Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness by Caroline Wieman

Acts 2:1-8

“On the day of Pentecost all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind! It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions and a tongue came and settled on each person there. The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever languages the Spirit let them speak.

Many religious Jews from every country in the world were living in Jerusalem. And when they heard this noise, a crowd gathered. But they were surprised, because they were hearing everything in their own languages.”

Acts 2:12

“Every one was excited and confused. Some of them even kept asking each other, “What does this mean?”

While the Trinity is a most difficult concept for some Christians to understand, it is only one third that is particularly challenging. Certainly we understand God the Father and Jesus the Son somewhat; we know fathers and sons. Fathers and sons have been around a long time: since the beginning of human existence.

But the Holy Spirit is a relative newcomer appearing for everyone only after the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The Holy Spirit, unlike the concept of father and Son, is outside of our typical physical experience and so leaves many Christians baffled and a bit anxious.

It is not just present day Christians who struggle with the concept and reality of the Holy Spirit. Paul, a Jew who had begun his contact with Jesus’ followers as a “hit man” for the Jewish religious establishment was trying to validate his Christian credentials with the church at Galatia. He tells the Galatians that his message comes directly from Jesus Christ who came to him on the Damascus Road. There are divisions among the Galatian Gentile and Jewish Christians about following the very complicated Jewish religious laws. Paul tells them that “once a person has learned to have faith, there in no more need to have the Law as a teacher” (Galatians 3:25). Christ’s death and the Holy Spirit of God have [fulfilled] the strict Jewish religious law. Paul continues, “God’s Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled” (Galatians 5:22-23). These characteristics are the Fruit of the Spirit.

When one becomes a Christian, he or she receives the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in us and through the Church to strengthen our faith. The Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is planted in the Holy Spirit that Christians receive. The Fruit of the Spirit is more like a raspberry with individual sections all in one raspberry rather than like grapes on the stem with each grape an individual fruit. The Fruit of the Spirit is a unity of nine characteristics rather than nine separate traits. Each of us has been given the Fruit of the Spirit, and we as Christians must display this fruit in our lives.

We know from our experience with plants that some plants like tomatoes produce fruit the first, year, while other plants like raspberries, take longer to bear fruit. Some trees take four or five years before they produce fruit. So it is with the Fruit of the Spirit. Some Christians immediately display faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Others struggle with gentleness and self-control for years but are witnesses to faithfulness, goodness and patience. While the Fruit of the Spirit is given by God to Christians, how and when Christians display the parts of that “spiritual raspberry” are very individual and represent various amounts of struggle.

One of the lobes of our “spiritual raspberry Fruit of the Spirit” is kindness which is contiguous with the love, goodness, and patience lobes. Unfortunately, kindness is not the default setting for humans. Fortunately God has sent Christ and the Holy Spirit to us. Thus the Fruit of the Spirit is emblazed in Christians, a gift from God. Kindness is the deliberate preference of choosing right from wrong. Kindness is an inner strength to resist all evil, an uprightness of the soul which chooses and follows all moral good. It embodies God’s kindness: benevolence, mercy, pity, compassion, patience and grace. While kindness is in us as Christians, we do have to work to help kindness flourish.

But that part of the Fruit of the Spirit which is kindness is not just personal inner purity. God creates through the Holy Spirit an expectation that Christians will not be satisfied with working only on their inner kindness. He expects that Believers will take their kindness in to the world. Wesleyan tradition holds that “inner holiness leads to outer holiness,” and this is certainly true of the Fruit of the Spirit. This external manifestation of the Fruit of the Spirit is to be kind even in hostile environments and to resist all moral evil.

Like an ordinary raspberry plant, the Fruit of the Sprit in us must be nurtured through prayer, worship, Bible reading and Christian fellowship. So with God through the Holy Spirit, we Christians are always growing the Fruit of the Spirit.

Questions for reflection:

-How do we as Christians led by the Spirit show benevolence, mercy, pity, compassion, and patience in our lives, our work and our world?

-Will my Spirit-driven compassion look like yours?