Recap / Intro
Welcome to the Soil and Roots podcast, where we journey together into deep discipleship. I’m Brian Fisher, and this is Episode 128, “Gentleness on the Brute Squad.”
I’m coming to you solo today from Fishtank Studios outside of Dallas, TX. Handsome Kyle and Doc will rejoin me for Episode 129.
As always, if you are interested in the ministry of Soil & Roots, where we join with Jesus in cultivating deep discipleship, you can learn more about us at www.soilandroots.org.
If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you probably know that we approach discipleship from a different angle than most of Western Christianity.
We spent a considerable amount of time exploring our inner lives, our stories, God’s grand story, the kingdom, and what it means to become more like Jesus in community with others. It’s been a wild ride so far, and I’m thrilled that you continue to journey with us.
If you like to read, I am writing weekly over on Substack – that’s where I do most of my research and thinking these days. Just search for Soil and Roots over there, and you can subscribe to our weekly articles.
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The reason Soil & Roots exists is to help resolve The Great Omission – the fact that modern Christianity struggles to make genuine disciples, people whose lives are centered around becoming more like Jesus. We consider the solution to the Great Omission to be what we refer to as deep discipleship.
At least in the West, we generally function from the idea that we are supposed to get saved, and then wait around until we die and go to Heaven – except that that really isn’t the message of the Bible.
Jesus is the king of the universe, and He invites us to follow Him as He makes all things new – as He brings about New Creation. We do this by becoming more like Him over time – that we increasingly think, act, relate, and love like Him. We intentionally engage in a journey of character formation – one where we are being transformed from the inside out – and this process differs from what most Western Christianity promotes.
This inner formation begins not only with intellectually knowing that Jesus loves us but also with living in the reality of experiencing that love. We are restful, peaceful, less anxious, less fearful, even when life suggests the opposite.
Most of us struggle to live in the reality of God’s delight, in His ever-present safety, or in the abundance of His love. We’re either trying to do things for Him to earn His love, or we’re silently wondering why He likes us at all.
Paul talks about knowing the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, being filled to the fullness of God. The Bible promises a peace that passes all understanding and a profound, inner joy. Is that the life we’re living?
We are just about done with Season 6, which is titled ‘The Object of Our Formation.’ If we are to become more like Jesus over time, what is Jesus really like?
Here at Soil and Roots, we promote a discipleship approach that involves gathering with others who are also apprenticing with Jesus, in small, formative communities designed to shape our character to be like Christ.
We share our stories, delve into the ideas that have shaped us, and explore the Kingdom – God’s current and ongoing reign over all aspects of life.
At its core, this is how hearts are formed. Our hearts don’t learn by instruction – they learn through relationship and experience. There is no shortage of biblical instruction, which is good, but I wonder if we’ve become so focused on the head that we’ve forgotten the heart. We’ve become very focused on going and doing, when often what our hearts most need at times is resting and being.
Let’s explore another trait of Jesus that we might want to ask Him to instill in ourselves.
Today, we’re looking at his characteristic of gentleness, which may seem simple on the surface… but there’s more to it, as you might expect. Let’s get started.
Illustration / Anecdote
It might be hard to find a more beloved cult classic than the film The Princess Bride, with its countless quotable lines.
Among the movie’s iconic characters, the wrestler Andre “The Giant” Roussimoff plays Fezzik, who loves rhyming and is big and strong enough to carry three people on his back as he’s scaling the Cliffs of Insanity. He’s on the Brute Squad, though another character says that Fezzik is the Brute Squad.
In real life, Andre was a French wrestler who stood 7’4” tall and weighed 520 pounds, a result of excess growth hormone.
Actor Cary Elwes, who played opposite Andre in many scenes as Westley a.k.a. the Dread Pirate Roberts, often speaks fondly of Andre in interviews. He once recalled that Andre said, “We big people don’t live long.” According to stories, Andre was already 6’3” by 12 years old and too big to fit in the school bus, and the only person in the village with a convertible who could drive him to school was playwright Samuel Beckett.
Andre passed away in 1993 at age 46. Cary Elwes said of his friend: “He was such a truly gentle soul. I mean, for a guy who could crush you like swatting a mosquito, he was so incredibly gentle.”
