Growing Forward
One thing we don’t often acknowledge about growth: growth is messy.
This is the text of a sermon delivered at Taunton URC, Somerset on 29th June 2025.
Scriptures: Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
It won’t surprise you to hear me say that it’s not an easy time to “do church.” We’re struggling within our institutions and within our local congregations. Everywhere I go, churches are wrestling with big, difficult realities and questions. And aside form the issue of survival, itself, is the question of growth. “Where are the young families?” I get asked. “We used to have Sunday School and Youth clubs!” I’m told. We used to do this, we used to do that… on and on I hear “this is who we used to be.”
When we look back, we like to think that growth will fix all our problems. Maybe there’s some truth to that—many hands make lighter work, after all, but there’s one thing we don’t often acknowledge about growth… growth is messy.
Whether it’s a garden in midsummer or a church finding its way into a new season, real transformation never happens without a little soil under the fingernails, a few false starts, and a lot of letting go.
That’s what Jesus is doing in our Gospel reading today. He’s setting his face toward Jerusalem. He knows the road ahead is going to be hard, the destination painful. And along the way, people come to him with well-meaning intentions: “I’ll follow you, Jesus… but first, I’ve gotta do this or that.” These are real people with read life concerns.
And Jesus, perhaps more sharply than we’d like, isn’t a fan of this approach. In fact, he replies: There’s no looking back. Discipleship means choosing the forward path, even when it’s uncertain, even when it’s uncomfortable. Because Jesus knows something we would rather not acknowledge, and that is that if we keep looking behind us, we’ll miss what God is growing right in front of us.
I want to tell you a story from early in my ministry, back when I was still finishing seminary and serving as a student pastor. I was learning a lot—on paper and in practice. This was a baptism of fire. I was a solo pastor, full time student, working as a chaplain, and in field placement. You’d think I would have learned the most from my mentors in ministry, those who were training me, but one of the people I learned the most from, though not always easily, was an elder in one of my churches who we’ll call Cathy (not her real name).
Cathy claimed to love my sermons and services. But she always had something “helpful” to add afterward. She was a bit tough on me. And that’s an understatement. I thought she hated me. One of her recurring critiques was that my prayers were scripted. “Prayer should be spontaneous,” she’d say. “Heartfelt.” Which, to her, meant impromptu.
One Sunday, my synod-assigned supervisor, Kate, came to preach. After the service, Cathy wandered into the vestry where Kate and I were chatting. She gushed about Kate’s sermon and then said, in front of both of us, “And thank you for that prayer! It was so heartfelt and faithful. I wish our minister” [looking right at me] “would do prayers like that.”
Then she left.
I took a breath, put my head down. I was humiliated. But that’s when Kate turned to me and said, “Well. That wasn’t very nice.” Then she apologised for Cathy and reassured me: “You’re doing just fine. Don’t let comments like that get to you.” But I’ll be honest, I’m human and that did get to me.
And I knew why. I’m a writer. I love words and I like them better when I can think through them. Speaking extemporaneously doesn’t come easily to me because I get nervous in front of people. And somewhere, deep down, I worried that not being able to pray off-script made me an imposter. That it meant I didn’t trust God enough to let the Spirit speak through me.
So I talked it through with Donna and with my Aunt Jen. I reflected. I prayed.
Cathy’s approach wasn’t kind, but her criticism hit on something I knew I needed to address. An area worth growing, so I decided to do something about it. I practiced. I worked at it. And one Sunday, I took the leap. I prayed without my notes. And the world didn’t end. My prayer wasn’t perfect or eloquent, but it did come from the heart.
I still write most of my prayers. That’s how I think. But I also trust the Spirit a little more freely now. And here’s the thing: without Cathy’s “helpful” comment, and the process of reflection and growth that followed, I wouldn’t be the minister I am today.
Sometimes the Spirit’s fruit grows through challenge, not comfort. Sometimes love and self-control grow in the same soil. Sometimes even the hard comments have something for the basket.
Let’s go back to our scriptures. Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia was written to a people caught up in conflict. This church was stuck between two ways of understanding how to live faithfully. Some believed that following Jesus meant following all the traditional Jewish laws. Paul pushes back, because for him, it’s not the outward signs of religion—like circumcision or strict rule-keeping—that define Christian faithfulness. What Paul wants the church to focus on is the inner transformation that comes from being free in Christ and walking in step with the Spirit.
So when we think about this beautiful list we call the “fruit of the Spirit,” we must remember that context. And it’s worth noting: Paul doesn’t call this the “fruits of the spirit.” It’s not plural. He is talking about fruit, singular. This is not a spiritual pick-and-mix. It’s one unified product of the Spirit’s life in us that produces the fruit of God’s Spirit.
Each of these qualities—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—is relational. These aren’t abstract virtues, but virtues that work together to shape how we live with and for each other.
And it’s also worth pointing out, none of them are also not signs of weakness or passivity. Think about how much strength it takes to be kind when someone is harsh. How much faithfulness it takes to show up, week after week, in a church community that’s been through ups and downs. How much self-control it takes to not lash out in a culture of blame and outrage. These are deeply resilient, countercultural traits of Spirit-shaped people.
Paul contrasts these markers of the Spiritual way of being with what he calls “the works of the flesh.” He doesn’t do this because bodies are bad, Paul’s not anti-physical (though one could see why he has been called as much). He does this to name a way of life that puts ego above community, self-interest above love.
The fruit of the Spirit grows in the soil of surrender, in the climate of trust, and in the context of community. It is religion in real life.
All of this brings me to an image I’ve found helpful: the shared basket. In some Indigenous traditions, when a community gathers, they each bring something—fruit, vegetables, a story, a song—and place it in the shared basket. The idea is that no one brings everything, but everyone brings something.
That’s the life of the Church at its best. Not each of us trying to display all the fruit, perfectly ripened and polished, but each of us offering what we have now in love.
So someone brings peace. Maybe another brings joy. Someone else brings patience. Someone brings love, and so on and so forth. All these together help us fill the basket.
That’s how churches grow forward. It’s not by looking back and replicating everything we’ve done at our best, or avoiding tough discussions, and it’s certainly not by one person bringing everything. Churches—people—grow forward by each of us asking, “What fruit am I growing now? What can I bring to the basket?”
And in a world like ours, where so much feels barren or broken—the violence in the Middle East, the rise in division and fear, the ache of unanswered questions—we need fruit. We need love that shows up. Joy that refuses to be extinguished. Peace that passes understanding. We need churches like this one, imperfect but Spirit-shaped, bringing baskets of hope to a hungry world. The world doesn’t need perfect Christians; it needs fruitful ones.
And here’s the good news: the Spirit is already growing these gifts in you. You don’t need to manufacture them, you only need to pay attention. Tend the soil. And bring what you’ve got.
So, what fruit are you growing in this season? What’s ripening in you that might bless someone else? And what might it mean, not just for you, but for your church community, to stop looking back and instead… grow forward?
Bring your fruit. Place it in the basket. Let God do the rest.