(~) SPIRIT OF GENTLENESS

A Sermon in the Fruit of the Spirit Series by Thomas R. Henry

St. Pauls United Church of Christ, Chicago

August 28, 2005

Texts: Galatians 5:22-23; James 3:13-18; Matthew 11:25-30

Dear Gentle Listener.

So might begin a piece of advice from Miss Manners. Or as it would appear in a newspaper column, Dear Gentle Reader.

Dear Miss Manners, one advice seeker wrote: What is the proper way to walk in high heeled shoes? Dear Gentle Reader: Left, right, left, right, left, right.

Dear Miss Manners: I am facing a real awkward situation. How should I address a gay couple? Dear Gentle Reader: How do you do? How do you do?

Dear Miss Manners: I suppose you have etiquette rules that apply to Easter Day? Dear Gentle Reader: Certainly, and when the Day of Judgment comes, Miss Manners will have rules to apply to that as well.

The gentleness of Miss Manners is the gentleness of a jackhammer. But what of the gentleness of Jesus? In the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 and 29, Jesus describes himself as gentle.

Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, Jesus says, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

We know those verses. They have been sung by many choirs and congregations in anthems and hymns. They have appeared on religious greeting cards. And in many daily meditations. They are soothing and comforting. Not at all like Miss Manners. These words bring to mind the Sunday School pictures of Jesus the Gentle Shepherd surrounded by sheep. And Jesus the Gentle Savior saying: Let the children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such as these is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus the Gentle was an image of Jesus that was gleaned from a few biblical passages and promoted as the primary image of Jesus in the Victorian era of the nineteenth century. Jesus the Gentle is an image that was first born out of genteel society in Great Britain. A gentle person was a person of quality. A person of good breeding. (I suppose that could be said of Jesus.) A person who did not do anything to upset good order. The English carol  ³God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay ² is an example of the understanding of the word gentle at that time. A gentle person was well-born and did not make a fuss.

So, then, what of the Jesus who came slamming into the temple one day, overturning the tables of the money changers? What of the Jesus who said to the man who needed to bury his father before following Jesus: Let the dead bury the dead. Follow me. Or the Jesus who said: I do not come to bring peace, but a sword. Now, that ¹s a little more like a Jesus that Miss Manners could love. Overturning expectations. Questioning prejudicial attitudes. Shocking those who are standing by watching, listening.

So, then what does it mean for Jesus to call himself gentle? And what does Paul mean when he says that gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, a sign of God in you and me? I think that the writer of the letter of James gives us some help in understanding gentleness as he writes about wisdom:

…the wisdom that comes from above…the wisdom of God… is gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

The Greek word that is translated as gentle or gentleness in our English language Bibles always carries mercy in its meaning. Showing mercy and being willing to yield. That ¹s what it means to be gentle as Paul, and James and Jesus understood it. Some of the opposites of gentleness, according to James, are envy and selfish ambition. And according to Paul: self-absorption and self-righteousness. And according to Jesus, what we now call  ³the letter of the law. ² The strict interpretation of a law or a rule or an accepted practice which allows no place for mercy. And little room for forgiveness.

That ¹s what Jesus was talking about to his listeners that day when he said: Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy burdened. He was speaking specifically to his Jewish brothers and sisters who carried all the weight of the Law on their shoulders. They were weary and heavy burdened with Jewish laws, which had, through the centuries, multiplied the Ten Commandments about a hundred times at least. There were laws upon laws upon laws, covering almost every thought and move. (Some would say that ¹s not much different from today.) There were so many Jewish religious, ritual and secular laws, that the average person could never know them all. The Scribes and the Pharisees, with whom Jesus had constant struggles, were the keepers and defenders of these laws. Sometimes these Jewish laws were referred to collectively as the  ³yoke of the law. ² Because our society is no longer an agrarian society, it may be hard for us to fully understand a yoke in the way the people did then. A yoke is a frame that is worn on the shoulders of a beast of burden to help carry and balance a heavy load. The  ³yoke of the law ² was a heavy load and there was no yielding. No mercy for those who tried to lift that yoke or question any of its laws. (There are some contemporary parallels here, too.) Jesus himself was in trouble often enough by doing such things as healing on the Sabbath and eating with sinners. Lifting the yoke. Questioning the accepted way of doing things.

