Yesterday, I saw a woman in the grocery store. She was not wearing a mask. None of her four adorable children were wearing masks. Her husband was not wearing a mask.
She was wearing a cute t-shirt that said, “Happiness is a mood. Joy is a fruit.”
Thanks to my Conservative Baptist upbringing and 15 years of weekly Sunday school lessons, I recognized the Biblical reference there. Joy is one of the fruits of the spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians (Galatians 5:22-23). Those fruits are all pretty nifty. I even have them memorized, also thanks to my 15 years of Sunday school.
In case you are wondering or need a little reminder because you did not have 15 years of Baptist Sunday school: the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
I was a little confuddled that this lovely woman and her beautiful family were out in the world, that she was sporting a shirt that had a Christian vibe (although you might not have caught the reference without at least a few years of Sunday school), and that none of them were wearing masks.
The first fruit of the spirit?
Love.
How is it loving not to wear a mask?
It certainly unsparked some of my joy (apologies to Marie Kondo), watching them parade through the produce section with no regard for the shoppers around them, or for anyone but themselves, their comfort, their rights (well. Their interpretation of their rights).
Sure, happiness is a mood, and joy is a fruit, but their masklessness (I think I just made that word up) drained both my happiness and joy and made me mad, which was an unpleasant sort of mood, but also an appropriate response, I think, to their apparent disregard for those around them.
I am pretty sure that if the good Apostle Paul was jotting down the fruits of the spirit today, he would add at least one more. The new, revised 2021 version of the fruits of the spirit? “Love, joy, peace, ‘WEAR YOUR MASK!,’ patience (which I confess is something that I am running out of when I see people without masks in public places), kindness (By the way: wearing a mask is kind), goodness (Also? Wearing a mask is good), and self-control (You are strong and can tolerate having your face covered for a few minutes. Yes. You can. And yes, I know, there are some people who truly cannot wear masks because they have breathing problems. But really? This is a very small number of people. It is not most of us. And if this entire family had breathing problems and that was why they could not wear masks, then I apologize. Very sorry. But not convinced.)
If Jesus was out in public today, at the market or the gas station or picking up take out, he’d have a mask on. Because wearing a mask is an act of love. So maybe, it’s not a great idea to have on a shirt that talks about the fruits of the spirit if you won’t wear a mask. Because people with a few years of Sunday school might notice. And it might just drain the happiness, and joy, right out of us.
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