Andre Roussimoff is the kind of person we think of when someone uses the phrase “gentle giant.” As Andre’s character says in the movie, “It’s not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don’t even exercise.”
Meek and Mild?
We can tend to think of gentleness in the same mental basket as meekness and mildness. Meek as a lamb. Mild as a dove. It brings up images of small, sweet animals. Lambs, bunnies, and baby chicks.
So maybe it’s understandable that “gentleness” can be associated with “weakness.” I’m not trying to be down on bunnies and baby chicks, but they’re not exactly strong. They’re prey. They need constant looking after.
This perception is also partly due to a powerful strain in modern Western Christianity when it comes to men and masculinity. This camp sees it as very important for Christian men to be, well, manly men. Made of stern stuff. No weak handshakes, no flab, no tears. The kind of man that General George Patton would be proud of. Patton famously said, “We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”
Christian men are urged to be strong, whether from the pulpit, or from the pages of Christian books, or at those ever-popular men’s retreats. We’re apparently meant to be tough. Warriors. Champions.
But real men deal with things. It’s masculine to be emotional and have strong feelings, at least if we consider someone like David to be a “real” man.
It’s manly to be a protector and provider and to know your own heart. Christian men are likely to be encouraged to be tough and shoot things, but to be gentle… not so much.
Maybe that’s because gentleness is often assumed to be the same as weakness.
In our culture, the weak are steamrolled. The gentle are obliterated. The meek and mild are trampled by the powerful, the bold, and the bullies. Being gentle is sort of like being ‘nice.’ Sure, it sounds good, but nice guys don’t actually take home the trophy, win the war, or score the corner office, do they? Nice guys finish last, or so it seems.
On the opposite side of the spectrum are the name-it-and-claim-it folks who say that good guys always win, or at least the godly ones do. In this camp, the right form of Christianity almost guarantees health, wealth, and success. Just raise your hand and say the prayer, and you can be highly favored and live your best life now.
So, depending on our particular experience with the modern church, we might develop ideas about Christianity that are all about being strong, a winner, seizing our supposedly God-given destiny to prosper and succeed in all things… or we can fall into ideas of Jesus as a gentle, meek, nice guy who paid the price by being the ultimate victim, and therefore we think that that’s who we should be, too.
Neither paints an accurate picture of our King. Real gentleness is something else entirely.
Real Strength
Francis de Sales served as Bishop of Geneva in the early 1600s and is a Catholic saint. He was known for his deep faith and his gentle approach to the religious divisions resulting from the Protestant Reformation. And De Sales had it right when he said this: “Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.”
Gentleness involves the capacity to hold power in check and apply it precisely as intended, to serve those under your protection.
Perhaps you’ve seen one, two, or all 18 of the Marvel movies. There’s a moment in Avengers: Age of Ultron when Black Widow is hurt on a floating island and can’t cross the vast gulf between her and safety. The Hulk, strong enough to throw boulders with his bare hands, carefully cradles her in his arms and leaps across the distance to where it’s safe. His almost unlimited strength and power are used to bridge the gap, to carry her across when she can’t do it herself, and tenderly set her down in safety.
Now we’re getting closer to a picture of Jesus and His gentleness.
Real gentleness isn’t about having no capacity to harm or destroy. Things that are soft, non-confrontational, and unaggressive, like bunnies and chicks, aren’t truly being gentle. They are simply being themselves. They couldn’t be anything else.
A tiger that lays down with a dog that it’s befriended, holding the puppy in its paws rather than, say, eating it, is being gentle.
Gentleness doesn’t exist except where there is power. And gentleness doesn’t exist except where that power is used for love and protection.
Gentleness is strength restrained. It is power refined through practice, experience, and wisdom. Gentleness is Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. It’s the power of a martial arts master to break every bone in his student’s body, but instead uses it to give a soft tap, indicating where they went wrong—and then teach them to improve.
Jesus showed extreme gentleness, and he displayed extreme power. He was the ultimate warrior and the ultimate protector.
We should reconsider our view of gentleness, particularly when it comes to the concept of masculinity. There is nothing inherently feminine about gentleness. And for men or women, there is nothing weak about it. We need both men and women of God who dare to show true gentleness in the face of aggression and mockery. Who know that strength doesn’t have to prove itself, and that a person of real power is secure in that power without needing to flaunt it.
