Almost every day we watch with horror as the pictures on our television screen show us scenes of senseless violence in our cities and our streets. We see crying children and tortured people. We see hatred and division, confusion and chaos. These days we read of 20,000 Muslim women raped in the former Yugoslavia, and we pray for the holding of the cease fire. Incredibly enough, we see Nazi swastikas worn with pride by young Germans, and we cannot believe they have forgotten history. We wince with pain every time we look into the face of a starving child. And, my friends, we listen carefully when the Surgeon General of the United States tells us that violence is one of our greatest health hazards.

Against this back drop, we hear again the words of the text: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." In today's world, it would seem these marks of the Spirit are like long-lost wanderers from a far, distant place -- a bit out of fashion, you might say, and surely in short supply. Some have said that the first sign that Christians are not living the life of the spirit is the breakdown of the love and unity of the community. The fruit of the Spirit, which is a sign of true freedom, is intimately related to life within community. If that is true, then I'm afraid we must confess that we are in crisis, and the nature of the crisis that we face in this nation at this time in history is one of soul and spirit. Nothing less than spiritual renewal will do. But the spirituality that would result from such a renewal would have little relation to the individualistic, self-comforting spirituality that penetrates pop psychology.

Genuine spiritual renewal radically changes our world view and is rooted in an encounter with the love of God, the love of a God whose truth turned the world upside down.

Nowhere was this more clearly illustrated than on the day when the first Christians received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The day was called Pentecost, and it was a revolutionary event both for individual Christians and for the community. Can you imagine a day in which all divisions were wiped out? People instantly understood and cared for one another and yes, we are told that the spirit-filled community held all things in common. It was a vision of a beloved community and stands as a sign to Christians in all times and all places that God wills unity and peace and joy and patience and love for all God's children.

We heard read earlier the words from the Book of Galatians. They were words of Paul addressed to the people of Galatia. Now those people can seem very long ago and far away, but I would tell you that they were engaged in a very classic struggle. They were trying to figure out how sinful people could win God's favor. They tried to set down rules of behavior, rules that would please God. In many ways, they wanted to limit God's power and God's presence in their lives. Now my friends, lest you think these are yesterday's people, I would say to you that we know these people very well. They are like us. We too ask, "Please, if I go to church, if I make enough money to feed my family, if I'm generous to my neighbors, and as an American, if I vote in every election and generally behave with kindness toward one and all, surely God will love me -- surely a little better than the dirty beggar on the street corner who drinks away his few dollars.

But Paul told the Galatians the terrible truth. The truth that is very hard for us to hear. God loves all of creation, and there really is no way for sinful humans to earn God's love for no one, not anyone, is outside the love of God. There are no rules, you see, that guarantee you a place in the kingdom. The only way to please God is to trust God's grace. God's forgiving love through Jesus Christ is the sole ground of our salvation. The only access to that eternal kingdom is by faith. There is tremendous freedom in this understanding, but there are also incessant demands. The one who puts on Christ has not purchased a new garment (call that garment patience, call it joy, call it gentleness, call it generosity), but the one who puts on Christ sets an entirely new fashion.

So the message of the text is not primarily about the fruits, but it is about the vine that gives them life. It is about the Spirit coming into our lives and our communities and filling us so full with the love of God that we act toward one another in ways that give glory to the God who promises that He will never leave us.

Christians whose lives have been touched by the spirit will, I'm afraid, find it impossible to ignore suffering and hunger and hatred. I would say to you, my friends, out of my own life, for a certainty on some days will say, "I wish my eyes had never been opened to see the pain of my sisters and brothers struggling to be free." But like blind Bartemeus, they know it is their faith that has made them well and whole and so they are borne up on eagle's wings and given the strength to press on.

When I was much younger, I was privileged to know and work with Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a formative event in my life. He was such a person. His commitment to the beloved community inspired us when he was alive and informs us still. Martin Luther King was far from a saint, but he was a man of faith, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit. One of the signs of it was that he often moved against his own self-interest and finally, as we know, he was required to give up his very life for his people. And we are all beneficiaries of that sacrifice. He constantly preached love your enemy. Listen to his words, "The darkness of racial injustice," he said, "will be dispelled only by the light of forgiving love. Forced to live with shameful conditions, we are tempted to become bitter and to retaliate with a corresponding hate." If this happens, Martin Luther King warned, the new order that we seek will be little more than a duplicate of the old order. We must in strength and humility meet hate with love.

