Gentle? I Don't Think So!

Gentle? I Don’t Think So!

September 3, 2020

James 3:17 says: “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.” This ancient letter wants us to believe that wisdom, if it is divine not earthly, is always gentle. It is always ready to give up what it stands for to keep the peace. It never takes sides in any dispute. That at least is what I hear it saying, and I’m sure it is a valid reading of that text.

As I read these words on the morning of September 3, 2020, they struck me as simply false. They certainly don’t describe the wisdom Jesus sometimes acted on. I mean that bit about overturning the tables of the money-changers in the temple and driving out the sacrificial animals and the people selling them, while it wasn’t violent against any people, wasn’t exactly gentle. It wasn’t exactly gentle when he called the Pharisees a brood of vipers or when he called Peter Satan. Jesus never yielded on an issue of a truth he knew came from God. Jesus was never violent against people, but he wasn’t exactly always gentle or yielding with them either.

Yet my first thought as I read these words wasn’t about Jesus. It was about Donald Trump. I thought: I’m sorry, Letter of James, but your words simply do not ring true when I think of Donald Trump. The man is simply too evil. He’s every bit as destructive as the Pharisees were when Jesus called them a brood of vipers, or worse. He’s an American fascist. He’s out to destroy the US Constitution and American democracy along with it. He wants to be friends with and imitate murderous dictators. He calls white supremacists fine people and won’t condemn violence against peaceful demonstrators by his supporters. His administration is hellbent on destroying earth’s environment. He brags of grabbing women by the pussy and has been unfaithful to each of this three wives. He tears children away from their parents and keeps them in cages. He calls people fleeing violence and crushing poverty rapists and murderers. He denies the horrible reality of the coronavirus pandemic and is responsible for tens upon tens of thousands of avoidable deaths. Donald Trump is simply beneath contempt.

With evil like Donald Trump gentle and yielding are the last things wisdom calls for. Nonviolent yes, gentle no. Nonviolent yes, peaceable no. Nonviolent yes, yielding no. Jesus modeled the kind of wisdom we need today. We need wills of steel not wills of bamboo. We need to drive the bastard out the way Jesus drove the money-changers out of the temple. We need to do it lawfully through the ballot, but by God we need to do it. Donald trump is simply too destructive for gentleness. Everything about him calls for firm, unyielding resistance. So no, Letter of James. Your kind of wisdom may be appropriate for some circumstances. I practiced it when I was a church pastor. It’s right when you’re ministering to a dying parishioner. It’s wrong when you’re dealing with Donald Trump.