Is fruitcake as much of a tradition here in the South as it is up North?
I mean, how many of you received a fruitcake for Christmas?
How many of you actually ATE any fruitcake this Christmas?
I am one of a small minority, I know. I actually like fruitcake. Come on, it’s moist; it’s sweet; it’s nutty; it’s got a rich bouquet; its texture is unparalleled. That said . . . .
There is no more maligned food than the good old fruitcake. What was once the queen of holiday feasts in the Old World has now become the Old Maid — the most “re-gifted” of all presents. As Lori Wagner, a pastor from Pennsylvania puts it, “Americans don’t pass the buck; we pass the fruitcake.”
Why DO we dislike fruitcake SO!?
Well, if we take the time to think back, it was not so long ago that fruits, nuts, and sweets of any kind were a luxury few could afford. Our supermarkets can now offer us fresh fruits year-round. So a cake packed with dried and candied fruit is hardly special.
But before a global marketplace made everything available 24/7/365, the winter months were pretty barren of the sweet tastes and smells of succulent fruits. Fruitcakes were the delicious exception.
Look at this work of art: bursting with raisins, dates, and currents. with the sugar-preserved stained glass window colors of candied cherries, citron, lemon, and orange.
Once upon a time the fruitcake was a once-a-year decadent delight, not the mass-produced mish mash of mystery bits that they are today. But I think the real reason behind fruitcake failure (and I need you to stay with me here) is because secretly we all believe WE are fruitcakes. We are the present nobody wants. At least that’s what we’re afraid of. Being the present nobody wants. That’s what makes this whole fruitcake thing so painful. Maybe that’s what makes us hate fruitcake so.
The church has long debated the concept of an “unpardonable sin,” a sin usually associated with bad mouthing the Holy Spirit. You can find this mentioned in Matthew, Mark and Luke: (Matthew 12:31-32; Luke 12:10; and Mark 3:29). Anyone who has grown up in the church has wondered at one time or another if they have committed the Unpardonable Sin, even if no one really knew what it was.
But for Jesus there were TWO unpardonables, and neither dealt with bad-mouthing the Holy Spirit. Both did deal with hamstringing the Holy Spirit and hindering the Spirit’s presence and power in your life.
For Jesus the two unpardonables were:
1) The refusal to love
2) The refusal to be loved
If you spend your life refusing to love, and/or refusing to be loved; your life is not just ugly and vile. Your life is unredeemable. Your life is unpardonable. This is the ultimate blasphemy against the Spirit of God: the refusal to love, and the refusal to be loved. Because either refusal means you’re untouchable . . . by human or divine. You can’t be reached by God our other humans.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road: almost all of us have trouble with at least one of these “unpardonables.” For some of us, it is harder to love others. There is the risk of exposure — of being betrayed, abandoned, cast aside, purposefully hurt, humiliated, rejected. Loving another, sending love out into the world, is surely a recipe for disaster. You may get your heart broken. Scratch that. You WILL get your heart broken. A broken heart is the price you pay for love.
For others it is harder to accept being loved than loving. We know too well all the unloveliness that lurks within us. We know exactly how stunted our soul is. We know the cruelties of which we are capable. We know how the best in us and the worst in us is only a hair’s breadth distance. To be loved challenges us to move ourselves beyond the lowest common denominator we can muster for living.
Many clergy (I confess: I’m one of them) find it easier to say “God loves YOU” than “God loves ME”).
Here’s the real reason we struggle with the unpardonables:
If we love and if we are loved,
we might have to DO something because of that love.
In other words, we might actually have to bear and become “fruit.”
Jesus had one scorecard for success: It was not found in the Book of Numbers, but in the Book of Acts.
Are you bearing fruit?
Is your life “fruitful?”
There is no question of the ABCs that we all know so well . . .
Attendance, Buildings, Cash.
Yet, there is something that even goes beyond “faithfulness.” That is “fruitfulness.” “Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit,” Jesus says in Matthew 7:17.
"Those who remain in me, with me in them, bear fruit in plenty," Jesus says in John 15:5.
Galatians 5 says to look for specific fruit - not numbers.
How do you know if you are growing in the image of God? How do we know if our church is maturing spiritually?
Are we conceiving?
Are we “being fruitful?”
Are the “fruits” of the Spirit being conceived in our lives and in the lives of our people: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal.5:22).
When you and I stand at bar of Judgment Day, we are not going to be asked: “How big was your back-account? How strong was your budget?”
We will be asked: “Did you love people? Did you let people love you?
Did you lift up Christ? Did you introduce people to the Savior?
How faithful were your relationships?
And that is exactly the point. That is the reason why loving and being loved are the hallmarks and high-water marks of a life lived “in Christ.”
Refusing to love and refusing to be loved WERE unpardonable sins — that is why Christ had to go to the cross for them.
Our love-lessness was not “pardoned” — we were convicted.
And then we were redeemed, by Christ’s death on the cross –
the Alpha and Omega act of love by the World’s Greatest Lover.
Sacrifice redeemed us.
Faith re-birthed us.
Community re-created us.
Action reincarnates us.
When we “reincarnate” Christ in the world as a community that has “put on” Christ, love becomes do-able. Love becomes a fruit itself. We can give and receive the love that God intended to be shared by all people. We can host the World’s Greatest Lover living in us. Isn’t this our first mission: Be FruitFul and Multiple?
The symbol for the New Year is a tiny, naked baby. Often the naked baby is in a gift-basket. A fresh, new start. It is our once-a-year chance at a complete wardrobe “do-over.” This year’s fashion trend is crucial.
If you don’t like fruitcake . . . and the metaphor of being a fruitcake for the world isn’t appetizing to you . . .then I’ve got another one.
[Now bring out a fruit-basket].
Think of a fruit basket. We are to bear fruit for a hungry world in 2010. And the fruit, the #1 fruit that needs to fill up this basket, is love . . . Let’s let our fruit basket be a love basket: loving others, and letting others love.
Let’s make 2010 a “clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” Year. This is how Paul puts it in Colossians 3:14. Love creates a “harmony” - not just a one-note wonder but many different notes that blend and in doing so create a deeper, richer experience of life. Harmony is made up of different notes. In this fruit basket there are many different shapes and colors of fruit. We are all different kinds of fruit in this fruit basket. But no matter how different we look, and how different we are clothed, let’s make all our clothing, all of our notes, harmonize to the same song: a love song that we sing as we begin the New Year . . . I think you all know it . . .
Jesus Loves Me This I Know For the Bible Tells Me So Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.
Many people have written new stanzas for this Sunday school song since Anna Warner first published it in 1860. You can find hundreds of them on the Web. But here is one of my favorites, and it speaks about our text this morning and our resolve for 2010:
Jesus, take this heart of mine,
Make it pure and holy thine;
On the cross you died for me,
I will try to live for Thee.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
Who will deliver fruit-baskets to 2010.
