Be gentle.

Those two words make up one of the most important life lessons that I am still learning to live by.

Be gentle.

It is good practical advice simply for the sake of maintaining happy working relationships with people. I have, on many occasions, felt deeply annoyed at another person’s mistake only to find that the error was partly due to my own miscommunication or to a very reasonable misunderstanding. But, it is so easy and tempting to assume the worst and jump to anger. Why is that?

Being gentle is good for more than just our practical needs in getting along. It is good for our souls as well. Being gentle with others slows us down. It helps us to see more closely to the way that God sees; it reminds us that our neighbors are sacred. Being gentle with ourselves reminds us that we are sacred too. It reminds us that we belong to God and not to ourselves or to our jobs or to anything else. It reminds us that we don’t need to be perfect, that we can forgive ourselves and even laugh at ourselves just a bit. Being gentle is a spiritual skill because it positions us well to receive the love of God as an intimate and life-giving force in our lives.

As I mentioned, however, being gentle is easier said than done. We live in a competitive culture where other attributes are valued and encouraged. A gentle and emotionally generous approach is not easily remembered when we are otherwise taught that to be worthy is to be the best, or the smartest, or the richest, or the most successful. We learn to cling to these measures of worth and then when they are denied in one way or another (like when someone cuts us off in traffic!) we are outraged.

Here is where worship can play a remarkably important role. In my experience worship, more than any other act, has the power to soften us and remind us of the things that matter most. Worship gathers us together as a people united by grace; it leads us to hear the good news of God’s love; it invites us to respond anew to that love by giving ourselves back to God; and, it sends us out into the world to embody God’s love. (You’ll notice that this pattern orders our worship service on Sunday mornings. Take a look at the section headings that are centered in caps.)

I know that church life quiets down in the summer. Most programs come to a stop as vacation plans come to a start. Church activities pick back up again in the fall. But, it occurs to me that summer’s quiet feel offers us a special opportunity. With fewer distractions and fewer demands we are freer to devote ourselves to worship and to invest spirituality and emotionally in worship’s call to be formed less by the world and more by God.

Worship, I believe, will make us gentle. It will open us to the kind of life that God invites us to live, a life wherein God’s sacred people are all around us.

Peace,

Pastor Tim