There is slavery and there is freedom. At first they seem easy to distinguish, but the reality is that sometimes we forget how to tell the difference. Freedom is a fragile and elusive thing. We talk a great deal about protecting freedom, so it won’t be taken from us, when in reality freedom is rarely stolen, it is forsaken, it is abused and when that happens it is lost. And when freedom is lost, it is a nightmare to find it again.
Freedom abused, freedom lost, the nightmare of trying to find it again.
That is what the Works of the Flesh are all about, the twisted nightmare of freedom gone wrong.
This is the first sermon in a series of sermons on what Paul the Apostle calls the 15 works of the flesh and the 9 fruit of the Spirit. He writes about these in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians.
As Americans we tend to be literalist and moralists, whether we are liberal or conservative, we still tend to those two extremes so we easily misunderstand these two lists that Paul has put together.
We tend to reduce them into a list of the bad and the good, of virtues and vices, of things we should avoid and things we should try real hard to achieve. As literalists and moralists we have a hard time getting what Paul is doing, and what he is doing is tying to open us to the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, he wants us to be open to the wind of the Spirit, to be vulnerable to the whisper of God.
The fifteen works of the flesh and the nine fruit of the spirit aren’t about being good or bad, they are about tracks in the soil, footprints of two different beings, two different powers or forces at work in the world. They are about hunting down the tracks of two wild beasts, one beast is slavery and the other is freedom. One is creation lost in a desperate self serving nightmare, the other is life in the Spirit.
They are the tracks of freedom lost and freedom found.
Today I cover the first three works of the flesh: Fornication, Impurity and Licentiousness and the first fruit of the Spirit: Love.
The first three works of the flesh are lumped and tangled together and they all three have to do with sensuality divorced from love of neighbor, physical desire and pleasure that has become self serving. The Peterson translation refers to them as “repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; and frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness.”
I could go into the Greek words behind fornication, impurity and licentiousness and the debates over what exactly they mean, but I think that would be giving into the temptation of literalism and moralism and to miss Paul’s point which as he says is plain and straightforward.
They are not vices, they are not immoral, they are evidence of freedom that has been abused and lost. A big part of how God made us is as sexual and sensual beings and God calls it very good.
As Americans we tend to either worship raw sensuality or denigrate and mock it, sometimes at the same time. Both are acts of freedom abused, of taking the goodness of physical pleasure and making too big a deal about it.
The problem with promiscuity is not that it involves sex, the problem with it is that it turns other people into objects to be used for our own gratification. A life of promiscuity doesn’t have to involve sex, it involves using people.
A life of using other people is evidence, a footprint, a track in the soil of freedom lost. We can debate all day the historical meaning of Greek vocabulary and verb tenses, but at the end of the day the question remains are we loving our neighbors or are we using them? Which track are we following?
And that brings us to the first fruit of the Spirit, Love.
The interesting thing about the fruit of the Spirit is that there is just one fruit with nine manifestations, and the eight other fruit all grow from love.
Life in the Spirit gives freedom, it not only frees us from slavery to the powers of the flesh, but it also frees us to be and do something, we are free to bear the fruit of the Spirit, we are set free to love.
Being free doesn’t mean we can do whatever we damn well please, that kind of thinking is enslaved to the power of the flesh.
We are only free when we are open to the life of God’s Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit.
Love is a sign, a foot print, evidence, a track showing that freedom is alive and well.
Love grows out of the Spirit. It is not a virtue that we achieve. It is the natural organic growth that freedom makes happen, that being open to the wind of the Spirit makes happen.
And what is love? How do we know what it is? It is much more than a feeling, it is an action, an act of will, a decision to serve rather than use others. When other people are no longer a means for are own ends, they become door ways through which we see the holiness of creation, through which we see the image of God.
When people start becoming sacraments of God’s presence then we are on the right track to love and freedom and a fruitful life.
I end with a quote from Saint Therese of Lisieux, a 1ate 19th century mystic, “You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty but at the love with which we do them.”
What ever you do, do with great love.
Next week: the sermon series continues with: Idolatry, Sorcery, Enmities, Joy and Peace.