This is the second post in the “Misconceptions” series, where I’ll be dealing with the concept of “fruit”. We’ll be looking at fruit from (i) a personal spiritual perspective, then (ii) from a more corporate, church-centered perspective. Again, both of these will be dealt with from within the context of the Pentecostal church. This post will be written in two parts.

Personal
I remember a few years ago I responded to an alter call at a huge meeting of one of the world’s most prominent healing evangelists. The young people were to come to the front and be prayed over. Hundreds of us stood side by side and hand in hand, and within a few seconds of being asked to close our eyes, an extremely loud “pop” sound echoed through the loudspeakers. Almost instantaneously, every young person fell to the ground, including the two people standing either side of me, almost pulling me down with them. But despite being shocked by the deafening sound (which was the healing evangelist blowing abruptly into the microphone), I didn’t fall to the ground.

Some time later, I attended another meeting of a prominent “signs and wonders” evangelist. This particular night, he promised to lay hands on each person, one by one. Hundreds upon hundreds lined up like schoolchildren and fell like dominoes to the ground as he came along and touched them. Most made erratic movements on the ground while uttering strange sounds. I waited with anticipation as he came closer to me, and with my eyes shut and my heart focused, I simply felt a touch and well, nothing happened. I was one of only a couple of people that weren’t flattened.

I can recount many occasions when I have knelt at the altar, looking almost constipated, desperately seeking a “touch” from God. Each time, without fail, I’d walk away disappointed, and even worse, very confused. Why didn’t I “feel” something? Why didn’t I get “filled” or “slain” in the spirit? Was I doing something wrong? I was perplexed. People tried to give me all sorts of strategies and told me to “stop thinking”, or “open my heart”, and so on. What was I doing wrong? I believed in the same Holy Spirit as everyone else did, but for some reason, I thought I was being sidelined.

Then I read the bible. Funny what happens when you do that! I extracted myself from an extremely emotive-driven, peer-pressured environment to delve into scripture for answers. Now let me say this first, I don’t know what it is that possesses people sometimes, most of the time I am sure its God, but I’d guarantee that sometimes it isn’t. Regardless, that’s not the point. The problem is, we have come to place an undue emphasis on the exercise of spiritual gifts and seeing what some regard as being “slain” or “filled” as the exclusive outward manifestation of the Holy Spirit. That is the “fruit” of the Holy Spirit evident in one’s life.

However, the Bible sees it differently. In scripture, spirituality (or fruitfulness) is determined not by whether you can exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit but by whether your life gives evidence of the fruits of the Spirit. The bible says that it is by our fruits that we shall be known, not by our gifts (Matt 7:20, John 13:35). The fruits of the Spirit, as listed in Galatians (5:22-23), are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. The more the Holy Spirit permeates our being, the more these traits and qualities will be evident in our life and personality. This, and not convulsing on the floor, is fruit.

Furthermore, Paul concludes his discussion of the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor 12 by declaring that “love” trumps any of these gifts. In 1 Cor 13, Paul declares that if he speaks in tongues but doesn’t live out love, he’s just making a lot of noise. Love therefore is the supreme ethic, the ultimate enduring fruit. You see, we’ve regarded highly those who fall over all the time and make strange noises while convulsing, and we’ve given them the pulpits and the microphones, as we are convinced that their “fruit” is the evidence of the spirit. That’s an extremely superficial evaluation.

We are doing the Holy Spirit a gross injustice with such narrow understandings of His work. Don’t misconstrue what I’m trying to say, the miraculous (in the form of sings and wonders) will follow great men and women of God, but even the devil can perform magic. We must understand that fruit is not simply seen and evidenced by the presence of the dramatic, but part of a larger manifestation of a deep and intimate relationship with Christ where one exudes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It is through this lens of truth that we must see and understand the concept of fruit.

Why is this so important? Well, in the context of church and its leadership, it becomes very important. We’ve recently seen some big names “fall from grace”, many of which rose to “stardom” on the backs of their charisma and giftings. As my wise friend Craig once quoted: “Your gifts can take you all the way to the top, but it is your character that will sustain you.” This is very true. 1 Timothy 3:1-7, and Titus 1:5-9 both describe the requirements of a leader: self-controlled, respectable, not greedy, not arrogant, disciplined, and a lover of good (to name a few). Funny that God says little about spiritual gifts when he describes the attributes of those he wishes to lead His church.

