Freedom Seeds

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

I saw this arm reaching through the open window, reaching for whatever was in arms length. Luckily there was nothing close enough to grab. As the leader of this mission team I felt I had to confront this individual who was so brazenly trying to steal from us. I left the building with the intention to run off this street person, however by the time I got around the corner and saw the street person, I simply introduced myself. He was holding his shirt up to cradle six to eight mangos. It was obvious he had stumbled upon these mangos in the countryside to sell, barter, and for his own nourishment. He offered me one, but I had no need for another mango as we had a tree right outside where we were staying. I did accept the gift and felt good about not running him off. We were wary of his presence the entire week just as the local Jamaicans were of this man. We did not have any trouble.

I had brought 18 people from the age of 12 to seventy something to work on a metal roof of a church school house and run a vacation bible school. It was July in Jamaica and it was hot and humid, or as the locals termed it "hot, hot." We did great work for Jesus that week and even added tiling the new bathroom in the church to our work load, a skill that was learned 5 years earlier in Costa Rica when we tiled a 5,000 square foot sanctuary. We stayed up the road in the Manse (parsonage) with the pastor and his family. It was a large building that had bars on every window and door and thus resembled a jail at first glance. The accommodations for most of us (especially on the ground floor) were not much better than a jail, but within one evening of hospitality we felt at home. Except one woman shared with me she had a hard time the first couple of days with the accommodations. Honestly her room which she shared with one other woman was by far the worst room. No windows, no room for their luggage, and they had to walk through a shower. Now at first thought you would think it was about the physical comfort, but it seemed to be more than that, but her attitude changed all of the sudden she said when she realized that many of the children she was working with lived like this every day, and she would be going home to her cool, clean home in a week. This made her realize she needed to be yoked with these children and concentrate on the on the spiritual fruit, rather than the fleshly, being envy, jealousy, etc. over and above simply fleshly comfort.

Paul writes that our freedom we receive from Christ effectively makes us slaves to each other. Often we read of these fruits of the flesh and we think of sins that deal directly with the body, however, if you read the list carefully, "fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these," you will notice that these fruits are feelings and actions, associated with an individual. Thus not the type of freedom Jesus gives us. The women on the mission trip realized she needed to think as if she was baptized into the one spirit, in order to receive the fruit of the spirit.

I tell you that an apple comes only from an apple seed, a mango from a mango seed, and a pomegranate from a pomegranate seed. Thus the fruits of the spirit can only come from the seeds of the fruit of the spirit. When I turned that corner to run the street person off, something in me changed and I offered the simple hospitality of an introduction. It was a small seed of love and compassion, and I received back the full fruit of the Spirit.