[Sermon] Freedom's Fruits

Jeff Tobin + June 29, 2025

Third Sunday after Pentecost / Lectionary 13

In a world of division and tribalism, the Apostle Paul reminds the Galatians—and us—that true freedom is not self-serving but Spirit-led. Drawing on the Exodus story and the tension between flesh and Spirit, Jeff Tobin explores how Paul’s message of liberation is a call to lives marked by compassion, humility, and mutual service. The fruit of the Spirit is not a private virtue list, but a public witness to the age to come. Haidt’s moral foundations theory offers a lens through which to understand our polarized world and the gospel’s challenge to both liberal and conservative instincts. In Christ, we are freed from slavery and for one another. This is the new Exodus: a journey not just to freedom, but toward belonging and reconciliation.

Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.

Hello again, friends.

Our epistle reading this morning includes Paul's famous passage on the fruit of the Spirit. But it begins with Galatians 5:1: “Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again put a harness of slavery on yourself.”

Freedom and slavery. Slavery and freedom. Two themes that are key to the whole biblical story. And in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches, there is, of course—uh, over the course of six chapters—he employs some form of the word "slave" or "slavery" 11 times, and some form of the word "freed" or "freedom" 12 times.

Okay, all you Sunday school graduates, real question—as Pastor Hector would say: When you hear such emphasis on the themes of slavery and freedom, what event immediately comes to your mind?

Exodus? Okay, I heard it! The Exodus. Excellent. I was worried someone might say marriage.

The Israelites are freed from bondage in Egypt and set on a path of freedom to the promised land. And with that historical movement—from slavery to freedom, from death to life—in mind, the Apostle says the Galatians have begun a new Exodus.

In chapter 1:3–4, Paul says, “God, through the faithful work of Jesus, has set the Galatians—and us—free from the present evil age.” The present evil age was, for them and for us, an Egypt—that is, a place of slavery.

Paul’s term for this bondage in chapter 5:19 is “the flesh.” This word has been confusing to the Church for a long time. The flesh, as Paul uses it here, refers not primarily to our physical bodies but to life lived apart from the connection to God, our Creator and our Sustainer. It is the whole sphere of human existence in rebellion to God.

The flesh is characterized by ego-driven impulse and the passions and desires of self-interest at the expense of others. And just in case we and the Galatians needed clarity on the issue, he spells out what this fleshy life looks like when he gives us what I call the “vice list” that you already heard about from chapter 5.

Without repeating the whole list, here are some of the items: loveless, cheap sex; joyless grabs for happiness; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming, never-satisfied wants; divided homes, divided lives; small-minded pursuits; vicious habits—habits of depersonalizing others into rivals.

He concludes the list with, “I could go on...”

Galatians 3:27, Paul says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

This is an image—a picture of peeling off our filthy rags of the vice list and donning a pristine garment made of Jesus’ own compassion, humility, forgiveness, and love.

So for the Galatian Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus, with which they were identified in baptism, was indeed a new Exodus—out of the bondage of the old way into freedom.

For many rabbis of the first century—and for Paul as well—the history of the world was divided into two ages: the present age, which Paul has already called “evil,” and the age to come.

The resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost were evidence, in Paul’s theology, that the age to come had in fact already arrived. Now is the age of the Spirit—the Messianic Age—and Jesus called it “the Kingdom of God.”

And what did the age of the Spirit look like? It looked like freedom. It looked like good fruit.

Paul had just given us the vice list, and now he gives us the “nice list.” The fruit of the Spirit includes affection for others, exuberance for life, serenity, compassion, a conviction that a basic holiness pervades all people and all things.

It includes loyalty to our commitments, not needing to force our way of life onto others. And of course, Jesus was the exemplar of this way of freedom.

But if all this is true, why did Paul need to warn people—then and now—that bondage was still an ever-present danger?

