Delivered to Cedar Hill Baptist Church, Jasper, AL
10 May 2009
Sermon text: Matthew 5:1-5.
Science fiction author Jerry Pournelle once said of Southern society, “The Anglo-Saxon-Scots-Irish people are the most warlike people in history, and their enemies forget it at their peril.” Pournelle would know, as he was raised in Tennessee and still remembers growing up in the segregated South. He remembers the family feuds that started over a slight insult to the family honor, a tradition that continues today.
This mentality also affects our relationships with others. We’ve all seen friends or family members react with rage when insulted, leading them to destroy friendships and relationships with little hesitation when they considered it necessary. On this Sunday, when most of the nation remembers their mothers, we can also remember times when our families have suffered terrible trauma over fights within the family, sometimes instigated by the mothers or sometimes begun over our mothers’ honor.
This mentality permeates every part of our culture, even our religion. Practically every hymnal in the South will contain “Onward Christian Soldiers,” and most Southerners know at least the first verse. We may remember few things Jesus said, but most Christians in the South can tell you that Jesus once told His disciples, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34). We may remember few of the teachings of St. Paul, the most prolific writer of the Scriptures, but we all love reading about the “spiritual armor” from Ephesians 6, and most of us have heard his most famous line at a funeral or 2: “I have fought the good fight.” Most Southerners can empathize about fighting a good fight.
Yet, when we consider the passage today, especially verse 5, we see that Jesus expects more of His people than what our culture usually leads us to believe. I want to focus on this verse today for a good reason. I believe that Jesus, the One to whom we have declared our allegiance, wants us to work to change our culture today as the Church has done countless times in the past. I believe that Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King, wants His people to demonstrate a new way of life to those around us: The way of gentleness.
Before I go any further in this sermon, I confess that I stand here as chief sinner. My family has perfected conflict into an art form over the generations. I instinctively shy away from conflict, but not because I fear it; I avoid it because I fear I’ll love it too much. I struggle on a daily basis to control my warlike nature and to curb my temper. Know that before I challenge you to exhibit gentleness, I continually challenge myself first. Sometimes I win, sometimes I don’t. My failures do not prevent me from striving to attain the gentle nature Scripture commands me to demonstrate to those in my life.
In verse 5, Jesus told the crowd: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The word translated “meek” here is the Greek word we also translate as “gentle.” Jesus used this word in another familiar, beloved passage. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus used this word to refer to Himself in His call to all who “labor and are heavy laden,” promising that all who would come to Him would find that He is “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29), and that trusting in His gentleness would result in “rest for your souls.”
St. Paul also included gentleness in one of his earliest letters. When writing to the Galatian churches in c. A.D. 48-53, St. Paul used some rather violent language against the Judaizers (even expressing his wish they would emasculate themselves!) and their insistence on circumcising Gentile believers. However, this letter also contains one of the most beautiful expressions of the Christian life in the passage we call the "fruit of the Spirit." When listing those traits that would define the Spirit-filled believer, St. Paul included "gentleness" (using the Greek word "prautes") as a key indicator of the Spirit's presence in a person's life.
St. Paul would later commend gentleness in the most extreme of circumstances. The Corinthian church had degenerated into a faction-riddled mess, complete with show-circus worship services, class-conscious Communion celebrations, and at least one member openly flouting his sexual immorality before the entire congregation. Most Southerners, in St. Paul's shoes, would have blown into the church like a Texas Ranger of the early 20th century on the frontier, with metaphorical guns blazing, bodies flying, and sinners thrown on their faces in proper humility before their disciplinarian — and loved every conflict-ridden minute of it.
We wouldn't expect St. Paul to ever consider gentleness in this situation. Yet, St. Paul actually offered the Corinthians a choice no self-respecting Southerner would offer such a crowd. In his first letter to this troubled body, St. Paul asked the Corinthians, "Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?" The premier Apostle to the Gentiles, the founder of the church at Corinth, clearly preferred gentleness in resolving the issues he knew awaited him in one of the Empire's most sinful cities.
St. Peter also contributed to the discussion of gentleness, in another unlikely passage. In a passage dear to the Christian warrior's heart, St. Peter's instructed believers that we should always be "prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you" (1 Peter 3:15). Nothing stirs a soldier like a good defensive stand (unless it's a better offensive drive). I've heard many preachers exhort their congregations to defend their faith before the unbelievers and seen many Christians enthusiastically accept the challenge.
I've noticed that far too many sermons with 1 Peter 3:15 omit the next verse, and I believe I know why. St. Peter did not finish his thought in only 1 verse in our Bibles; his instruction regarding the defense of our hope continues in the next verse. The entire sentence reads thus: "[Be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame."
