In the name of God –
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Can you recall to mind a time where you were falling in
love? And I’m not talking about the love that you might have for a pet, child,
or material thing, but specifically about romantic love. Do you remember those
butterflies that you’d get in your stomach as you got ready to see that person?
The way your heart danced when you would see them? Can you imagine what the
world might be like if there was more of that feeling of love in it? If our souls
were stirred up like that not only when we are falling in love, but every time
we encountered another person?
That sort of existence gets us close to what St. Paul is
trying to stir up in the Galatian church. There was a question then, as there
is today, about what difference faith makes in our lives. What does it mean to be a follower of Christ?
What does salvation grant to us? These are the sorts of questions which this
passage from Galatians is grappling with. It is easy to misinterpret salvation
as a status instead of as a catalyst. When we incorrectly view salvation as a
status, we might think about freedom as being a sort of free agency, where we
are able to do whatever we please, not being bound by anything. And some in
Galatia were being led astray in thinking that if obedience to the laws of the
Old Testament was no longer required, that they were then free to do as they
wished. And in today’s reading, Paul says “No, to the contrary, freedom is
about becoming a slave.”
If that doesn’t make any sense to you, good. We tend to
think of freedom and slavery as being opposites, and generally, they are. Paul
wants us to rethink what it is we mean by freedom. And he writes, “For the
whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.’” This portion of Galatians is the climax of the letter, and the
message that Paul wants to leave his readers with is that freedom is not about
autonomy as much as it is the ability to love fully. It is paradoxical, but
actually by loving others, even in becoming slaves to one another, we find true
freedom.
If we are focused on self-indulgence and advancement, we
are actually enslaved to our sense of ego. We become enslaved to our vision how
our lives should play out, enslaved to the results of our actions. It’s
actually quite a burden to be thinking about your legacy, your wealth, your
stature, and we all can call to mind examples of people whom we’ve known who
have caved under the pressure of that immense and heavy burden. Instead, if we
focus on others, we will find a sense of freedom from the chase after power,
prestige, and property.
So if the idea of freedom intrigues you or the concept of
living in a world that is more loving is something that you are interested in,
then Paul has some sound advice to offer. He offers two lists in these verses
from Galatians. It’s worth pointing out that these lists are not as much
intended to be addressed to individuals, but rather to the community. The goal
isn’t to have a bunch of nice people in Galatia, it is to have the Body of
Christ living into the holiness of its calling. So while we as individuals may
do our best to live virtuously, it is not for the purpose of being better
people, but rather for being more fully integrated into the community of the
faithful. So as we reflect on these two lists, remember that this isn’t about
the self, that’s slavery, but rather is about the neighborly love which builds
up the entire community.
The
first list is full of what we might call “vices” such as “fornication,
impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger,
quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like
these.” Paul calls them “works of the flesh,” that is things that are not
oriented to the Spirit of God. I’m not going to comment on that list, but if
you want to see examples of what a community marked by these characteristics
looks like, you only need to open a newspaper.
The list that is more deserving of our attention is the
list of what we might call “virtues,” or as Paul refers to them, “fruits of the
Spirit.” This list includes “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” If this were an hour-long sermon,
or a nine-part sermon series, we could devote attention to each of these
fruits. But these manifestations of the Spirit deserve more than a simple
cursory glance, so the rest of this sermon will focus in on one of those
fruits: gentleness. This isn’t to say that those other ones don’t deserve our
attention, but gentleness is not something that I’ve ever deeply considered,
and not many sermons are preached on the virtue of gentleness.
So what is gentleness? Perhaps you think of a warm
blanket, a soft touch, or a steady breeze on a warm day. The word that Paul
uses here has a range of meanings that includes “consideration, tenderness,
meekness, and humility.” It’s the same word that Jesus uses when he says
“blessed are the meek” and “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am
gentle.” Aristotle defined this word as being in the middle of “excessive
anger” on the one hand and “the inability to be angry” on the other hand. To be
gentle is not to be apathetic, it is not to be a doormat, but rather gentleness
is about deference, what we might call being “graceful.”
