“Three Words for our World: Gentleness”

Galatians 5:22-23

David A. Shirey

Broadway Christian Church

Our November worship series focuses on three words with deep biblical roots that speak to our world today. They’ve spoken to me, at least, beckoned my attention, and sent me into the pages and depths of Scripture for understanding and guidance for the living of our lives. The words are gentleness, generosity, and gratitude. Taby noted the alliteration and suggested the series ought to be A 3G Network for our World, but I’m too old to know what a 3G network is, so it’s Three Words for our World, beginning with gentleness.

Actually, not beginning with gentleness, but with violence. I, and I suspect you, have been painfully aware of the all-encompassing violence of our time.  Israel and Hamas.  Ukraine and Russia.  In Lewiston, Maine, the 587th mass shooting of the year.[1] And in addition to the violence wreaked by weapons, the violence perpetrated by words: what people say and the tone in which words are spoken. An editorial page cartoon can say more than several paragraphs. I spotted one that depicted a forlorn woman posting a flyer on a telephone pole: LOST. Civility, Decorum & Respectful Public Discourse. Lost, indeed. The late Pier Forni directed The Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University and authored a book The Civility Solution: What To Do When People Are Rude.  He wrote, "In today's America, incivility is on prominent display: in the schools, where bullying is pervasive; in the workplace, where an increasing number are more stressed out by coworkers than their jobs; on the roads, where road rage maims and kills; in politics, where strident intolerance takes the place of earnest dialogue; and on the web, where people check their inhibitions at the digital door." We’re awash in the violence of weapons and words. 

The opposite of violence, biblically speaking, is gentleness. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, the Apostle lists the desirable attributes of a bishop, saying, “Now a bishop must be … self-controlled … hospitable, an apt teacher … not violent but gentle” (1 Tim 3:3). The opposite of violent is gentle. It’s a word that comes up in the Bible two dozen times. It’s the penultimate fruit of the Spirit. Brent read, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:23). It’s the word Matthew uses to describe Jesus on his Palm Sunday ride into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:5 can be translated “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey.”  Jesus uses the word to describe himself when he says “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29).  Fruit of the Holy Spirit, descriptor of Jesus Christ, no wonder Paul urged all people of God to make sure and have gentleness in our wardrobe: “As God’s chosen,” he wrote to the Colossians (3:12), “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” And to the Philippians, “Let your gentleness be known to everyone” (Phil 4:5).  To a world awash in violence – wars, weapons, and words – God puts forth the word gentleness.

Now I ask you: is that enough?  Is gentleness enough to go up against this world’s stockpile of violence? I know Paul tells us to “clothe ourselves with gentleness,” but frankly, wouldn’t a Kevlar vest be better?  Or a suit of armor?  Some of us are old enough to remember the Emmy award-winning tv show back in the 80s, Hill Street Blues. Each episode began with roll call at the end of which Sergeant Phil Esterhaus would say to the policemen and women heading out to duty, “Hey, let's be careful out there.” He didn’t say, “Let your gentleness be known to everyone” The world’s awash in violence and the Bible’s handing out gentleness. What do you think? 

I can tell you what I think.  I think most of us think of gentleness as a weak word. Soft. Ineffectual. Think again. Think of Jesus. Did he not face the full spectrum of violence throughout his ministry?  Think of the criticism he received; the words spoken against him. Think of the weapons he faced; the lashes he received by the Roman soldiers, the cross on which he died. And what was it God equipped him with to stand up to that assault? When he commenced his ministry and was baptized, with what did God arm him for the fray? The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.  

