Receive The Joy Of Gentleness

Receive the Joy of Gentleness
Phil 4:5 - Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

The word for gentleness in Greek is “fascinating.” It refers to something that is fitting, equitable, fair, moderate, forbearing, not insistent on the letter of the law. Something or someone who expresses this characteristic shows even handed considerateness. A version of this word was often used to characterize a nurse with trying children or a teacher with difficult students. Some translate the word ‘sweet reasonableness.’ In today’s verse, Paul is writing to special friends in Philippi. These members of the church pray for and support him in trying times. He is in prison as he writes. His circumstances are truly awful and yet he urges his friends to let their sweet reasonableness, their forbearance and moderation be obvious in how they live and how they are seen in the community. In the dominant expressions of our faith in the United States these days, gentleness is not the first word that often leaps to mind. We sometimes associate this quality with being wishy washy or weak. As anyone who has ever sought to practice this type of gentleness knows, it is anything but. Being equitable in a word of inequality is hard work. Being moderate in a world of extremes is hard work. Finding the most fitting response in difficult circumstances is hard work. Refusing legalism is hard work when our precious values seem threatened. Pursuing sweet reasonableness in a violent and fractured time is hard, hard, hard work. It is counter-cultural and it cannot be counterfeit. Still, this quality, which Paul in Galatians calls a fruit of the Spirit, may just be the most needed in our day. To open ourselves to gentleness requires that we learn to watch our reactions to things and people. It requires that we stretch our capacity to choose responses rather than react with first emotions. That is not easy but it is something that can be learned. So today, if you notice yourself reacting fiercely or negatively to anything, take a breath. Ask God to express sweet reasonableness through you. Then respond.

God of Joy, we thank you for the gift of sweet reasonableness and your Spirit’s power to flow through us in all gentleness, moderation and forbearance. Alleluia! Amen.