Gentleness and Self Control

Sermon at 9:30 on Sunday, October 26, 2025

The Rev. Megan Collins

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Dave and I went camping while we were away. We went up to North Carolina and into the Smoky Mountain National Park. It was so beautiful. The leaves were just starting to change.  It was our first time backpack camping, where you put everything you need on your back and hike out into the woods to stay. We were pretty nervous going into it. 

What if we couldn’t carry the weight? What if our gear wasn’t right?

But just a few hours in, we fell in love with the whole thing.  We filtered our water sitting on a rock in the creek. We ate our little pouches of rehydrated peach cobbler. We listened to the creek noises overnight in our tent. 

Before we left several people had asked us if we were nervous about the bears there. I knew there was a chance we would see one, but what I had learned about black bears is there is really nothing to worry about. They are much more scared of us than we are of them. I had read that if you see one in the wild, you’ll most likely see its backside, as it runs away from you, especially in the backcountry where they aren’t used to people.

Almost as soon as we set up our tent, we saw it . . . a bear. It peaked at us from behind the tree, and as soon as I moved an inch, it took off, running back into the woods. It was just like what I had read, nothing to worry about. But then a few hours later, around dusk, we were eating dinner, and another bear appeared in the clearing. 

We jumped up from where we were sitting, but he didn’t move. 

We waved our arms around, but he just looked at us.

The few other people camping out in the woods started making noise too. 

One blew a whistle. He came a little closer. 

We all clumped together, yelling and jumping around, and I guess something about the small blob of campers looking ridiculous did the trick. The bear looked at us one more time and walked away slowly (sauntered really) back out into the woods.

The sun went down at 7pm that night so we climbed into our tent to go to sleep. We were too far out to hike back even if we wanted to. I actually did drift off and was sleeping soundly  . . . when I heard the bear again. This time he was slowly walking around through the campsite, right by our tent. 

But I took a deep breath. Because I knew it was okay.

I had also read that bears don’t attack random tents for the most part, unless they smell food inside. We had put all of our food and toiletries in a bag hung way up in the trees on the bear cables, hundreds of feet away.

But then I smelled it. Something smelled like coconut, or like cookies. It was my hair. The oil I had put in my hair before hiking out to keep it from tangling smelled delicious. I quickly tucked my braids up in the hat. I even made Dave smell the hat to see if he could smell coconut through the wool. Then we went back to sleeping snuggled up with my can of bear spray. 

Black bears really don’t attack people (almost ever), apparently even ones that smell like cookies. But here’s the thing - they certainly could. That little nylon tent between me and the bear wasn’t any protection at all.  If it’s me in a tent versus a bear, the bear clearly has way more power than I do. But for that particular bear, it was power held under control.

We’ve been in this series on the fruit of the spirit over the past several weeks. Today we are going to combine the last two fruit Galatians mentions because they are really interconnected. The last two fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22 are gentleness and self control. The word gentleness is really misunderstood. Maybe we think of someone gentle as weak, or delicate, almost small. But real gentleness doesn’t mean a lack of power or strength. It means having power, but under control. It means having power but not lashing out and using it, just because you can. It's being able to eat a woman in a tent whose hair smells like cookies, but choosing not to. 

Gentleness is power under control. 

Each of us have power. We may have varying degrees of it, but we each have power. From the time we are young, a part of growing up is learning to control it so we can be good, functional members of our society. I remember when our younger son was born, and he was this little vulnerable infant. We had to quickly teach our older son, who was 2 ½, about being gentle. He didn’t have a lot of power, but he had more than an infant. So he had to learn about gentle touch, about patting a baby on the head, instead of tackling him. 

Even toddlers have power, because power isn’t absolute. It’s relative.

You may not have as much power as a bear. But you have more power than a 2 year old.(Well, those who are parenting two year olds know that is sometimes debatable. But in general, you can at least pick up and carry out of the restaurant the two year old out of the dinner who just ruined dinner). 

All of us have power. Whether it’s with our kids, or in our jobs, or in our place in the world, we have some degree of power, which means we all face the temptation to use it recklessly. 

Being gentle is not the default. It’s a choice. 

So how do you control our power, and use it in the way God would call us to? And how do you deal with other people who clearly missed the lesson growing up about gentleness and are now just raging toddlers in adult bodies wreaking havoc everywhere they go? 

Let’s take a look at John 8:2-11:

2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and, making her stand before all of them, 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. 5 Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They said this to test him, so that they might have some charge to bring against him. 

The Pharisees, who were the super religious leaders of this time, had lots of power, and loved to use it. They were always trying to trip Jesus up. This time they drag a woman in front of him who they say was caught in the middle of an act of adultery. They know that adultery is against the religious law, and that the punishment is stoning. But they also know Jesus has this reputation of mercy. They are hoping they will have something to charge Jesus with, and they assume if he has to choose, he will say something against the law. 