Have you ever watched an argument or a debate where one person is angry, flying off the handle, yelling and calling insults, and the other person is calm and composed? Who seems more in control of the situation? It takes strength to face aggression and respond with gentleness, whether with your kids, your spouse, or your opponent.
Gentleness is a man nailed to a cross who could call down every legion of angels, could speak a word and the earth itself would rip apart to swallow up those who hurt him, and instead he says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” That’s gentleness.
Well-Fitted
Paul writes that our gentleness should be “evident to all” and lists it as one of the fruits of the Spirit. And when Peter says that we should always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that we have, he says we are to “do this with gentleness.”
In Vine’s dictionary of the Bible, he notes that the Greek words for Gentle and Gentleness can denote “seemly and fitting”. This appears when Jesus says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Jesus is using a metaphor, talking about a yoke like oxen would be placed into to pull a plow or cart. The yoke represents discipleship with Christ and contrasts with the heavy burdens of religious legalism.
The Greek word here translated “easy” means “fit for use” and implies something good, useful, and even pleasant. So Christ is not just saying his yoke is simple, like easy as opposed to difficult, or that it’s lightweight as opposed to heavy. He’s saying it’s productive, morally excellent, and even enjoyable. It’s well-fitting. It’s a yoke designed just for us. It’s the work we were made to do and the weight we were always meant to carry.
The Gentle Rain
Gentleness is not reserved for those who we think deserve it. It’s not just for those we’ve decided are “good.”
Of course, it’s easier to be gentle and merciful to those who strike us as good, kind, generous people. Especially if we see some of ourselves in them. But when someone is too different from us, or doesn’t share our values, or acts in ways quite opposite to them, suddenly being gentle and merciful doesn’t come so readily.
We might try instead to be like the gentle rain that falls on the just and the unjust. Then it will bless those receiving and those giving.
Children who are raised with gentleness develop better emotional regulation skills. If you recall our discussion on being safe, seen, soothed, and secure, this concept ties directly to that. Gentle parenting helps children manage their feelings effectively and feel connected with their caregivers.
Gentleness helps children learn empathy, develop social skills, and build higher levels of self-esteem and self-awareness. Behavioral problems are reduced and parent-child relationships are strengthened. Parenting approaches that incorporate gentleness and warmth tend to yield better mental health outcomes and long-term well-being.
What’s true for children is doubtlessly true for adults. Gentleness is vital in the formation of a child’s character, and it’s still essential in the formation of adult character. We don’t stop needing a gentle touch, a kind word, or a merciful response just because we grow up. We are better off when we get it and when we give it.
The Four Relationships
Let’s apply this idea of gentleness to the four relationships: with God, others, ourselves, and with creation and culture.
Self
What does it look like to be gentle with ourselves? That’s probably something we haven’t spent a lot of time contemplating.
It means holding in check the power to harm ourselves. Sure, we know just how to tear ourselves down. We can be our own worst enemy. We know the words, the thoughts, the actions that will cut us to the bone. But gentleness exercises restraint. Gentleness tells those cutting voices exactly where they can go.
A Tibetan lama named Thubten Yeshe put it this way: “Be gentle first with yourself—if you wish to be gentle with others.”
Gentleness is characterized by forgiveness, encouragement, and uplift. Gentleness to yourself treats your own heart with respect and kindness.
You know that whole Golden Rule, treat others as you would want to be treated? It also applies the other way around: make sure you are treating yourself as Jesus would want you to treat others.
Depending on your religious upbringing, this can be a different perspective to adopt. If you grew up in a home or church where sin was a constant focal point, you may experience excessive guilt or debilitating shame – whether you are sinning or not.
It’s not that sin is unimportant to our journey; obviously, it is. But many moderns have grown up in religious environments that promote the idea that a life with Christ is solely about managing sin. We have been told many times that our good works are like filthy rags and that there is no one righteous, not one.
But we have not been reminded nearly as often that we are made in the image of God, that we are created to co-rule the earth with our King, and that we are crowned with glory and majesty. That’s all in the Bible, too, but let’s face it, we’ve heard far more about our sin than about our glory.
