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Back to Sermon ArchivesAugust
23,
2009
Rev. Judith Bither
Fruit of the Spirit: Gentleness
Our summer is drawing to a close as we look at the last
two in Paul’s list of Fruit of the Spirit. Today we will review
gentleness; on September 6 we will conclude with the last one:
self-control. This series was a good discipline for me because I had to
research terms where I thought I knew the meaning. A little exploration has
shown me deeper meanings, especially exploring aspects of the Christian life.
It’s been enlightening to look at the root word in English and compare it with
the Hebrew or Greek word.
The same is true today with gentleness. In our
violent word we bring a lot of baggage with us when we speak of gentleness. We
associate it with weak, meek, mild. But true
gentleness of the Spirit has at its core the strength of steel. Indeed, to walk
gently in a violent world, not to retaliate, takes a great deal of strength.
The eighth fruit of the Spirit listed by Paul is
variously translated as gentleness, meekness and humility. The
overarching meaning points to integrity of character that is required to ground
one’s relationships in something other than power and pride. This is
contradictory in our culture.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates
that one million people die each year in our country as a direct result of
violence. The United States has more child homicides, suicides and gun-related
death than any other of the world’s 26 richest nations! Furthermore the average
television viewer is exposed to about 18,000 violent interactions each year. We
also know that workplace violence is on the rise as well as “road rage” which is
now even listed in the dictionary! It can seem pretty futile to even try to
cultivate gentleness, can’t it? Those who follow Jesus, a victim of capital
punishment, must recognize that following him involves cultivating different
sensibilities than those promoted by the dominant culture.
Twice in his letters Paul urges the followers of
Christ to clothe themselves with humility and meekness: And all of
you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one
another, for ‘God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’
And he offers similar advice to the Colossians: “Clothe yourselves
with compassion, kindness, meekness and patience.”
United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase, who authored the
book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations that our First Church
Leadership Team will be using, is also the author of “The Balancing Act: A Daily
Discovery of Grace.” One of these 30 brief meditations he entitled “Changing
Metaphors.” He began by quoting Isaiah 2:4, a scripture that will be on the
hearts of our congregation:
“They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword
against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more.”
He then reflected on a book that
over 30 years ago changed the way he thought and spoke: In “Metaphors We Live
By” , the authors posited that there are overarching metaphors that shape
how we perceive and organize everyday realities, conceptual systems that define
how we see the world. Once we accept the big-umbrella conceptual metaphor, then
all our smaller word choices support the metaphor, and we get channeled into one
way of seeing things that limits us to other possibilities for learning,
hearing, thinking and acting.
Bishop Schnase then uses the
examples in our language for disagreements that use fighting or war images:
-
I won, you lost
-
I attacked her weak
points
-
She demolished his
argument
-
Take your best shot
-
He’s ready to take
off the gloves
-
I’m targeting his
weak spots
-
That was a direct
hit
-
I was saved by
the bell
You get the
idea! His point is that our language and images (expressions and metaphors)
don’t just help us talk about conflict; they actually create winners and
losers. They cause us to look at those we disagree as opponents
and maybe even enemies, instead of partners; they cause us to think in terms of
victory or defeat. They shape how we interpret the experience and
how we feel before, during and afterwards.
So how do we
change the metaphor? Schnase suggests that we change it from war to
dance! The “Argument is Dance” conceptual framework views participants as
performers. Persons play various roles, without which the dance would not be
complete:
For example, one
person might lead, and then another. Argument would become discourse and
personal expression, with each performer taking his or her steps, some planned
and rehearsed and expected and others spontaneous and improvised. People finish
dances exhilarated and exhausted, and wanting to do it again. There are no
winners or losers, no one is defeated or destroyed, and no ground is lost or won
at a dance.
Here I want to
read to you a paragraph where he described this: “For instance, whenever we
proposed a new initiative in the congregation where I served as pastor, we all
knew the dance that would follow. Some of the same members would arrive at the
dance, and take the same steps they’d learned through the years. Some would
enter the discussion with a predictable and necessary skepticism, others would
always delve into the financial questions, and others would keep us focused on
mission. Some would make us laugh together, and that was so much their
predictable role that it was as if a choreographer had written the script. New
people would join us and they would dance in styles we had never seen, sometimes
stepping on the toes of others! We all performed our steps and someone looking
down from the balcony would have applauded the intricacy, energy, and creativity
we sometimes displayed. We’d finish exhausted and exhilarated, and we’d eagerly
make plans for the next dance and the next time we’d meet to decide something
else.
Now I’m still
the new kid here, (the one stepping on some toes!) so I don’t know yet who plays
what part in the First Church dance, but I’ve been in enough churches to know
how true this description is for us. Here is the thing about metaphors: If we
expect war, then war we will find and it becomes impossible to see our
interchanges in any other way. But if we expect dance, something graceful may
result. If we expect journey, then maybe we move a few steps further along in
our following of Christ.
Each Sunday we
have discovered that each of the fruits is a reflection of the first: love.
We’ve also affirmed that each is a quality of the very essence of God. We
do not see as much of the gentleness of God in the first Testament, but we do
see this danced dramatically in the life of Jesus. There appears to be an
intimate connection in scripture between gentleness, meekness, humility, and
even patience: each requires us to give up trying to be in control! I know, now
I’m meddling!
One of the
Desert Fathers of the 4th century wrote, Prayer is the seed of
gentleness and the absence of anger. Indeed Jesus instructed us to love our
enemies and pray for those who persecute us, not because he thought that prayer
would change them into loveable people, but because he believed that in
praying for them a transformation would take place in our hearts.
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.
According to
Jesus, it is by loving and praying for our enemies that we become children of
his Father who art in heaven. Praying for others—especially those with whom we
disagree—has a tendency to soften our hearts toward them and encourages us to
treat them more gently. We see others just like us: as fallible creatures also
made in the image of God.
Paul stresses
this in the fourth chapter of Ephesians: Let no evil talk come out of your
mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your
words may give grace to those who hear. Put away from you all bitterness and
wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice and be kind
to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has
forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, and live in love, as Christ loved
us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
What marks the
Christian life as a life of the Spirit is not that Christians never have
conflict, but that Christians negotiate conflict differently. Again think of the
metaphor of the dance. We are admonished to come to each other with humility and
gentleness, willing to listen at a deeper level. We relinquish trying to control
anyone else...and that’s hard! Again from Schnase: What metaphors do we use
to sort out disagreement? Do we dance with our teenagers or fight with them? If
our only metaphor is war, what does victory look like? Does victory come by
destroying? Everybody survives a dance. Do we dance with those who see the world
differently, or try to knock them out?
Cultivating
gentleness and humility in cultures like ours will not be easy. In fact, the
task may be made more difficult once we realize that many around us will often
interpret our gentleness and humility as weakness. We must not, however, let
that discourage us. May God grant us the strength to be gentle…for Jesus’ sake
and in his name. Amen
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