of love is already there in us as is the seed of joy, the seed of peace or patience or self-control etc.
The seed is already in us all we have to do is to let the fruit grow. to believe that the seed is there already, waiting to develop,

Seeds are designed to grow
- that's what they do, as long as we don't prevent them.

Of course to grow a seed needs good soil and light and water.

What might help God's Spirit to grow in our lives?

- prayer - stillness, openness to god
- worship - focus on God in thanksgiving
- communion - receiving grace again
- bible - drawing on the story of Jesus
- confession - trying to face up to those things stopping it
- openness to others - channels of god's love to others

All those are ways not of forcing ourselves to become better but letting what's already there in us, grow and bear fruit.

Final thought:

Inside each fruit is the seed for another tree/fruit to grow

As our lives bear fruit, as we little by little become more like Jesus, then the seed may be planted in other people's lives and God's fruit grow in them.

So God doesn't want religious nuts - he wants spiritual fruit, wants the qualities of Jesus to grow in us, as we let the seed of his Spirit grow in our lives.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay