The third aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is peace, followed by patience and kindness. And the second to last is gentleness, followed by self-control. According to this apostolic description of the Spiritual life, there seems to be a certain serenity – a specific composure – an assured calmness that characterizes life lived in the Spirit. Jesus manifested the fruit of the Spirit more fully than any other human being. To be sure there were times when Jesus raised his voice. One thinks of the table-turning incident where our Lord raised his voice and a whip in judgment upon the Temple that had become a place where widows lose their life-savings. We should find it significant that Jesus reserved his harshest words for the religious leaders of the day who were failing to act with compassion. We should also find it significant that Jesus expressed these harsh words with relative infrequency. For most of his interactions Jesus remained calm. Even when someone in his presence was found to be in wrong, he dialogued with him or her in a reasoned and merciful way. He was rarely quick to make his point without first investing time with that person to gain the fullest understanding possible. If we are choosing to adopt a Jesus-shaped Spiritual life, his way of dealing with people will become ours.
I wonder sometimes if some other model, other than Jesus shapes our understanding of the Spiritual life. Maybe it’s because of their public status, but I rarely witness a Christian in the media exhibiting the composure and peace exemplified by Jesus and described in Galatians 5. Much of the time, we Christians come across as hasty and out of control. Some of us just need to calm down. Ironically, Christians most often turn up the volume when it comes to self-defense. Whether we understand orthodoxy as being attacked or our personal freedoms, we often “Stand Up – Stand Up for Jesus” in ways that do not resemble Jesus at all. According to an MSNBC report, secular companies even plan to upset us because angry American Christians are uniquely excellent at promoting the products they despise by telling every one about them! In fact, at E3, an Electronics Expo, Electronic Arts hired a group to stage a fake Christian protest to their soon-to-be-released game, Dante’s Inferno in order to create consumer momentum for the product. Furthermore, several publishing executives have confessed that Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code would have recorded mediocre sales numbers had Christians not promoted the book through their protests.
If we allow Jesus to define faithfulness in the world we may understand there are times we should “Shut Up – Shut Up for Jesus!”
To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly (1 Peter 2.21-23).
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