A good harvest: September 2006
8 February 2008 - 9:00pm — Sarah Hall
I always think of September as the beginning of autumn - though now, I suppose, with the seasons changing around us, it may turn out to be the end of summer, or (God forbid!) the beginning of winter. But to me September means hips and haws and ripe blackberries in the hedges, a glut of apples in the orchard, marrows and sweetcorn in the allotment - Keats' season of ‘mellow fruitfulness'.
This, in itself, is rather an outmoded idea. With produce coming to our supermarkets from all over the world, the idea of fruits being tied to a particular season is out of date. With cold-storage and air freight at our command, we can find strawberries in January and salad all year around, though the taste of out-of-season produce never seems to match up to the price paid by the natural world in its production and transport. Be that as it may, ‘September' and ‘autumn fruitfulness' are still firmly linked in my mind. But what about the fruits of God's spirit: do they, I wonder, ripen at a particular time of year, or a particular time of life?
First of all, what do I mean by ‘the fruits of God's spirit'? It's a bit of religious jargon, but what it comes down to, according to Paul, is a list of qualities that don't sound religious at all. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control - these aren't the preserve of people who follow Jesus. They can be found in young and old, millionaires and street-drinkers, people of all races and orientations and political views.
So if anyone can produce a crop of these fruits, when might we hope for a good harvest? Suffering, like a hard spell of frost, is sometimes supposed to produce fruitful results in the spiritual life - one reason sometimes given for why God allows us to suffer in the first place. Some people do find that within the darkness of loneliness or illness, bereavement or disappointment, God is mysteriously there, weeping with them, supporting them and helping them grow. Yet others find such events destroy the trust in God they thought was theirs. Conversely, while good news - a birth in the family, a new job, successful medical treatment - helps some to express their gratitude and thanksgiving to God, and to grow in the qualities that will help them move into this new phase of life, others see it as their own achievement.
If it's not necessarily the external events of life, either bad or good, that produce the fruits of God's spirit, what can give us the hope of a good harvest? Maybe it's our own internal intention to live life in God's way that will produce the spiritual fruit we know we need. And we do not need to be spiritual superstars to make such a decision. An allotment needs its gardener to prepare the ground, to water in dry weather, to weed and prune and generally give time and effort to the plants. And if God's spirit is our gardener, working to produce good fruit, our part is to be willing to let God do so, in us and in others, and to look for and appreciate the results.
As in allotments, the fruits of the Spirit rarely spring up overnight. We may want to be given patience right now, but sadly God doesn't seem to work that way. Yet through both the sunshine and the rain of our lives, God the gardener is indeed at work to produce a good harvest - though you may see the fruits in others faster than in yourself.
This, in itself, is rather an outmoded idea. With produce coming to our supermarkets from all over the world, the idea of fruits being tied to a particular season is out of date. With cold-storage and air freight at our command, we can find strawberries in January and salad all year around, though the taste of out-of-season produce never seems to match up to the price paid by the natural world in its production and transport. Be that as it may, ‘September' and ‘autumn fruitfulness' are still firmly linked in my mind. But what about the fruits of God's spirit: do they, I wonder, ripen at a particular time of year, or a particular time of life?
First of all, what do I mean by ‘the fruits of God's spirit'? It's a bit of religious jargon, but what it comes down to, according to Paul, is a list of qualities that don't sound religious at all. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control - these aren't the preserve of people who follow Jesus. They can be found in young and old, millionaires and street-drinkers, people of all races and orientations and political views.
So if anyone can produce a crop of these fruits, when might we hope for a good harvest? Suffering, like a hard spell of frost, is sometimes supposed to produce fruitful results in the spiritual life - one reason sometimes given for why God allows us to suffer in the first place. Some people do find that within the darkness of loneliness or illness, bereavement or disappointment, God is mysteriously there, weeping with them, supporting them and helping them grow. Yet others find such events destroy the trust in God they thought was theirs. Conversely, while good news - a birth in the family, a new job, successful medical treatment - helps some to express their gratitude and thanksgiving to God, and to grow in the qualities that will help them move into this new phase of life, others see it as their own achievement.
If it's not necessarily the external events of life, either bad or good, that produce the fruits of God's spirit, what can give us the hope of a good harvest? Maybe it's our own internal intention to live life in God's way that will produce the spiritual fruit we know we need. And we do not need to be spiritual superstars to make such a decision. An allotment needs its gardener to prepare the ground, to water in dry weather, to weed and prune and generally give time and effort to the plants. And if God's spirit is our gardener, working to produce good fruit, our part is to be willing to let God do so, in us and in others, and to look for and appreciate the results.
As in allotments, the fruits of the Spirit rarely spring up overnight. We may want to be given patience right now, but sadly God doesn't seem to work that way. Yet through both the sunshine and the rain of our lives, God the gardener is indeed at work to produce a good harvest - though you may see the fruits in others faster than in yourself.