Theologian Bridget Cole speaks of a binary trap: that is, the way of the flesh and the way of the Spirit are antithetical to one another, yet they coexist. There is an unavoidable clash between the still-powerful old world order and the already-present but incomplete new creation.

It seems, then, that we humans—and Christians included—are amphibious. Not that we live both on the land and in the water, but that we have, as it were, one foot in the old world order and, simultaneously, the other foot in the new creation of the Spirit.

As much as we might wish for it to be one or the other—black or white—the Christian life, as we know, is more complex than that.

We live in a divided world. Thank you, Captain Obvious.

In 2019, I had the honor and the privilege of attending a lecture by a Jewish scholar named Jonathan Haidt at Temple De Hirsch Sinai on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. At New York University, Professor Haidt is a professor of ethics and sociology.

I had already encountered him through reading his book entitled The Righteous Mind. Could we have the first slide, please?

Note the subtitle: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

In their research, Haidt and his colleagues posited that, as a result of the influence of both nature and nurture, there existed what they called six moral foundations found across most cultures.

Next slide, please. These are the six: care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity/purity, and liberty.

In The Righteous Mind, from which this information is taken, Haidt tells us that both what we call liberal and conservative viewpoints value all six of the moral foundations, but often with different emphases.

Next slide, please.

This is what the description of care and fairness sounds like from Haidt’s research:

Care is cherishing and protecting others—the ability to feel and dislike the pain of others. It underlies the virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance. Its opposite would be harm.

Fairness is rendering justice according to shared rules. Proportionality is a key idea—that is, everyone doing a proper or equal share of the work. It can also mean that all are treated equally. Its opposite would be cheating.

Next slide, please.

One of the things that he did in his book was to give us visuals to help explain these concepts. So, you can see on the left, for the moral foundation of care, we have a group of protesters with signs that say things like: “Marching for the meek and the weary, the hungry and the homeless,” and “Tax the wealthy fair and square.”

A different perspective, however, might say it like this: “Spread my work ethic, not my wealth.”

In The Righteous Mind—excuse me—Haidt included these visuals to help us grasp the concepts. And notice that both liberal and conservative viewpoints of care and fairness are concerned with what we would call justice. But especially for the one on the right—“Spread my work ethic, not my wealth”—Haidt says that people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute, even if it guarantees unequal outcomes.

Next slide, please.

The next two moral foundations are loyalty and authority.

Loyalty is standing with your group, your family, or your nation. It underlies the value of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. Its opposite would be betrayal.

Authority means submitting to legitimate authority and includes respect for traditions. It underlies the virtues of leadership and followership. Its opposite would be subversion.

Here’s the visual that goes with that moral foundation. On the left, you can see there is a patriotic expression of loyalty: this license plate from the state of Virginia says “O Glory,” and it shows the flag.

On the other hand, another potential expression of patriotic loyalty would be the stop sign that says, “Stop Americanism.”

Many of us here lived through the deeply troubled and divided 1960s, with the assassinations, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests. And some of you may remember bumper stickers like these: “America—love it or leave it,” or how about, “Proud to be an American; ashamed of my government.”

Next slide, please.

Closely related to loyalty as a moral foundation is that of authority, where we just read the description. Now here’s what that looks like in terms of the visuals that Haidt provided: on the left, we have the authority idea of “Watch your nation in subordination,” and on the right, this church expression: “God’s in charge, so shut up.” There’s your authority.

Next slide, please.

The fifth moral foundation is sanctity/purity. This involves religious ideas of trying to live a life that’s elevated and noble, rather than carnal, base, or gross. It underlies the idea that the body is a temple that can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminating or disgusting things. Its opposite would be degradation.

The visual that goes with it looks like this: on the left, we have the Virgin Mary, whose purity is guarded by stone walls and two lions. The other picture, I think, speaks for itself. No comment.

The sixth and final moral foundation is liberty. Slide, please.