Others
What about being gentle with others? As we’ve discussed before, I don’t think this means we allow others to do anything to us without consequences. Loving, God-honoring relationships do not permit one person to harm another. Jesus never gave up His agency, and I don’t think He expects us to, either.
On the other hand, the Bible tells us that love keeps no record of wrongs, so we are more likely to achieve healthier outcomes if we focus on the current issue rather than dwelling on everything the other person did wrong over the past ten years.
We can respect the dignity of the person, remembering they are one of God’s image-bearers. If we offer constructive criticism, we can do it with kindness, and only after we examine our own hearts. We discussed this in the last episode.
God
Gentleness with God is a strange thought – what does that mean?
It might mean leaning into the tenderness with which God approaches us. There may indeed be times that we want to hold him at arm’s length, that we want to rail and shout at him. There is a time and place for lament, for being raw, vulnerable, and even angry with God. But we maintain the relationship. And when we have worked through our issues, our hurts, or questions, we press again into that gentle tenderness of the very best kind of father.
He describes himself as a mother hen who longs to gather her children under her wings. That is a picture of gentleness, and sometimes our hearts need to be softened before we can experience it. Sometimes we need to be gentle toward God in order to understand His gentleness toward us.
Creation and Culture
If you’ve been with us for any length of time, you’ve heard me discuss creation and culture as our fourth relationship numerous times. I emphasize this relationship so much because it’s the one I think has been most damaged in modern Christianity, with the relationship with ourselves being a close second.
How can we treat creation and culture gently? Maybe you’ve seen a small child catch a butterfly. They cup their hands around it, holding it softly, aware that too much pressure can harm its wings. They release it into the air and watch it fly away. That’s being a caretaker; that’s one way to show gentleness toward creation.
It’s a mindset of stewardship over the earth, which He has entrusted to us. This differs from exploiting and using up resources as rapidly as they are depleting, without considering the impact on future generations and the kind of world they will live in.
The cultural commission tells us to rule and reign this earth with and on behalf of our King. i
Modern Christianity gives virtually no thought or effort to the care of creation and culture, primarily because we are far more concerned with the conversion of souls than we are with the redemption of the earth. This is a result of the reductionist Gospel that we’ve explored before.
This is more Plato than Jesus. Plato taught that the world and the body are evil, and therefore true life is found in the spiritual realm. That’s not at all what Jesus taught or modeled.
This is why I have argued elsewhere that Jesus-followers should be the most environmentally conscious of anyone. I’m not talking about tree-hugging, but I am talking about developing and maintaining a world that uses resources properly, protects and cares for nature, and takes our responsibility to steward the earth and our cultures seriously — and gently.
Wrap-up
In the book of 1 Kings, the prophet Elijah is on the run from his enemies, and he’s reached the end of his rope. He despairs so much that he lies down under a bush to die and prays that God would take his life. An angel comes to give him a snack, and Elijah finally reaches a mountain, where God says, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
And then, “a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”
The Bible doesn’t specify what the gentle whisper says, but this is what the Lord chose to inhabit. And after Elijah hears that gentle whisper, he is finally ready to have an honest conversation with the Lord.
The power of God is evident in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. But it’s the gentle whisper that he inhabits. And Elijah responds, takes courage, and returns to God’s plan for his life.
We might ask ourselves, what is my perception of God and gentleness? Do I expect him to be gentle toward me and others? Or am I functioning from the idea that God is up there with a lightning bolt, just ready to zap me the moment I get out of line? And, let’s be honest, we sometimes hope He zaps others who we don’t see as towing the line.
How does our view of God’s gentleness influence how we are kind to ourselves or others? Do we see God as someone who actively seeks us out with love and desires good things for us?
As we press into that love, we can see that God’s gentleness is more than just holding back. It’s not just the restraint of keeping that lightning bolt in his hand. His gentleness means he is eagerly, persistently, and tenderly pursuing us.
We might sing along with the old hymn “Gentle Jesus,” which Charles Wesley wrote in 1767:
Loving Jesus, gentle Lamb,
in thy gracious hands I am;
make me, Savior, what thou art,
live thyself within my heart.
I shall then show forth thy praise,
serve thee all my happy days;
then the world shall always see
Christ, the holy child, in me.
Thanks for being with me today.
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, and we’ll see you next time.
