When our kids were little I got some great parenting advice:  the same boiling water that hardens the egg, softens the carrot.  Have you heard that expression before?  The same boiling water that hardens the egg softens the carrot.  There’s a lot of wisdom to being consistent and treating everyone the same when you can.  But the fact is, people are different.  Put two different people in the exact same situation, and they will respond differently!  So as parents, we need to be able to recognize that what works with one child might completely backfire with another.  When Adrienne was in 12th grade, we visited Carnegie Mellon University, and our tour guide told us she is a “decision science” major.  I asked, what is decision science?  She said it’s a combination of statistics and psychology, and they study how people make decisions.  She gave a very scholarly explanation, but basically what it all boils down to is this:  the same boiling water that softens the egg, hardens the carrot.

I like what I just did there-it boils down to, boiling water…Anyway, doesn’t matter.  The point it, people are different.  Some people, all they need is a soft voice nudging them in the right direction, and they are all set.  Other people need everything spelled out in black and white, bold and underlined and in huge type before they get the message!  If you are a soft voice type of person, you will find the bold and underlined offensive instead of motivating.  And if you are a big voice type of person, you will brush off the soft nudge as a waste of time.  One size does not fit all.

All summer we’ve been talking about being peacemakers, and today we are focusing on the quality of gentleness as a necessary ingredient for peacemaking.  The Greek word used in Galatians 5 is “praotes”, which has no good equivalent in English.  Most often the word gentleness is chosen, although sometimes the word meekness is used.  The idea behind praotes has to do with the use of power.  It’s being able to use just the right amount of pressure or force to get the job done.  The word gentleness is used to capture this idea, that godly people never use more force than absolutely necessary.  Spiritually mature people use the light touch as often as possible, but they understand that sometimes, a soft touch doesn’t cut it.  The only thing that will work is a heavy hand, the big print, bold and underlined.

The story of Elijah is a great one to capture this point.  We’re going back a long time, eight hundred fifty years before the birth of Christ.  Israel had a king named Ahab who was a pretty able leader.  But his wife, well, his wife was pretty good politician as well.  The problem was, she was a Canaanite.  Her name was Jezebel, and she had one item on her agenda:  she wanted Israel to stop worshipping Yahweh, the god of their ancestors, and instead worship the Canaanite fertility god, Baal.  She was pretty convincing, and many Israelites began to worship Baal.  God raised up prophets to try to draw Israel back to him, but they were all killed.  All except one:  Elijah.

Elijah tried his best to get the people of Israel to turn away from Baal and worship the one true God.  Finally, Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to a contest on Mt. Carmel to decide once and for all, who is really God:  Baal, or Yahweh.  So, 450 prophets of Baal came together and built an altar.  Elijah built an altar.  They slaughtered two bulls and put one on each of the altars.  Elijah told the prophets of Baal, you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord.  The god who answers by fire, by igniting a fire under the bull, he is God.

From morning until noon the prophets called on the name of Baal, but no fire came.  Elijah taunted them.  Shout louder!   Maybe he is sleeping!  So they shouted louder.  They danced.  They cut themselves with their swords.  But evening came, and still no fire.

Elijah called everyone over to his bull.  He dug a trench around his bull that was ready to be sacrificed.  He had the people fill four large jars of water and pour them on the bull and the wood underneath.  He had them fill the jars again, and then a third time. The bull and the wood were so wet, the trench around them was filled with water.  Then he prayed.  He called on the name of the Lord one time, and God sent a fire so intense, it burned up the wet bull, the wet wood, the stones and the soil, and even licked up the water in the trench.  All the people fell to the ground and worshipped Yahweh, the Lord.  Elijah commanded them to seize the prophets of Baal, and he had them taken away and killed.

As you can imagine, a scene this embarrassing did not make Jezebel happy.  All that boiling water made Elijah go all mushy and happy, but his happiness was short-lived, because all that boiling water really hardened Jezebel’s egg!  Elijah had to run for his life.  He was so distraught that he prayed to God.  “I have had enough, Lord.  Take my life.”  Even though he had seen a great victory, he had lost hope that God would be able to reign in the hearts of the Israelites.  God sent angels to provide food and drink for Elijah, and once he was refreshed, he travelled for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.

It’s here, at Mt. Horeb, afraid for his life, on the run for forty days and forty nights, that God appears to Elijah in our scripture lesson today.  God shows Elijah his power—manifestations like a powerful wind, then an earthquake, then a fire.  But the Lord did not have a message for Elijah in the wind.  The Lord did not have a message for Elijah in the earthquake.  The Lord did not have a message for Elijah in the fire.  No, the message for Elijah came in, of all things, a whisper.  “What are you doing here, Elijah?” God wanted to know.  Elijah told God—I have done my best.  We had a big showing there at Mt. Carmel.  But now they want to kill me!