They are wrong about Jesus. But they are right about the law - kind of. It says

“10 “If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10)

So technically she should be stoned, but also so should he. And where is he by the way, this adulterer? If she was caught, as they say, in the actual act of adultery, well then shouldn’t a man that was in the room be there too? The fact that she is the only one there means there is more to this story. Then Jesus does this:

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 

There has been a wild amount of speculation about what Jesus writes on the ground here. I would love to know. But what’s really important is what happens next:

7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once again he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 When they heard it, they went away, one by one, beginning with the elders, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 

When we first read this, it sounds like the Pharisees realized their own sin and left, contemplating their own depravity and need for grace. Perhaps that’s true. But that does seem kind of out of character for the Pharisees, doesn’t it? The Pharisees think pretty highly of themselves.  Jesus was aware that the Pharisees knew the religious law, inside and out. Which means they would have certainly known  this passage from Deuteronomy:

“7 The hands of the witnesses shall be the first raised against the person to execute the death penalty.” (Deut 17:7)

In other words, to stone someone for a crime, you had to have a couple of witnesses. And the witnesses to the crime would have to throw the first stone.  And if the Pharisees knew the law, which they did, they would have also known this part:

“If the witness is a false witness, having testified falsely against another, 19 then you shall do to the false witness just as the false witness had meant to do to the other. (Deut 19:18-19)

Let’s put this all together. If you found someone guilty of committing adultery, you would need a couple of witnesses to it. These witnesses would have to throw the first stones. But if the whole story wasn’t entirely true, the one doing the accusing would be stoned instead.

Maybe they did catch her in the act. But maybe they rushed this. Maybe they even bent the law a little to make a point. And now they’re standing in front of Jesus, holding rocks, and He reminds them: If you’re without sin, if you’re being absolutely honest, go ahead, throw it.

Suddenly, it’s not just about her anymore. It’s about them. About what they would be risking. Would they really stake their own lives on this setup?

I do believe that Jesus absolutely cares about their sin. He wants them to see it and turn from it. But I’m not convinced they dropped their stones solely because they suddenly had a change of heart. I think they also may have dropped them because, in that moment, they were afraid - afraid of what would happen if they pushed this too far, afraid that they had let their power get away from them and now found themselves in trouble. Maybe they were even afraid of Jesus . . . not because He was violent, but because He was right.

10 Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.”

In this story, Jesus doesn’t just tell us what gentleness looks like. He shows us. Twice.

He is gentle with the woman.

She is exposed. She has no defense. But Jesus doesn’t pile on the shame. He doesn’t list off her sins. He shields her from the rage of the Pharisees.  Then he kneels beside her, and says“Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” Jesus could have condemned her. But He didn’t.  Instead, he gave her a way forward. 

That’s the gentleness of God. 

The gentleness of God is not the absence of strength, but the choice to restrain that power with you, with us, because of love. That’s the gentleness God shows you. Every one of us has stood where she stood. You may have been ashamed of your thoughts, or your words, or your actions. God has the power to destroy us. To rip through our tent with one swipe on His hand and devour us.  But He doesn’t.  Jesus meets you with mercy. With a word to go and sin no more. 

Gentleness is power under control, and God has been deeply and undeservedly gentle with us. When that truth, that gentleness of God, works its way into you, it can change your life.  God’s gentleness toward you can become the gentleness you offer to the people you care about. It can change how you speak to our children, or how you respond to our spouse. It changes how you treat your coworkers and your friends. I don’t think you will ever regret the times you were gentle with your family or your friends or the people you love. But I do think you will regret the times you let your power get out of control. 

Now there’s a second teaching about gentleness here we shouldn’t miss. Gentleness isn’t just for the people we love or people more vulnerable than us. 

Gentleness is also for the dangerous.

Jesus is gentle with the woman, but Jesus is also gentle with the Pharisees. 

But (and this is important) it’s different from the kind he showed the woman.

The way Jesus engages the Pharisees has something to teach us about how we deal with the dangerous. There are an awful lot of bullies who throw their weight around. Like the Pharisees, they are so full of rage. They are so certain. But what did Jesus do? He didn’t match their chaos. He doesn’t yell. He doesn’t attack them. He could have destroyed them with a single word. But he doesn’t. First he steps into the space between them and the woman. The woman was vulnerable. She had no power. But Jesus did. So he uses his power to protect her. He stands in the gap, and once he is there, with one sentence “Let the one without sin cast the first stone” Jesus shatters their certainty and exposes their hypocrisy. He beats them at their own game and they set down their stones and go home.

That is not just power under control. It’s gentleness with a strategy.

This isn’t the only time we see this with Jesus. In Matthew 10, as Jesus prepares the apostles to go out in the world, he knows they will face persecution for their ministry. His advice to them is to:

“Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matt 10:16) 

This is what Jesus did that day with the Pharisees.  He was also innocent, not resorting to violence or an unleashed display of power. He was wise, knowing exactly what was happening and refusing to let it go unchallenged. He evaluated the situation, protected the one who needed protecting, and then used what he knew to push back. Power under control. When the Pharisees meet that kind of gentleness, they put down their stones. 

Maybe, down the line, they learned from Jesus’ example here. Perhaps something about Jesus’ restraint with them, the way he was measured and calm, helped them learn how to handle their power differently. I believe this kind of gentleness, the kind Jesus had with the Pharisees, can be evident in our lives too. We won’t always know exactly how to do this, how to be gentle and yet powerful, wise and yet innocent. We won’t always know the best way to stand in the gap for those more vulnerable than we are. And yes, we’ll get it wrong sometimes. We don’t have Jesus’ perfect wisdom.

But God is making this church into one that learns this together. This can be a church where the vulnerable feel safe because someone will stand between them and those who misuse their power. This can be a place where we respond to harm without becoming like the ones who harm. We can show our children see what power looks like when it is guided by love. We can pray and speak and act in ways that make a difference.

Power under control.

Strength with a strategy.

May God make us that kind of gentle.