Our hungry scared little egos

Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. ….

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another. - Galatians 5

(If you’d like to listen, you can click above. Ther sermon starts at 18 minutes)

Friends, since this is Pride weekend,

and since the church has much to repent of when it comes to its teachings around and treatment of sexuality,

and since our text for today mentions “the works of the flesh”

and since it is a text that has been weaponized against so many,

and since the church’s fanatical obsession with vilifying and controlling human sexuality –has, to my thinking, created more pain in people’s lives than it ever has prevented,

I thought maybe today is a good day to undergo a sanctified investigation into the 5^th chapter of Galatians.

And to help us try and understand Paul’s list of 15 things he calls the “works of the flesh” I have devised what I hope is a helpful little point system – a works of the flesh score sheet.

One point per mention per category.

Again, if you are playing along at home, our categories are fornication, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing,

Now, I am the last person to downplay the effects of harmful sexual behavior and the excessive consumption of alcohol – both of which I am intimately familiar with. But given how much the church I was raised in obsessed over these, it’s interesting that out of 15 different Works of the flesh mentioned by Paul, there is but one direct and obvious mention of harmful sexual behavior, and just 2 mentions of over consumption of alcohol – so 1 point goes to the category of sex and 2 points goes to the category of drunkenness.

The scoring gets interesting here because there is 1 mention of “debauchery” which in all fairness could mean either sex and or drinking so that’s half a point more for each of those categories.

In his list Paul mentions jealousy twice. So 2 points there.

One point goes to sorcery which in 2025 America, is maybe an anachronism - unless you include “manifesting” I guess? Not sure…

Anyhow, idolatry only gets one point which feels low to me given the rising popularity of White Christian Nationalism. But I didn’t make the list.

Impurity could apply to anything so it keeps its 1 point to itself.

Here’s the big reveal though, The hands down winner in the “works of the flesh” competition, with 6 points - goes not to sex or drugs or rock and roll – the winner with 6 points has nothing to do with the body, the winner with 6 points goes to all the different forms of creating, and fostering conflict with other people and within communities.

Honest to God… enmity, strife, quarrels, anger, dissensions, factions.

6 points goes to infighting.

And what historically has the church seen as “works of the flesh”? sex. Good Lord – that’s not just bad theology, it’s bad math!

The point of course is that SARX, the Greek word for flesh as in John 1 - The Word became SARX and dwelled among us,

The Greek word sarx has more meanings than just the human body.

Sarx can also just mean our over or undersized human egos. The part of us that sees itself as separate from everyone and everything else. It’s the part of me that thinks everything is a competition, the part that always has to defend herself, prove herself, promote herself. The part that gets offended, the part that needs constant validation.

Don’t get me wrong, a solid sense of self is essential to flourishing, but for whatever reason the human ego has never seemed to get it’s size right – convincing us we are either better or more wretched than everyone else. Masquerading alternately as martyr, or emperor. But so, so seldom being the right size to love God and love the neighbor as ourselves.

I have so much compassion for us humans, by the way…. As I studied this passage I found myself feeling all kinds of tenderness toward our poor hungry little egos. I mean, when it comes down to it, aren’t we all just trying to be seen and loved? And who can blame us.

We just come up with some truly terrible ways of trying to ensure we are seen and loved…and then we end up in conflict or competition with all the other people who are also trying in weird ways to be seen and loved…

And then our egos are constantly keeping score against them in a some kind of game that isn’t even real, and convincing us to care about things that just don’t really matter.

About 15 years ago I was engaged in a battle with someone from the bishop’s office, who is now long retired. It was a prolonged siege that quite frankly made me miserable, but I knew I was right and I am NOT one to back down.

And one day I was on the phone with this poor friend of mine who had heard me tell and re-tell my grievance story in the exact same way over the period of a year and a half… She’d been so patient with me until then but finally she said “Look Nadia, you’re right. You are right about all of it. AND. It doesn’t matter”.

I was like, wait. what? What else matters?

“Your community doesn’t need you to keep fighting,” she said. “they need you to lead them to what is next”

I thought of that time in my life this week as I struggled with what to say about sarx and Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

You know what part of me hated that whole – Look Nadia, you are right about all of that and … it doesn't matter – well, it wasn’t the grounded, mature part of me, it was my ego. To my ego, walking away from an argument when I know I am right feels exactly like dying.

By the way, I wasn’t. I wasn’t right about it all. I was just convinced I was right which, it ends up, isn’t the same thing.

Anyhow, I thought I was fighting with a guy in the bishop’s office but underneath it all I was really fighting with an imaginary threat to my being seen and loved.

My friend was right though. It didn’t matter. I mean, yes, at the time it felt like it mattered but it didn’t matter to what matters most and if it doesn’t matter to what matters most, it doesn’t matter.

You know this. Imagine holding a grudge against someone you love, like a really juicy one - imagine not backing down because it would feel like dying, and then imagine finding out they are in the hospital with stage 4 cancer. These are the moments people hold their loved one’s hand and say the words, “none of that matters anymore”. But if resentments and conflict and jealousies and all the other works of the ego just don’t matter anymore when someone is dying, I ask, do they really matter when they are still living?

It matters, but only to our most scared, most insecure, most shut down selves.

But a few verses later, Paul contrasts sarx with Spirit.

And to us slightly insecure humans just trying to be seen and loved and often doing it in destructive ways, this Spirit comes bearing a cornucopia of fruit – joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and (my least favorite): self-control. In other words every single thing we need right now maybe more than ever.

Maybe it’s good to remember that fruit takes time. You can’t just have CHAP GPT make a peach. You can’t rush an apricot into sweetness. The Spirit’s fruit grows slow in the dark soil of ordinary days—on the commute, and in the committee meeting, and in the awkward phone call with your sister.

It’s cultivated, not cranked out.

And the Spirit does not leave us to do this work alone or unfed. She is always showing up with snacks from her orchard. Always exchanging our failings for fruit. Maybe the point isn't to get it right all the time. Maybe the point is to behold God’s blessed exchange of our works of the flesh for their fruits of the spirit.

This beautiful exchange usually happens when we loosen our grip on battle gear and petty resentments – and behold the Spirit placing in our eager open palms the kind of peace we would never feel from just getting it right to begin with.

And when we repent from once again keeping score against other people, the spirit is there handing out the peach slices of gentleness and self-control and when we repent of chasing shiny bits of nothing and thinking it love, the sweet Holy Spirit is there offering us her nectarines and kindness and saying taste and see that the Lord is good.

Friends, the never-ending gift of the Christian life is getting to return again and again to what actually matters. As often as we need to.

Because as Theologian James Alison says, maybe repentance is just remembering that we actually were loved all along. Amen.

Where to find me this Summer and Fall:

July 11 - Cheyenne, WY - RED STATE REVIVAL

Aug 3 - Denver, CO - Montview Presbyterian - preaching

Aug 10 - Denver, Co St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral - preaching

Aug 15 - Sioux Falls, SD - RED STATE REVIVAL

Aug 22 - Columbus, OH - RED STATE REVIVAL (waitlisted)

Aug 23 - Charleston, WV - RED STATE REVIVAL

Oct 3-5 - Rhinebeck, NY - Omega Institute Women’s Gathering (limited spots available)

Coming Soon:

Oct 6 - Philadelphia, PA - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Oct 16 - Missoula, MT - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Nov 7 - Milwaukee, WI - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Nov 20 - Jupiter, Fl - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

Nov 22 - New Orleans, LA - RED STATE REVIVAL (tickets not on sale yet)

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