Power in the form of a dove. Dove power, baby! Dove power. Does that sound like an oxymoron to you? An oxymoron: a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. A fine mess. Jumbo shrimp. Recent history. Airline food. Adult male. Dove power. Do you associate the words dove and power? I don't know about you, but given what Jesus was going to have to address: sin, stubbornness, violence, treachery of every sinister shape imaginable, when that sky ripped open above the Jordan and God’s provision for Jesus’ ministry was about to make its appearance, I would have expected the Holy Spirit to descend in the form of a pitbull, a lion, a (Missouri) tiger, a dragon, an angel dressed as a cage fighter, ripped and roarin’… but what did Jesus receive? A dove. Is that enough power “to fulfill all righteousness?” To dethrone, defang, and defeat the Herods of this world, to extract Rome’s hands off other nation’s throats?  To defeat sin and death? God, couldn’t you send a little more muscular virtue than gentleness?

Or is there in fact strength in gentleness?  Is the gentleness that infused, emboldened, and empowered Jesus Christ enough? In an essay several years ago in Christian Century magazine, Craig Barnes, then President of Princeton Theological Seminary, recalled a wedding he did when the groom, whom he described as “a burly, muscular lineman for his college football team” spoke his vows to the bride and then added a vow no one saw coming: “I will always be gentle with you.[2]” Barnes says we think of gentleness as a weak or fragile thing.  Far from it, he says.  To be gentle doesn’t mean to be a shrinking violet, a doormat who sits quietly by as others walk all over them.

To the contrary! Gentleness is a virtue exercised by people of real strength.

·      Gentle people are secure enough in themselves that they act toward others not in a domineering way that may come with the power of their position, gender, or physical strength, but out of their inner strength treat others with dignity, respect, gentleness. Don’t be deceived by those who fill the air with the bluster of their bruising words, who go through life throwing elbows, crushing those who stand in the way of their arrogant, unprincipled ambition. Bullies are in fact weak people having neither self-control nor self-esteem who live out a fantasy of strength and self-importance at the expense of others. It’s a façade! 

·      Violent people, lacking both self-control and gentleness, lash out. Gentle people have self-control (the fruit of the spirit that follows gentleness in the list Brent read). When provoked, they can restrain themselves.

·      Violent people take things into their own hurtful hands. Gentle people, confident that God’s purposes will be achieved in God’s ways, leave matters in God’s hands.

·      The violent believe might makes right. The gentle believe right makes might.

There is God-ordained strength in gentleness.  As St. Francis de Sales put it, “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” Gandhi, a gentle man who liberated his nation without  violence said, “Harshness is conquered by gentleness, hatred by love, lethargy by zeal and darkness by light.” Cesar Chavez, no doormat, is quoted as having said, “Never, never is it possible to reach someone if you become angry or bitter; only love and gentleness can do it.”[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Andy Young, Ralph Abernathy and company crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma faced by fire hoses, police dogs baring their fangs, and billy clubs thrashing the air. But that army of gentle people made all the way to Montgomery and to Washington D.C. in the name of civil rights, voting rights, and the basic human rights of dignity, decency and equality.   Jesus said it is the gentle – the meek – who “shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Behold the strength of gentleness.

I can’t forget the question Franciscan friar and author Richard Rohr raised at a conference I attended a few summers ago in Chautauqua, NY. A gentle man, he asked the question so innocently it cut through my defenses and has stayed with me. He asked, “Why are there so many mean Christians?” – people whose words wound, whose demeanor darkens a room, whose actions harm others. I heard the Spirit’s whisper ask me, “David, are you rooted deeply enough in the fruit of the Holy Spirit to have enough self-control to be gentle? Or are you prone to violence in word and deed? David, when you’re aggravated by someone, angered by what they’ve said or done, are you more apt to exude something sweet or sour? Will others be blessed by you or bit, blistered, and bruised? Will what comes out of you be fruit of the Spirit or fraught with spite?”

Our world is awash in the violence of weapons and words.

God offers a word for our world: gentleness.  Gentleness rooted in self-control.

Why aren’t there more gentle Christians? 

Why don’t you be one of them? 

Let all who aspire to the strength of gentleness say AMEN.   

[1] https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/ 

[2] “Choosing Gentleness,” M. Craig Barnes, Christian Century, December 6, 2007, p. 35.

[3] quoted by Sandhya Rani Jha in Travelling with our Ancestors: An Advent Devotional, p. 18.