Liberty, according to Haidt and his researchers, is the loathing of tyranny—the feelings of reactance and resentment that people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. Its opposite is oppression.

The visual, please. Here we have the state flag of Virginia. You can see the Latin phrase Sic semper tyrannis, which means “Thus always to tyrants.” And you can see the tyrant has been bested by the victorious liberty figure.

And by the way, those words are what John Wilkes Booth shouted from the stage at Ford’s Theater after assassinating President Lincoln.

For those of us who were or are teachers, there’s the anecdote about little Johnny, who was acting out in class—indeed, challenging the authority of the teacher while asserting his own liberty.

The exasperated teacher finally gave Johnny a time-out, seated him in the corner. Recalcitrant little Johnny, however, wanted to have the last word, and he called out, “Mrs. Smith, I may be sitting on the outside, but I’m standing on the inside!”

I refer us again to the subtitle of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Haidt and his colleagues’ research shows that both left and right—liberal and conservative—value all six of the moral foundations, but, as I said before, often with differing emphases.

Consider these final two slides.

This slide represents what Haidt called the liberal moral matrix, and he says the most sacred value of the liberal moral matrix is care for victims of oppression. You can see from the heaviness of the lines that the primary concerns here are care, liberty, and fairness.

Next slide, please.

The final slide represents the conservative moral matrix, whose most sacred value is: preserve the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community. And the emphasis then would be on loyalty, authority, and sanctity.

In his presentation at the synagogue that I attended, Haidt warned us of what he called tribalism and reminded us that the folks on the left and the right both have real and urgent fears and hopes.

And my hope for sharing with you these insights that I’ve gained from Professor Haidt’s material has been to, if possible, increase the light while turning down the heat—if you take my meaning.

Today, America—and, sadly, the Church—are deeply polarized. A word that references the geographic North and South Poles; you really can’t get much further apart than that.

Behavioral scientists consider polarization a distinct social dysfunction. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of communication and relationship dynamics that breed mistrust, misunderstanding, and dehumanization.

Paul was 2,000 years ahead of the behavioral scientists, I think—because that description really sounds a lot like what he called “the flesh” or “the present evil age.”

Almost any difference in values, perspectives, or identities can evoke polarization: ethnicity—Black, Brown, or White; economics—rich or poor; geography—urban or rural; sexuality—queer or straight; political loyalties—red or blue.

Polarization blinds us to our common humanity.

During the early days of COVID, you may remember when we had to go to a central location for our first shots, and we had to wait several minutes to be assured that there was not going to be any medical event as a result.

Knowing all that waiting was going to happen, I took along a book to read. And as I was reading, a nurse approached and asked me about the book. So I showed her the cover, whose title was Everyone Belongs to God.

Its author was Christoph Blumhardt, a 19th-century Lutheran pastor and theologian.

The nurse’s response was something to the effect of: “That’s a message we don’t hear often enough.”

Among other things, Blumhardt wrote: “No one is separated from Christ’s love—neither the unchurched nor the pagan, and especially not the oppressed.”

“Everyone belongs to God,” said Blumhardt. And here at Trinity, we say: All means all.

The overarching biblical story—the meta-narrative of Scripture—is clear: the will of God is to reunite, to reconcile God’s entire creation to Godself, and we humans to one another.

This is the promise of the age of the Spirit.

Paul urged the Galatians to be led by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit.

He said, “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

This, in fact, is a double freedom. It’s a freedom from the slavery of the present evil age—from the alienations of the flesh. But it’s also a freedom for.

In chapter 5:13, Paul writes: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.”

The new Exodus was, for the Galatians and for us, an Exodus from the slavery of the flesh to freedom—ironically, of slavery or service to one another.

Such a life bears the good fruit of the Spirit—the fruit of love, and joy, and peace, and kindness, and all the rest that Paul had listed.

Healing fruit. Life-giving fruit.

The Galatians needed it. We need it. And so does our world.

Amen.