To be continued…

Here is a brilliant post from Mark Sayers. Read the original here: http://marksayers.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/bad-friday/

“I have been reflecting a lot over the last few days about the days in between Jesus’ execution and his resurrection. I find it a fascinating insight into the heart and mind of God. Why did God wait those days? It would have been perfectly acceptable for Jesus to be resurrected immediately after Jesus passed away. Or maybe God could have left it an hour, or even later that night. One can only imagine the despair endured by those closest to Jesus. What must the disciples of thought during those liminal moments? What torture, what confusion, what doubt and loss of hope must have been experienced by those who loved Christ? What a strange thought that God himself in human flesh rotted in the tomb.

In Dostoyevsky’s novel The Idiot the protagonist Prince Myshkin is both drawn to and disturbed by Holbein the younger’s painting of The Christ putrefying in the ground. He declares that the image is enough to make a man lose his faith. Which is precisely what must have happened to the disciples of Jesus during his time in the tomb. The concept of God dead is a terrifying thought for us to grasp, but I believe a necessary one.

For the resurrection to happen, for life to spring from the jaws of death, we must have death, we must hold it as a reality, otherwise the emergence of Jesus from the tomb is simply a stunt. The days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday are a devastating reminder that we cannot have resurrection without death, we cannot have access to eternal life without first dying to ourselves and the world. We cannot enter God’s new life without contemplating the reality of our own deaths, and a world without life, in which evil triumphs.

Too often today I find many wanting a road to resurrection that circumvents the crucifixion, we want the abundant life of John 10:10 without the taking up of our crosses and the denial of our selves of Mark 8:34-35. Too many churches preach Easter Sunday but gloss over Good Friday. For without Good Friday we turn the good news of Christ into a lifestyle enhancement program, and we create congregations of believers whose faith is shallow and selfish.

Instead until Sunday we must wait, we must contemplate, we must feel fully the impact of the idea of a world in which God lies dead in the ground. Only then can we truly understand and participate in the earth shattering reality of God’s emergence from the grave and the triumph of life, justice and love over death, sin and destruction.”

I recently watched Yes Man. It wasn’t an overly interesting movie, nor was it particularly funny. Like most popular movies, it had its moments (most of which were featured in the trailer), but just like the rest of them, its was cliché and numbingly predictable. Call me cynical, but I am becoming increasingly irritated at how easy it is to anticipate plot, and sometimes even dialogue. The only saving grace for me was the charm and talent of Zooey Deschanel, an actor deserving of more worthy roles.

I’m not picking on Yes Man, all you have to do is pick up a romantic comedy and 9 out of 10 times, you’d ultimately be watching the same movie. The main character is usually down and out, single or divorced, then some life-changing event causes them to do something out-of-character and low and behold they meet an unlikely mate who nonchalantly enters their life. They fall in love (usually in a matter of days), and then just when you think things couldn’t get any better, the main character (occasionally the supporting role), does something foolish or some damaging truth surfaces, then it all falls apart.

But, in its usual predicable fashion, the main character (or foolish doer), performs some elaborate or vulnerable stunt, apologises, achieves redemption, and wins back the mate in a climactic romantic scene, and blah blah blah, they all live happily ever after. Sound familiar? That’s because I just described 90% of every romantic comedy to come out of Hollywood since I was born. And that’s just one genre, you’ve got your political thrillers where some inexperienced amateur discovers some corporate conspiracy and manages to bring to justice a large corporation in a David & Goliath type battle. The list goes on, don’t even get me started on action movies.

Now, I understand the reason behind the predictability—according to the rules of narrative, a necessary element of literature is to present a conflict and resolve it. You see this common theme in each of these painfully unimpressive films—they all have happy endings. The guy gets the girl, the bad guy gets busted, or the main character gains redemption, often triumphantly. These rules of narrative are seen as necessary to keep the interest of the reader or viewer. It seems that we overwhelmingly favour the conflict resolution narrative. Why?

Well, for one, fictional constructs (film, literature etc) must contain elements of prediction and fulfilment because our mind needs narrative to make sense of things. We seek a beginning, a middle and an end. That’s how we understand and construct meaning. The problem is however, that reality is not always like that, it is very difficult to understand, and we struggle to construct meaning out of our everyday experience. In short, life doesn’t always play out according to the predictably redemptive narrative of film, for many, there is no happy ending.

