Ownership or Identity or Love?

Curiously these words overlap in some important ways. 2 Timothy 2: 18 says the Lord knows those who are his. This idea of agape love has the mixture of ownership, possession, melding consonant with one's own being or identity on the one hand, and genuine feelings of affection and/or duty and loyalty on the other hand. Understood as intersecting the meanings in this way, the commandment to "Love God with all your heart, and to love your neighber as yoursel" takes on added meaning: Now one should aim to be harmoniously in tune with the rhythm of God's dynamic presence, as well as resonating with the spirit of one's fellows great and small. And to stray out of alignment, out of tune, out of touch, disconnected is again the visual image of 'sin' in its meaning of going off the path and out of the Way - of the Truth - of the Light; it is missing the mark on the target. 

Thus one should own up to being God's child and take possession of the Kingdom that one inherits filled with fellow creatures to care for and lavish with love. This is one's human identity; what one is and is meant to be.

About inviting others to the banquet - we all are beggars together

Despite the conflation of worldly wealth with one's self worth, as if the doing and results were within one's own powers, in the end everything is from God and belongs to God. We may be stewards or big or small wealth, or indeed none at all. So the scene with Pharisee hosting a big banquet (Luke 14:1 and 7-14) teaches that the invitation should not be from one's own largess or noblesse oblige, but rather should be owned by God with the inviter on equal footing to the person(s) invited. Think of the parallet case this past summer when the old remnant cherry trees bore such abundant fruit and we point several people to the locations for their family harvest: "it is 'all you can eat' and God is hosting. Bring a friend, too."

A big part of the task for preachers in the ocean of popular culture predicated on consumer life, "more is better," is to help people to unlearn those habits in order to develop their vision and heartfelt relationships as steward of the planet and its peoples. It is hard work to teach people to receive life's blessings and its burdens in the right spirit; not in the conventional mode of "homo economicus seeking to maximize value."

Got Fruits? “Gaming” the fruits of the Spirit

According to the fruit that is produced, and its quality, you may know the value of the source - whether tree or person. But could the reverse or parallel causality be in effect so that a person who earnestly strives to conform to the list of characteristics that define the Fruits of the Spirit (patience, love, kindness and so on) will "fake it until he makes it"; that is, a person can game the relationship between outer decorum and inner heartland by persevering in the discipline until it becomes second nature for the person.

This attention to externalities to "cause" the internal landscape of the heart the change also lies behind the structured conditons of life and communication in military compounds and religious cloisters. And yet just to go through the motions may be a necessary but not sufficient condition to attain the desired state of mind/heart. That is, if one's "heart is just not in it" then the repeated habits will be hollow; not carried out "like you mean it."

This precondition of entering voluntarily into the enterprise and to make a sincere, good faith effort is the key to real change in one's heart that may truly lead to Fruits of the Spirit that are not forced and rehearsed, but which spring genuinely from the person's interior life as a natural and transparent expression of the person's heart; i.e. his or her relationship to God the creater as well as to the person's neighbors.

In sum there does seem to be an organic connection between the vine and its fruit. But forcing the fruit or grafting it on can only be a temporary likeness of the real thing. Eventually, with enough good faith effort and heart-felt will then genuine fruit may be expressed. Besides this in-built organic connection between interior (one's heart or constellation of relationships) and externalities another human process seems seems to be at play:

Consider the likeness, congruence or consonance between long-established couples, work mates, owners and their pets; or possibly even the resonating identity of a person and the clothes/shoes they wear (stiff and formal lends to a state of mind that fits the same way), the car they drive, the house and other material trappings they surround themselves with, and even the landscape and language they become rooted to. In all these cases what is external does correspond through empathy, induction or some other mysterious process to that a oneness forms to a certain extent. And by implication a boundary of distinction, or exception also forms to distance the person from things that do not suit one's Self, especially when it is diametrically opposite to the things that identify the person.

Taken together, the interior (heart) - externality (fruits of the Spirit) AND the identity of person to her or his social & material environment add up to an opportunity to jiggle the external environment in order to spur the changes in the person's heart. But ultimately the true heart must have the free will (opportunity) and motivation to go forth and bear genuine fruit of the Spirit.