So, then, in this bit of teaching in Matthew, Jesus is identifying himself as a new and different kind of Law. A yoke that is easy. Or as some biblical translations say, a yoke that is kindly. A yoke that allows for mercy. That is willing to yield. A kinder, gentler yoke for a kinder, gentler nation. One of the regular reminders of the yoke of Jesus are the stoles that clergy wear in worship, worn in the manner of a yoke, a kinder, gentler yoke.

Come unto me, Jesus says, all you who are weary and heavy burdened with guilt, with the expectations of others. Come unto me all you with past histories that you have dragged into the present. Come unto me all you who continue to stagger under the weight of what you coulda shoulda mighta been or done. Take off that yoke, Jesus says. Take it off. Lay it down. Let it go.

Does that sound like an altar call? Well, in a way it is. What we know as an altar call, that twentieth century phenomenon of fundamentalist and evangelical churches and Billy Graham tent meetings, began in the nineteenth century as a call to good old mainline American Protestant Christians to come forward, to come forward to the altar, and to stand at the altar as witnesses against slavery. In fact, it was slavery which prompted those African Americans and their American Christian supporters to reinterpret the Victorian British Gentle Jesus for their own situation. Many of the African American spirituals and the writers of Black gospel hymns have this Jesus gentle on their minds. The Gentle Jesus who shows mercy and is willing to yield out of love. This Gentle Jesus who frees people from the heavy burdens of guilt, prejudice, slavery of many kinds, and an unforgiving past. This kind of gentleness is far from weakness, or even what we may think of as meekness. It is strength.

In the strength of his own gentleness, Jesus said: Take my yoke upon you…and you will find rest for your soul. You will find rest for your soul. Here again, some word interpretation comes into play. The word translated as rest can perhaps be better understood as refreshment. Sometimes, even when we can ¹t get rest, we can be refreshed. Our souls can be refreshed by the gentleness of mercy others show to us, and we show to others. Taking off our own yokes, yes, but also helping others remove theirs. There is refreshment for our souls in doing that. Those Christians who answered the nineteenth century altar call were removing their own yokes of prejudice and bigotry but also helping those who were in bondage to the laws of the time remove their yokes as well. There was little rest for those involved in that, but there was indeed refreshment. Their souls were refreshed.

The hymn we will sing in a minute or two is titled: Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness. I admit that I really didn ¹t fully understand the gentleness of that hymn until I began to work on this sermon. There is a gentleness to the hymn tune, yes, but the words themselves seemed hardly gentle: Spirit of restlessness stir me from placidness. Wind on the sea. Rest-less-ness. Rest less. Stir me. Wind on the sea. We know what a wind on the sea can be like. But now I understand. The gentleness of God is the Spirit among us that removes those heavy yokes of unyielding law and unbending prejudice; that blows away guilt and lifts the burdens of the rigid expectations others have of us, and we have of ourselves, and we have of others. The gentle Spirit of God is the spirit of creation. This hymn is, in fact, the whole biblical story of God ¹s continuing creation wrapped up in four verses. This hymn is the Genesis story, and Exodus, too. It is also Christmas and Easter and Pentecost. All in four verses. As you sing, listen to the words you are singing. For you are singing the Judeo-Christian Story of God ¹s continuing creation through the Spirit.. You are singing of God ¹s gentleness and the gentleness of Jesus. Come unto me, said Jesus, for I am gentle… and I will give you refreshment for your souls.

The gentleness of Jesus Christ, God ¹s gentleness, sometimes in Miss Manners style, stirs the world from its placidness, like the wind on the sea. So, listen, dear gentle listener.