St. Peter clearly linked gentleness and respect for our accuser with the defense of our faith. We cannot defend our salvation without gentleness, and we must respect those who unjustly accuse us or who ask us hard questions regarding the beliefs we hold essential to attain eternal life.
I find it troubling that our culture has degenerated the quality of gentleness by considering it a feminine attribute. We must realize that Scriptural gentleness does not contradict Southern values. According to the Louw and Nida Lexicon, the Greek term “prautes” implies “mild and gentle friendliness.” However, the Lexicon clarifies, “The Greeks value this virtue highly so long as there is compensating strength.” Scriptural gentleness, therefore, calls for personal strength of character and self-restraint, traits highly admired in Southern culture. A better way of putting it is that gentleness calls for an extreme self-confidence that belies a fist of steel in a velvet glove. Only the most confident person can treat others with gentleness, realizing that doing so does not imply weakness.
If we wish to demonstrate these characteristics, we must resolve to respect our opponents as the pinnacle of God's creation. Scripture teaches that God created humanity in His image, and we must remember that Scripture gives no categories of decreasing importance in this regard. Those who disagree with us still bear the Imago Dei, the image of God. As such, they deserve our attention as they present their case. Our opponents also deserve the respect we expect them to show to us. Our Lord clearly taught, “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). We want people in the world to hear our point of view, and rightfully so; the Church alone possesses the words of eternal life through Jesus Christ (John 6:68-69). Our opponents will listen to us only if we first show them the proper respect.
We must also remember the true adversary in all spiritual conflicts. In a passage dear to Scots-Irish believers, St. Paul wrote about spiritual warfare in his Letter to the Ephesians. As I said before, most Southerners have at least a basic idea of the “spiritual armor” passage, and many can name the basic parts. (The fact that St. Paul employed Roman armor as an allegory escapes us at times.) However, before St. Paul mentioned any part of the "armor," he first warned the Ephesians of the real conflict: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Finally, I believe that we must remember our calling to transcend our culture. The history of the Church reminds us of other times in our history that believers have found themselves in circumstances in which cultural norms contradicted with Scriptural commands. One translator in the post-Nicene world, Ulfilas, translated “all the books of Scripture with the exception of the Books of Kings, which he omitted because they are a mere narrative of military exploits, and the Gothic tribes were especially fond of war, and were in more need of restraints to check their military passions than of spurs to urge them on to deeds of war (Philostorgius, “Hist. eccl.”, II, 5)” (Source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia, available online: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15120c.htm). Few commands of Our Lord oppose the Southern culture as much as gentleness in our relationships with one another and in our presentations of the gospel to unbelievers in our midst.
This applies to our families, perhaps first and foremost. I don’t think that anyone can use the adjective “weak” to refer to Jesus; after all, He is Almighty God, the omnipotent Creator of all that is, seen and unseen. Men, we must demonstrate gentleness in our families so that those who see us daily will see the mark of Christ on our lives, recognizing that we show more strength in gentleness than in anger or rage.
Today, we celebrate Mother’s Day. I don’t really like it when a congregation relies on Hallmark to set its holidays, but no one can really dislike a holiday on which we Southerners can celebrate the greatest part of our culture: Our love of our mothers. Unfortunately, seeing Mama today can also mean seeing members of our families that bring out the worst of our warlike qualities. Today, I challenge you to demonstrate gentleness to these people in our families.
This applies to our relationships in our churches as well. I’ve witnessed far too much conflict in churches in my life, little of it with any concrete basis that could justify it. We need to remember that all believers, including those who disagree with us on any point that doesn’t involve the core doctrines of our faith (especially the divinity of Jesus Christ), stand together against the forces of darkness that threaten our society and now define our culture. We may disagree with one another on these issues, but we cannot allow our disagreements to distract us from the real enemy. Our adversary works incessantly to divide the Church because he knows that only our unity will convince unbelievers of Jesus’ love for them (cf. John 13:34-35). Our disunity and contentiousness serves only to distract us from our mission of guiding others to the truth of Christ and His resurrection.
The people in our lives know all about warfare; we see it in practice on a daily basis. Jesus said that the gentle shall “inherit the earth.” One day, we shall inherit a new heaven and a new earth in a new creation untainted by sin. In that day, Jesus Christ, the “Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6-7) shall reign. In that day, the prophet Isaiah tells us, “He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and 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 anymore” (2:4). Until that day, I challenge you to let the gentle nature of Jesus shine in your life and draw others to the Christ whose resurrection insures our inheritance of a new creation.