Let your gentleness be known by everyone

This morning we heard one of my favorite passages of Scripture where Paul is writing to a church in Philippi. It’s a favorite of mine because Philippi was the first city in Europe where the Apostle Paul planted a Christian church. This involved risk, and demanded strong faith, conviction, courage, and humility. Why? Because Paul went to plant this church not with the freedom we have here in Canada or the US, or anywhere in the West; but actually in the midst of a Roman Empire that would easily imprison and kill those they believed were a threat to their social and civil norms and laws. In fact, what we heard from Paul’s letter to the Philippians this morning comes while Paul is imprisoned, after having been arrested and beaten in Philippi for proclaiming the Gospel.

Here is what Paul writes to his fellow brothers and sisters: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. Let your gentleness be known to everyone? What on earth would compel gentleness in these circumstances. Paul’s reply: “The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” We seem to have a really difficult time being gentle when we feel challenged or threatened.

One of the things I have learned in my years of observing other people, and examining my own heart, is that it is far easier for us to rail against things, even to take up arms, than it is for us to sustain the sometimes arduous, difficult, even dangerous and in the West, sometimes mundane task of sustaining in what we actually claim to believe. It seems easier for us to admonish others for what they do or don’t do as a defense mechanism to mitigate our own anxiety, fear and frustration. 

Jesus warns us: “how can you say to another, ‘let me take the speck out of your eye’ while there is a full on plank in your own eye? First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of the other person’s eye.” Or, “therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge another. For in whatever manner you judge someone else you condemn yourself because you who pass judgment do the same things. Your sins are of equal weight to the one you accuse … do you think you alone will escape God’s judgment? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness, forbearance, and great patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead everyone to repentance [not condemnation].”

One reason we’re so good at seeing the sins of others and missing our own sin is that just below the surface of our conscious awareness we often feel uncertain about so many things going on in our own lives and around the world. This uncertainty makes us feel insecure, attacked, sometimes fearful; anxious, as Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians. And so without being fully aware that we’re doing it, we often project our own insecurity or fear onto other people as the cause for how we’re feeling. This allows us to justify our judgment, our condemnation, our vilifying, and excluding, even our violent words and acts. God saw this right from Adam and Eve: Adam who blames Eve, Eve who blames the serpent, the serpent who blames God. Carry it on with Cain and Abel; Jacob and Esau; Hitler with the Jews; conservatives and liberals with one another and so on. And my friends, it never ends well, this scapegoating.

It doesn’t just pull you down; it pulls down the entire structure on which we all stand, no matter the side we’re on. So what’s the alternative? 

Paul, having been beaten and imprisoned for proclaiming that Jesus Christ has come to heal, to save, to gather all those who desire it, writes to the Philippians: “Let your gentleness be known to everyone.” Do not be anxious, do not let your anxiety cause you to use the laws, the violence, the ideologies, the small minded and small heartedness, the coercion, the destruction and condemnation of others … the ways of this world, to share your faith. 

Why not? In his own witness of laying down those worldly ways he used against Christians, Paul, after his conversion, shows us the power of God’s gentleness; his mercy, his healing, his forgiveness which removes the scales from Paul’s eyes and allows him to see his own, and the life of everyone through the hope and love of God’s grace poured out for him. And he cannot help but take on this way of life, rather than the world’s ways. So Paul shows us that our gentleness - even in the face of condemnation, fear, anxiety and frustration - our gentleness through these things, conveys confidence that it’s actually God at work in healing this world. God in whom others can trust. God who is at the core of our lives, changing us, healing us, reconciling us to the source of all life: God himself. So Paul says gentleness is about bearing the trials of this world, this life, so that others might see God through us.  

Speak the truth, Jesus says, “but speak the truth in love” so that others might not experience fear or disgust and turn away; speak the truth in love so others might develop a compelling desire to know and be known to God. So that Jesus Christ might be seen and heard through you. For all who hear, who [willingly] receive him, who believe in his name, he [will give] power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God … From HIS fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. AMEN