It was Sunday, March 22. My mom and I are at the 9 AM service at her church, a Missouri Synod Lutheran church. We’ve progressed through the order of service to the message. I’m paying attention to the sermon like I always do. I have found myself frustrated with the pastor, who tends to stretch the biblical passage he’s chosen as his text from the day’s readings like silly putty to wrap it around the message he wants to convey. “His heart is in the right place,” I think, “It’s a good message; it just doesn’t fit with the scripture passage.”

The title of the sermon on this day is “Christian-ish (Part 6): The Trap of Comfortable Christianity” but it is also listed on the church’s YouTube channel as “When Christians Get It Wrong.” The scripture text for the day’s message was John 15:1-5:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Compelling text, and intriguing title(s), so it should be a good message, right? Well, yes, it was a good message, right up until it went off the rails and suddenly the pastor started inserting words into the scriptures that aren’t there.

The issue comes at the 43 second mark in this clip from the video the church posted of the sermon:

Pastor says, “Paul makes it insanely simple. He gives you two lists…”

Paul does give us two lists in Galations chapter 5 – but he does not give us a list he calls “Fruit of the Flesh.” This is what he actually lists, starting in verse 19:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissentions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.”

Since Paul does give us two lists, why make one up that he doesn’t actually record? What purpose is there in preaching something as if it is the word of God when that is not what He inspired Paul to write?

My problem is that he totally made up the “Fruit of the Flesh” list but presented it as if Paul had written in Galations. And it seemed that no one noticed. I looked around, and I was the only one flipping over to Galations because that still small voice was whispering in my ear, “Wait, that’s not in the Bible. You ought to look that up.” I was so struck that I thought maybe I heard him wrong.

When I got home, I pulled up the recorded live stream from the early service to double check to see if he actually said what I thought he said. Not only did he say it in the early service, but I checked the video from the 11 AM service as well, and he said exactly the same thing in both services.

I can’t comprehend any reason why he would do this. But it goes a bit further. Throughout this clip he’s asking his congregation to circle which “fruit” they are bearing from the two lists. It’s a good tool for self-examination, I’ll grant that. Like I said, this is a good message, and all he would have had to do was qualify the second list as evidence of the opposites of the Fruit of the Spirit within our lives. After all, who among us can claim that we don’t act in opposition to the will of God from time to time? Sometimes even the most beautiful piece of fruit may have a bruise or a wormhole on the underside, and not one of us is perfect.

While he does admonish that “If you only checked things for a moment on the Fruit of the Spirit side, then I need to tell you something, you’re probably not being honest with yourself,” he goes on to discount those who may have circled more on the “Fruit of the Flesh” list that he made up with, “If you only checked things on the fruit of the flesh side, two things may be happening. One, you just may be disconnected from the Lord, and that’s just why you can only see this, and you need to get reconnected to him, Or, you may be overly critical of yourself and you need someone to show you the good fruit God is producing in your life.”

What about conviction? What about longing for the Fruit of the Spirit and a desire to repent? What if someone actually needs to meet Jesus for the first time? God forbid that someone actually come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit at a church service! I don’t know – maybe he’s afraid of offending the congregants, but how can one shepherd the flock and neglect to guide them toward home?

And of all days, this is the day my mom asks what I thought about the sermon, and me being me (an open book and what-you-see-is-what-you-get to a fault), I answered honestly. At least the Lord used it to teach me about what the dementia is doing to my mom and how she thinks and experiences things differently at this stage of her life, so if anything good has come from it, there’s that. But I still just don’t understand why a pastor would twist the word of God like this.

And it actually gets worse, just two Sundays ago.

There’s joy on this journey, on my way home to my Father’s house,
Cindy <><