Gentleness is not a virtue that is on display much in our
culture, and when it is, it is often labeled as “weakness.” Gentleness is not
self-asserting, it is much more humble than that. Gentleness is about giving others the benefit of the doubt. Gentleness is not a
characteristic that is praised in board rooms. Just look, if you can stand to
bear it, at the political climate of our society – both locally and all the way
to Raleigh and Washington – it’s a shouting match. There is no deference to the
opinions or thoughts or others, no concern for hurting the feelings of others,
no worry about trampling on the rights of those with whom we disagree. Someone
wrongs us, and our first thought is “lawsuit.” Someone injures us, and our
first thought is “they’re going to pay for this.” Someone disagrees with us,
and our first thought is “What an idiotic opinion.” I don’t know about you all,
but I long for more gentleness, both in my heart and in our world.
Another definition for “gentleness” might be “yielding.”
Think about coming a yield sign on the road – it doesn’t mean you have to stop
and become passive, but it means that you give way to someone who is coming
towards you so that you both avoid injury. Being yielding is the opposite of
being reactive, and it seems that our lives are full of over-reactivity. Having
a posture of gentleness means, as Paul puts it, taking on the posture of a
slave. If there has been a human embodiment of gentleness in our lifetimes, it
has been in Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and he once suggested that we should bow or
genuflect every time we see another person, as every person whom we encounter
is a living icon of the Divine. In being gentle there is a recognition that
every person is the beloved of God, that every person is a potential teacher to
us.
It’s worth noting that gentleness was not widely
considered to be a virtue in the Greek world, where a lot of attention was
given to the classic virtues. In another letter, Paul writes “But God chose
what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the
world to shame the strong.” The Cross is utter foolishness, just as
counter-cultural and counter-intuitive as gentleness being a virtue. Jesus’
posture during his Passion was one of gentleness, of not returning violence
with violence, of trust in God, of being a slave to others. The Cross
reinterprets the way we see the world, and so gentleness becomes not weakness,
but the courage that is necessary for service as a slave to others in God’s
love. What we see in Jesus is God’s sense of gentleness and tender love towards
us.
In the wake of the tragedy of Orlando, I wonder if we
might be stirred up to live more gently. What if we see Orlando through the
eyes of a gentle God who weeps over the ungentle ways that we treat each other.
Tragedies such Orlando remind us of the fragile nature of our bodies, of the
uncertain reality of life, of the harshness of the world. As much as we like to
build up our defenses and pretend that it isn’t so – each of us is extremely
vulnerable. An accident could happen at any moment, something could be taken
away from us that would break our hearts. It’s a cliché, but it’s also true,
that we should be gentle to others because we just don’t know how fragile their
hearts may be, how much pain they may be in, how much in denial they are. In
every interaction that we have with other people, we have the choice to build
up or to tear down; to be gentle or to be harsh. How could you go out of your
way to be gentle to others? Paul knows that the community of the faithful will
thrive in the love of God if it adopts a stance of gentleness.
St.
Jerome has astutely noted that these vices are called “works” while the virtues
of the Spirit are known as “fruits.” These vices, like hard labor, amount to nothing and tire us out. Meanwhile, the virtues, like fruit, multiply and abound in life.
It actually takes a lot of work to carry around hatred, to engage in strife, to
be angry – and that is no way to live or belong to the Body of Christ. Instead,
by opening ourselves to loving others and embracing gentleness, we find the
grace to live more fully in God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
So my suggestion to you is to take an index card or
sticky note and write the word “gentleness” on it and put it on your
refrigerator or your bathroom mirror. Let that word dwell within your heart
this week – knowing that God holds you with gentleness in God’s heart. Let
gentleness be your posture towards others, and yourself, this week. Pray to
God, asking for a gentle Spirit, to know God’s gentleness towards you, for eyes
to see gentleness in others. In light of Paul’s letter to the Galatians,
remember, our calling is never anything less than gentle love.