For just that message, he was jailed; he was ridiculed. He was accused of being a perpetuator of violence even as he lived a counter cultural life of non-violence. His very being was a threat to the nation and, yes, I'm afraid even to the churches. He was seen as one who disrupted the careful orders of life that preserved privilege and special status. His radical spirituality called the cool, unfeeling faith of many into question. He set about to turn the world upside down, and by his living and his dying he proved that one man, armed with truth and courage, can move a whole nation. Here again his wise words:

"Love your enemies that you may be children of your father which is in heaven. We are called to the difficult task in order to realize a unique relationship with God. We are potential sons and daughters of God. Through love that potentiality becomes actuality. We must love our enemies, because only by loving them can we know God and experience the beauty of his holiness.

"Of course, this is not practical. Life is a matter of getting even, of hitting back, of dog eat dog. Am I saying that Jesus commands us to love those who hurt and oppress us? Do I sound like most preachers -- idealistic and impractical? Maybe in some distant Utopia, you will say, that idea will work, but not in the hard, cold world in which we live.

"My friends, we have followed the so-called practical way for too long a time now, and it has led inexorably to deeper confusion and chaos. Time is cluttered with the wreckage of communities which surrendered to hatred and violence. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of humankind, and for our children, we must follow another way ... This is the only way to create the beloved community."

So in the midst of war and famine, violence and division, we pray for unity and for a spiritual renewal of people of all nations, of the earth and of the world. It is not a time to grow weary, but a time to be open to the Spirit moving in our midst. We have no less than the Lord of history praying for us that we might be ONE even as Father, Son and Holy Spirit are perfectly one, so that the world might see us, our joy, our patience, our long-suffering, our peace, our love and our hungry, hurting and war-weary world just might believe. Such an outpouring of faith would surely transform our chaos into community.

Come Holy Spirit, renew the whole creation.

Floyd Brown: Thank you for an inspiring message, but you raise a lot of questions, which means it's a great message. The first question I would like to ask you is about television. We are seeing so much violence; we're seeing news in the making on television today. Has it desensitized us as Christians? Has it caused us to be more accepting and less motivated?

Joan Brown Campbell: To some degree, I think it does desensitize us. I also think it tends to overwhelm people. The other thing I think happens is that we see a terrible tragedy. It is on the news for just a few seconds, and the next day we are on to something else. It makes it difficult for us to focus on how we really deal with some of these serious problems.

Brown: What could we do? What could focus us?

Campbell:  Somehow I think we have to come to grips with the fact that at the moment we are a nation in trouble. I think we are getting some leadership out of the White House at this point that is really trying to help us focus, trying to help us deal with all those uncomfortable problems -- welfare, crime, health -- the kind of things that we are not particularly comfortable dealing with, but we know we have to come to grips with.

Brown:  Are we as a nation politicizing the needs of the people too much? You say we are getting leadership out of the White House, and it seems that it becomes a political thing, and we get swerved in a different direction.

Campbell:  Well, that's true, we do. But we live in a democracy. One of the beauties of living in a democracy is that we are involved in the politics of the nation. I think to some degree, if poor people's needs become a political matter to be dealt with and a matter of the daily news, probably that is part of the solution, so I'm not sure I'm so worried about whether it gets politicized.

Brown:  Is the National Council of Churches getting stronger or a little weaker? What is happening?

Campbell:  The National Council of Churches, like many church organizations these days, is finding it difficult to raise the necessary funds to do the good work that has to be done. In a way, it is rather sad because we probably live in a time where we need the spirit of unity more than we have ever needed it, but essentially it is a long-standing, strong organization.

Brown:  We need that unity, but what has caused us to not fund something as important to you and me as the National Council of Churches? Why are we not getting that ground swell of support?

Campbell:  I think it is sometimes very difficult for people to see the results of what happens, and I think we are in a very difficult time. We are in a time where the nation is a very pluralistic nation. Most of us see that as very positive, but we are having to live in a pluralistic culture. I think ultimately it prepares us for the world community. It is extremely good for the nation. The nation has the gift of diversity, but I think we are going to have to go through some struggles to learn how to live together.

Brown: In investments, we talk about a global society in which we live. That is also true in religion today. What happens in Asia affects us here, [for instance]. We have just had a marvelous conference here in Chicago of all the world's religions coming together. What is your feeling for the world? Are we getting closer? Are we getting better? We will never have one voice, but are we getting closer to a unified voice?

Campbell: I do think you begin to see people paying more attention to the United Nations. I think to the degree that the United Nations is trying to play a peace-keeping role in the world is a sign that we are beginning to trust one another. It is new for the United States essentially to put its weight behind the United Nations and to work with other nations in the work of peace keeping. I personally see that as a positive move. Of course, the world is still full of dissension. We see wars and hear rumors of wars, so we know that we are not close to the beloved community that Martin Luther King talked about.

Brown:  Joan Brown Campbell, you are a treasure and we thank you very much. Thanks for being with us on the Sunday Evening Club. We look forward to your return.