I am the last person who should be addressing you on the subject of Gentleness and Self Control. I think I manage to be polite, most of the time, but when Emma Smith asked me to prepare a firm but gentle letter to someone who was being difficult, she said on reading the draft that she would commit suicide if she received it. And as for self-control, I cannot recall ever having refused a glass of wine.
But worse than being personally unsuited to this task, I also have doubts as to the extent in which Gentleness and Self-control are always good things- whether they are always Fruit and whether they are not more attributes of our physical selves rather than the Spirit.
There are surely occasions when outrage and anger are appropriate reactions; I do not suggest that violence is ever justified or if justified, the most constructive reaction. But occasionally we should let ourselves go and remaining buttoned up will do neither ourselves nor those about us any good. Gentleness and Self Control are not unambiguous virtues.
I’m looking forward to discussing this week’s set of paintings, but my initial reaction to three of them at least, is to notice how tactile they are. The charming Gainsborough daughters and their long-suffering nearly invisible cat (it definitely wishes it could be invisible, and left alone to sleep!) are the epitome of touchy feeliness and so are the couple in Lizzie Jones’ jolly double portrait, a feeliness which is only emphasised by the woman’s amputated hand. In Turner’s Rain , Steam and Speed we can feel the wind and rain in our faces. Locating Gentleness and Self-Control in physicality and the senses is inevitable, primarily although perhaps only superficially, that is what they are about. Why then should St Paul see them as spiritual attributes?
The list of Fruits of the Spirit in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, follows on another list of the works of the Flesh which contains all the familiar Pauline suspects with sex and alcohol at the fore. For Paul, the resurrection has released us from the shackles of the flesh and this physical life, giving us the opportunity, if we will take it, to attain an incorporeal, spiritual and eternal existence. Paul concludes the passage urging us to “crucify the flesh with all its passions and desires”.
I find it hard to swallow this obliteration of our physical selves- the bodies which God created in image of Himself and which Genesis tells us He saw as Good. We are surely meant to enjoy the innocent physical pleasures which God has provided in His bountiful Earth. Gentleness and Self-control needn’t involve crucifixion.
Much more helpful, if still a bit mysterious, is Paul’s proposition that we should “live by the spirit and walk by the spirit”. Mysterious because I think our first thought about spirit in this context will be to see it as a guiding, moderating, even controlling influence-much as we think of Gentleness and Self-control themselves. This idea of spirit as reason (as opposed to passion) is a version of the Creating Spirit which first floated above the waters of primordial chaos. It is the Logos- the Logic, or elsewhere, the Wisdom which stood by God as his breath and words created and ordered the World. All things were created Good and each element knew its place. This would be the spirit which forms and moderates the passions and desires of our flesh, giving them force or reining them in according to circumstance, but never crushing them altogether.
The Spirit has, however another side which may seem contradictory. In our dramatic readings today we heard of the spirit’s re-creative work as it runs through the desolate plain, rattling the dry bones and reconstituting them into a great army. This is the same spirit, the breath of God which calls out loud to Lazarus to come out of the tomb. Like all miracles, but more spectacular than some, this is a disordering, paradoxically the opposite of creation. Physical death and decay are part of the natural order which God created and knew was good; interfering with that process is, of course, not only a demonstration of God’s power but also his sometimes seemingly capricious unpredictability, and, in reversing death, upsetting the logic of creation. Like the wind, it blows where it wills, and like Paul himself when blown unexpectedly from Troas to evangelise the Macedonians, it should be our task to allow ourselves to be inspired by the Spirit. This is perhaps meaning of “walking in the spirit”; allowing one’s self to be inspired and following that inspiration to unexpected and possibly seemingly uncomfortable places.
The Fruits of the Spirit in Paul’s list do not immediately strike one as uncomfortable, although achieving them may be. They will often be unexpected and surprising as love and joy are frequently found, and most intense, when not expected; patience, kindness and gentleness, unless we have a remarkably mild disposition, usually require self-control and effort. To bring he Fruits to maturity requires some striving; they may appear passive virtues but striving implies action and change. St Paul is not encouraging us to sit back.
While, however, the Spirit may disorder our comfy lives, it is also the companion of Wisdom and the architect of the immense and immensely intricate order underlying creation; walking in the spirit will take us to strange places but it will also make us conscious of wider creation and our tiny place in it. With a sense of proportion, it will guide and moderate our behaviour as tiny actors in that huge arena. It may allow, even encourage us to be angry and occasionally to use force, but always controlled and always with an inner gentleness. Thus, we may allow our senses and passions due weight while striving to live a life that goes beyond physicality, so that in my case I may tone down my letters and occasionally refuse that second glass. Amen.