Proper 8

Fruit comes in all shapes and sizes. Some are spherical – like oranges, blueberries and grapes. Others are oblong – like mangoes and papayas. Still others are apple or banana-shaped like … apples and bananas.

Some farmers, though, are challenging our assumptions about the shape of fruit.

Watermelons, for example, no longer need to be the rounded oblong shape with which we are most familiar. Go to the right market, and you may find square watermelons grown by botanical artists.

Another agricultural virtuoso has developed a process where pears – having long been pear-shaped – can now arrive at your farmer’s market in the shape of little Buddhas. The arms and facial features are so well-defined that the Buddha appears to be in a prayer-like, meditative state. They look like beautiful little sculptures or carvings, but no knives are used to create them. These pears are grown this way.

To grow square watermelons and Buddha-shaped pears, farmers use specially designed molds they attach to the fruit when it first appears. As the young fruit matures, it grows into the mold, taking on the shape of the inside of the tool.

When the fruit is ripe, the mold is removed. The fruit retains the shape of the mold, allowing the farmer to deliver a square watermelon or Buddha-shaped pear to the market.

Ordinary pears, watermelons and all other fruit we consume require a great deal of time and labor. Seeds are planted. Trees are pruned. Weeds are removed. Plants are watered. Pests are treated. Farmers take great care to ensure that the plants have all they need to produce beautiful, delicious fruit.

Then there’s the waiting. Trees and plants take time to grow. Buds appear slowly, and fruit grows and matures over many days and nights.

Successful growers need both hard work and patience to bring the fruit to market, whether pear- or Buddha-shaped. Unfortunately, there’s no market where we can acquire the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Instead, we need to become orchard keepers, cultivating these virtues within us.

We often would like the fruit of the Spirit to appear instantaneously in our lives, making us more joy-filled or generous people. Instead, receiving the fruit of the Spirit requires us to become more like the farmers, patiently working the soil of our lives to make the conditions right for the fruits of joy and generosity to grow within us.

As a farmer waters the plants, we need to include times of spiritual refreshment like worship, Scripture reading and prayer in our lives. Farmers prune, weed and treat pests. Likewise, we need to remove from our lives anything that is counter-productive to our growth as disciples of Jesus Christ. Like a farmer works the soil, we, too, need to get our hands dirty by serving our neighbors and friends, living as citizens of God’s reign in the world today.

As an uncultivated or untended pear tree might occasionally produce some fruit, we, too, might receive some of the fruit of the Spirit without much effort. When cared for, though, those fruit trees can become far more productive, producing beautiful fruit more regularly. So, too, it is with us.

We become growers of spiritual fruit as we participate in making the conditions right to allow the fruit of the Spirit to grow within us. We must then be diligent in watering, weeding and working in the orchard of our lives.

We cannot will ourselves to be, for example, more patient. There are no shortcuts, which can be quite frustrating. Perhaps you have prayed the prayer, “God, please grant me patience, and give it to me NOW!”

While we cannot force patience or any other fruit of the Spirit to grow in us, we can make the conditions right that allow them to mature in our lives.

In the 2007 movie Evan Almighty, God calls newly elected congressman Evan Baxter (played by Steve Carell) to build an ark in his suburban neighborhood. When Evan’s wife Joan (Lauren Graham) becomes understandably confused and shaken by the odd behavior of her husband, she decides to take some time away to sort it out.

On her way out of town, she and her children stop at a restaurant where God (Morgan Freeman) serves as their waiter. His nametag reads “Al Mighty.”

When the children are away from the table, the waiter/God engages Joan in conversation. He has noticed that she is troubled and asks if she is okay. She tells him about her husband and his ark, and asks for advice. What should she do with the challenge she has received of a husband who seems at least slightly crazy?

The waiter/God offers this thought. “If someone prays for patience, do you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient?”

The waiter continues, “If someone asked for their family to be closer,” which is Joan’s prayer throughout the movie, “Do you think God zaps them with warm, fuzzy feelings? Or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

While we would like the fruit of the Spirit to suddenly and miraculously appear in our lives, it doesn’t work that way. To borrow the phrasing of the movie, these fruits aren’t zapped into our lives. Rather, we are given the opportunity to allow them to grow within us. When we participate in the process, cultivating spiritual fruit by planting, watering, pruning, weeding and waiting, we make room for God to do wonderful work within us.

You will recall that farmers create square watermelons and Buddha-shaped pears by using molds that shape and restrict the growth of the fruit. The pear takes on the shape of the mold because it is not free to grow beyond it. While shaping the watermelon, the mold also limits how much it can grow.

There is a common, cultural assumption that you and I are limited by circumstances beyond our control.

– A psychologist might tell us we are the products of our parents and limited by their emotional health.

– An economist might say we are products of our class, limited in our options by the wealth or poverty into which we were born.

– A sociologist might say we are products of our neighborhood or ethnicity, shaped and limited by cultural traditions and norms.

Today’s Epistle is fundamentally about the freedom we have in Christ. Paul is excited to tell us we have been set free for freedom. Paul wants us to know that we are not simply being squeezed into a law- or rule-shaped mold. Instead, we have been set free to let the Holy Spirit instruct us. Our mold is the Holy Spirit, a product of freedom, not restriction. We aren’t limited by circumstances beyond our control. There are no forms around us restricting us, forcing us into some unnatural shape.

We participate in our freedom by making the conditions right to allow God to produce the fruit of the Spirit in us. When he does, we get to live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.