This brings me to an interesting supposition about the nature of modern society. We overwhelmingly favour the conflict resolution narrative because we prefer the reproduction of reality to reality itself. We have an immeasurable obsession with fiction and fantasy because it provides escape. It provides form and constancy in an often chaotic and unpredictable world, and more interestingly, I believe it provides a fleeting departure from our own miserable existence.

Thirdly, maybe its a clue, but I’ll touch on that at the end. For now, let’s explore that second point a little more. Let’s be honest, our lives hardly resemble the excitement, adventure and quixotic romance that Hollywood portrays. Life is complicated, unpredictable and our expectations are seldom met. Life is full of pain, heartache, brokenness, and for many, unimaginable suffering. In my opinion, the popularity of fiction has to do with its ability to offer viewers the opportunity to live vicariously through the fictitious characters of unrealistic stories. Within that moment of delusion, we feel a part of an exciting narrative, but one that ultimately doesn’t exist.

Standing in stark contrast to Yes Man is a brilliant film called The Wrestler. I loved this film. Loved it. Why? Because it was real. It was true. It was nestled in reality. It was beautiful because it was tragic. Rather than depict an impossible story that presents a false portrayal of redemption, it shared a story that so many of us can relate to. It helped me to better understand the reality of the human condition and the suffering of my fellow man. It made me feel deeply burdened by the reality of pain in our world and the deep longing for redemption.

The story draws us into the world and point of view of a broken man. Granted, there is danger in wallowing in sickness and exploiting and indulging in brokenness, but that’s not what’s happening here. The film evokes an earnest empathy for the main character. Empathy is a strong emotion and a powerful driving force for action. The incarnation of Christ can be understood as the greatest demonstration of empathy. The way The Wrestler draws us into a tragic narrative is an allusion to how Jesus enters into our narrative to understand the fullness of our condition. After becoming like us and experiencing our pain, He takes it upon himself.

You see, we want to live in the delusion that there is always a happy ending for everyone. It appeases our conscience and sustains inaction. It gives us a false assurance that the world’s suffering is somehow, somewhere resolving itself in a happy ending. Our society doesn’t like being faced with reality, delusion is its sanctity, truth is its profanity. We switch the channel from the World Vision commercial back to Masterchef, we’d rather watch The Devil Wears Prada than face the painful truth of a film like Invisible Children. It disturbs us.

We’d much rather live in the delusion that life plays out according to a Hollywood narrative. It’s a false assumption to assume that conflict always resolves itself. Most conflict is never resolved in this lifetime. We battle an internal conflict within ourselves, we fight an ongoing war with culture, we are struggling for survival on a depleting planet, and our relationships have unresolved conflict. Look at the narrative of Middle-Eastern conflict and the intifada, or the continuation of poverty.

Now, I’m not saying that we ought to do away with the conflict-resolution narrative; it certainly has its place along with fiction, without a doubt. I would be contradicting my own belief system. You see, I believe in an over-arching meta-narrative, a grand story that actually represents a final and apodictic truth, which is ultimately: redemption. All I am saying is that popular media has too zealously bombarded us with a romanticised narrative that fails miserably in its portrayal of conflict and tragedy. How it deals with the resolution of tragedy isolates us in our own unresolved tragedy and insulates us from the reality of the world’s unresolved tragedy.

We need a balance of fiction and truth in popular media, purely because of the significance of the role of popular media in shaping culture. Film, in my opinion, should always strike a balance between presenting a conflict and resolving it (which there is truth in), reflecting a common belief in hope, but also leaving conflict unresolved (which is the reality for many), evoking empathy, and subsequently, action. But that gets us into questions of the purpose of art, literature and film, which is way too complicated.

One final observation: why the common hope for redemption? Is that how we were wired? Is it a clue to our purpose? Also, how do we reconcile what seems to be a common hope for redemption with the equally common non-religious accord in the western world? If we so demand redemption for the broken and repulsive protagonist, and if we so long for the peaceful resolution (happy ending) to internal and external conflict, then why the empty pews? Does the redemptive character of Christ not satisfy the yearning of those seeking hope in an unpredictable and painful world? Are the answers of secular thought winning out in the war of ideas over meaning?