And what did God say to that?  Basically God said to Elijah, don’t you worry.  I’m going to take care of this.  You go anoint Hazael to be the new king.  Ahab and his wife Jezebel are on the way out.  Anoint Elisha to succeed you as prophet.  Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.  Everything will work out just fine.  God came to Elijah in a whisper to give him the encouragement he needed to take the next faithful step.

It’s hard to come to grips with, this idea of gentleness.  Here we have a picture of a God who has no qualms about putting to death people who are against him and who are leading the Israelites astray.  Here we have a picture of a God who can rain down fire intense enough to burn up wet wood, who can arrange to have hundreds of prophets killed, who orders the killing of we don’t know how many unfaithful people.  And yet this same God sends angels to provide food and drink for his servant Elijah.  This same God provides tender loving care for his faithful prophet.  This same God comes to the scared and exhausted Elijah in a whisper, a hush of love and hope and assurance.

I wish we lived in a world where a whisper was always enough.  I wished we lived in a world where a gentle nudge in the right direction would be all anyone needed to leave their life of sin and to worship and serve the one true God.  But we don’t live in a world like that.  There is evil in our world, sometimes very entrenched and powerful evil.  When Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit, he does not mean for us to be gentle in the sense of being timid or wimpy.  You do not have to turn in your backbone to be a Christian!  We have an obligation to stand up to evil and injustice with courage and strength.

But the Spirit is at work in us helping us to purify our strength, to harness our power.  Faithfulness does not require us to give up our power but to distill it and temper it so we can access it with great control.  As we mature, we will be able to respond to each situation and person we encounter with just the right amount of force, with the right sized words.  Sometimes a whisper is all we’ll need.  Sometimes a firm but quiet tone will get our message across.  And sometimes, we will have to bring out the big letters, bold and underlined.  The quality of gentleness means using the least amount of force necessary, so that we do not add any injury to the world with our heavy handedness.

There’s a great line in the gospel of Matthew, as Jesus is sending out the twelve disciples to drive out demons and heal sickness.  He tells them to go out to all the people of Israel and preach that the kingdom of heaven is near.  Do not take any money with you but depend on others for hospitality.  But if anyone does not welcome you or listen to your words, Jesus says, I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.  How’s that for big print, bold and underlined?  Jesus tells the disciples, I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.  This can be dangerous work.  Therefore, be as shrewd as snakes, and as innocent as doves.

Anyone who tells you being a Christian is for wimps, they have not seen what Christianity is all about.  As disciples of Christ, we too are sent out to preach to the world that the kingdom is at hand.  We too are called to dangerous work, work the world will resist.  We are sent out like sheep among wolves.  If at all possible, let our handling of the souls we encounter be as a mother handles her newborn child—with great tenderness and care.  But let’s not be naïve.  The same boiling water that hardens the egg softens the carrot.  Not everyone will respond the same way to the good news of the gospel.  Not everyone will react to the gospel with open arms and open hearts.  Some will resist it so mightily not even fire raining down from the sky will convince them otherwise.  Just ask Jezebel!

In our gospel lesson today, Jesus healed a woman who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years.  Talk about appropriate use of power!  What we wouldn’t give to see Jesus perform a healing that like for someone we know and love.  But the Pharisees reaction was not at all appreciative.  See, Jesus had done this healing on the Sabbath, and it considered against the law to do any work on the Sabbath.  The religious elite in Jesus’ day felt it was their duty to hold power over the people, so everyone would follow the laws meticulously.  They used their power in a harsh and harmful way.  But here we see a very interesting example of Jesus using power with finesse.  He has a tender touch for the woman who has been infirm for almost two decades.  But he has very harsh words for the Pharisees.  He calls them hypocrites!  We see in this passage that Jesus is willing to amp things up when needed in order to bring about healing and wholeness.

Jesus used his power to bring about our healing, to bring about peace.  Ultimately, he chose to lay down all his power in order to bring about our ultimate healing.  As we continue to reflect on what Jesus meant when he said, “Blessed are the peacemakers”, let’s not forget about gentleness.  This Greek word proates is to be flourishing in us, as we use the gentlest touch, the least amount of force necessary, to bring about good.

Hopefully we will be people who always hear God when God whispers!  But on those occasions when we are stubborn and refuse to yield to the soft nudges, God will do whatever God has to do to get our attention and draw us back to faithfulness.  Thanks be to God for God’s work of peacemaking, in us and through us.  Amen.