When I started the sermon at the beginning of the week, in the feast of this text, (because there is a Sunday banquet, a Matthew banquet of things that can be done homiletically with this text), I found myself moving towards three elements of Christian leadership. But now, on a Sunday at the end of seven days of working on it, and at the fourth of four sermons preaching it, I have narrowed down the banquet to not just a pot roast, but just a slice of it. And it’s just one element of Christian leadership that I want to lift up out of the text. It reminds me of a story that Charlie Shed, the Presbyterian minister who many of us were helped by in our parenting and our growing up through his writings. He once said, when he first started out as a young pastor, he had a talk that he gave before he and his wife had their children, entitled, "The Rules for Christian Parenting." And after they had had their children, while they were still infants, he changed the talk to "Some Important Truths about Christian Parenting." Then, after they were teenagers and he was still giving the talk, he changed the title of it to "A Few Thoughts about Christian Parenting." When he became a grandparent, the talk title had been changed to "Does Anybody Here Have any Good Ideas about Christian Parenting?"

I want to talk about gentleness. Just that one point in the text. The apostle is talking to the Christians in Philippi, and is encouraging them to stand firm. That’s what he says in the first few verses. Stand firm in the midst of the struggle and the squabbling (because there is some squabbling going on in this Christian community). He wants them to stand firm. And so he says to them, "Stand firm in the Lord. Let your gentleness be known by everyone."

And maybe, for you, like for me, that’s counter-intuitive. Because I don’t usually associate standing firm with being gentle. When I think of standing firm I think of John Wayne. When I think of standing firm, I think of drawing a line in the sand. When I think of standing firm, I think of being intractable. But the apostle says, "Stand firm. Let your gentleness be known by everyone."

And I think (you be interpreters, too), what he is trying to say to the Christian community is, Your strength should be made known through your gentleness. I think he’s trying to say, "Your gentleness is a sign of your strength."

I was watching the World Series a while back. It’s that time of the year. I find that you don’t have to pay very close attention to Major League Baseball for most of the season. You can kind of jump on the train as the World Series or the Playoffs start and get caught up in the excitement.

The year was 2001, and the New York Yankees were playing in the World Series. Does anybody remember who they were playing in 2001? The Arizona Diamondbacks. It was the first time the Diamondbacks had ever been to the World Series. It was the second game of the World Series, and the second game had gone, for the second night in a row, into ten innings. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, when a game goes ten innings, that means it’s going longer than it usually goes. And that means that the pitchers are getting tired. Where’s Jay McLaughlin? The pitchers’ arms are wearing out. And so often, by the tenth inning, if not by the sixth, they will pull out the starting pitcher and they’ll have to send in a relief pitcher. A fireman, sometimes they call it. And in this second game of the World Series, the Diamondbacks needed to hold off the Yankees. They needed to keep them from scoring even one run in the tenth inning so that they could get back up and have a chance to win. The Diamondbacks were in the field, and they pulled their regular pitcher and they sent in the fireman. A young Korean fellow that the Diamondbacks had drafted. It was the first time he had ever pitched in the World Series, and he had not been playing in the Majors for very long. Maybe some of you remember this guy. He had kind of an underhand fastball pitch that was fun to watch. Just a wicked thing. Sort of a sidearm twist to it. He came to this enormously stressful moment in his life when, in the tenth inning of the second game, the Diamondbacks sent him up the mound to try to hold off the Yankees. He had the stress of knowing that not only were all of the American baseball fans watching him, but all the Korean fans were as well. Because they love baseball, too, and this was their fellow! Their man, who was up to pitch now.

And so the Yankee player came up to hit, and in my memory (I’m not confident about this, Bob), but my memory is that it was Tino Martinez. And the name of the Korean pitcher was Kim (that really was his last name). Kim wound up and pitched a fastball in that underhanded pitch across the plate, and Martinez swung and hit a homerun! Boom! Game over. Yankees win.

Millions of Americans stood up, not only in that stadium, but also in their living rooms, and hollered either "Hooray!" or "You bonehead!" at that moment. I remember it because I was one of those who was hollering in my living room. "You bonehead!" (Not my finest pastoral moment. But it’s what I felt. I’m a Yankees fan now, but then I was pulling for the Diamondbacks because they had never been to the Series before.) We were hollering at him.

And we saw how intense that moment was, as he realized what had happened. In his anguish, with all of his fans on their feet, screaming at him, he fell to his knees. And he not only fell to his knees, but he covered his head with his glove and buried his face in the sand, as Martinez rounded the bases.

It was a very anguishing moment. In two seconds, a very short time, while I’m still standing up after hollering out "You bonehead!" the first baseman for the Diamondback team (do you remember this?) ran across the field up to the pitcher’s mound, and threw his arms around the guy and hugged him. Does anybody remember the name of that first baseman? It was Grace. His last name was Grace. I thought it was a sign that his strength was being demonstrated through his gentleness.

Jesus was like that. Jesus was strong person, but he was a gentle person. Again and again the gospels tell us that he would stop what he was doing because his compassion became the dominant force in his personality. So as he was traveling on an important assignment to teach, the beggar on the side of the road would call out to him, as the text said, and Jesus had compassion on him. Which is an expression of gentleness.

They were walking the road and he saw Zaccheus in the tree, and knew that he was isolated, and said, "Come down, I am eating with you today. I am changing my agenda. I am going to have dinner in your house." It was a compassionate thing he did. It was a sign of his strength, his gentleness.

The apostle says, "Stand firm. Let everyone know of your gentleness." And it’s counterintuitive for us, but it’s a good thing for us to think about in this text. Maybe in the Christian community we are being asked to be strong through the expression of our gentleness. It’s the same word that is used across all of the major translations. Gentleness. Gentleness. Gentleness. That is how you will appear strong.

I did a funeral Thursday night for a retired Tampa firefighter. A fellow named Daniel Almeda. Some of you may have known him. I didn’t, but I got a call from the Fire Department asking if I would serve as a chaplain and conduct this service for Mr. Almeda, who had been raised as a Presbyterian. He grew up in the Ybor City Mission, where Walter Basciglia, that great spiritual leader, was pastor for so many people from Tampa, and whose influence certainly has been shown in every corridor of the city. But Mr. Almeda had drifted from his church attendance, but not his faith. So his family asked if the Fire Department could find a Presbyterian minister who would conduct the service. I actually got a call from the mayor’s assistant, asking if I would do it. She said, "We know that you all have a special relationship with the Fire Department." She said, "Isn’t it true that you had an arson there." I said, "That’s right." She said, "Wasn’t it an unsolved arson?" I didn’t know what she was saying. I was afraid she was saying that we could open that investigation again. That wasn’t necessary. I was glad to be of help. I think she was just saying, "I know you all care about the Fire Department."

So I agreed to do it. I got to meet with his family, a lovely family. As I visited with them, I heard them talk about his life. And I learned some things about him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a local hero. Here’s a fellow who grew up in Ybor City, used to ride his bike from Ybor City to West Tampa to play in Little League. Played on a Little League team with Bob Martinez, who grew up to become a past governor of the state of Florida. He went to the University of Tampa. His wife put him through college, and then when he graduated and became a Tampa firefighter, which had been his boyhood dream, he put her through college. She went on to become a dean at Hillsborough Community College.

Thus he began his service in the community. Early in his career, it turns out, while entering a fire, he was injured. A significant injury, so significant that the doctors told him, "This will qualify you for disability." But he said, "I don’t want to be disabled. I want to be a firefighter." They said there is a surgery you could go through, but it’s substantive. It’s extensive. He said, "I’ll do it."

They did. He went through the surgery, and it was able to equip him to return to firefighting for about three years. The disability came back, and the surgeon said, "We’ll have to do it again, or you could take disability." He said, "No, I’ll take the surgery." Two times. Then a third time. Then a fourth time. Over the course of his firefighting career, it turned out he had this surgery six times. Each time, electing to go back on to the Force. Until finally the surgeon said, after the sixth time, "You may be willing to do this a seventh time. But I’m not."

So he retired before age 65, and with all that free time on his hands, he became a middle school teacher and taught history at Middleton Middle School. He used to tell his students that it was a little scarier for him to enter a history class of middle school students than it was a burning building.

I just thought he was a hero. They had what they call "Fire Department Honors" with a hook and ladder there, the crossed axes, and the honor guard in their uniforms. Very impressive ceremony. They had four speakers, all people who had known him from his childhood, including former Governor Martinez and three other men. And his daughter, who is a Circuit Court judge in the area.

I thought they would talk about what a hero he was. I thought they were going to talk about his bravery and his courage. Again and again and again, in the face of danger, for our sakes. How he put his life on the line for our sake. In the classroom and on the Fire Department. But they didn’t say that. For an hour, as they came up to the pulpit, again and again, what they wanted to talk about was his gentleness. His wife said, "He was a gentle man."

Governor Martinez said, "I remember how one time in Little League, as shortstop, I blew the game. A big game. Afterwards, Danny, walking off the field, put his arm around me and said, ‘You made a mistake, Bob. But you didn’t lose that whole game for us.’"

They talked about how, on Sunday afternoons, he liked to cook dinner and invite all of the family over, so that they would all gather and eat. They talked about how he liked to tell jokes. Practical jokes. A firefighter’s sense of humor, his wife said. Whatever that means. But they all had a funny story to tell about how he made them laugh.

I thought of the apostle who said, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say it, Rejoice." They talked about how he loved to go to the beach and pick up shells. They talked about he loved to go out with them and to be sure that he was the one who was able to pick up the check. They talked about how he took his wife and three other women, her friends, to Italy on his pension, and hosted them and was their escort as they toured the countryside.

They talked about his gentleness, and how it was an expression of strength for them. The apostle says, "You gentleness is a sign of your strength." Stand firm in the Lord. Let your gentleness be known by everyone.

One time Jesus was teaching, and the Pharisees brought to him, dragging through the dirt, a woman who had been caught in adultery. I don’t know where the fellow was—they didn’t bring him forward, at least not in this story. But they brought her forward, and they stood her before him, and they said, "Teacher, we found this woman, caught her in the act of adultery. The texts say that the law says that she should be stoned to death. What do you say? Be strong, now."

And the gospels say Jesus didn’t say a word. He knelt down and wrote something in the sand. One by one, her accusers slipped away, until none of them were left. Jesus stood and said to her, "Where are your accusers?" She said, "They’re all gone, Lord. No one is left here to accuse me." He said to her, "Then neither do I. Go and sin no more."

Stand firm in the Lord, says the apostle. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say it. Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known by all. It will be a sign to them of your strength in the Lord.

© John T. DeBevoise 2005