“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” I am guessing that in Paul’s list of some of the fruits of the Spirit, “self-control” is not the one that would get you particularly excited and racing to church to hear preached. I also imagine that few of you who come from other worship traditions, where there is a lot more swaying and dancing and plenty of “Amens” when the preacher is preaching, would look out on this congregation and say First Presbyterian needs to make self-control a priority. After all, we Presbyterians like to talk about doing things “decently and in order.”
Or consider the virtue that church tradition has associated with self-control: temperance. I seriously doubt that marketing experts would suggest “temperance” would be a topic to use if you wanted to launch a campaign to bring in neighbors to hear an exciting sermon series.
Temperance seems like such an out-of-date word. I know when I think of temperance, I think about Miss Lily. Miss Lily was an older woman all of the Presbyterians in the city of Richmond knew as she made the rounds. A member of a prominent family in Richmond, she wrestled with some undisclosed mental illness. She attended worship most often at the downtown church we served. But she never came on communion Sunday as she periodically informed the Session in letters. Because when that church served communion, they served both grape juice and wine. And Miss Lily was a card-carrying member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a movement that for a time was a political force, but which is something we probably only encounter today in a history book. Miss Lily is probably the epitome of our picture of temperance: a puritanical rigidity which restrains passions of any kind.
But that is not what the Bible means by temperance. What Miss Lily and the members of the WCTU, a group of well intentioned, committed women, were advocating was abstinence, not temperance. And while, there are times when abstinence is called for, temperance is something different. Temperance calls for moderation: “nothing overmuch, nothing in excess,” is the way classic writers described the way of temperance. Life is good, pleasures are good, natural desires are good, but excess is bad.
The call to live in a spirit of temperance is a call to live a well-ordered life, a balanced life, a life with boundaries and limits. The scriptures are full of references to enjoying food, but we are not to let food, whether gluttony or dieting control our life. When it comes to alcohol, the psalmist talks about how wine gladdens the human heart, and Jesus changed water into wine at the wedding at Cana, not wine into water. But we all have seen lives and relationships greatly harmed when alcohol is abused and controls a person. A temperate person understands that sex is a gift from God, a good thing to be enjoyed at the right time, with the right person. But a temperate person doesn’t let that sexual desire consume them or lead to using or abusing other people.
As with the other fruits of the Spirit, if you want to see what a well-ordered, balanced, temperate life looks like, we look to Jesus Christ in whom all the gifts of the Spirit are made manifest. Jesus worked hard, but did not work all the time. He withdrew for prayer. He relaxed with friends over meals. Jesus sometimes feasted on good meat and drink, but he also fasted to strengthen his soul. Either way, hunger and thirst did not control his life. He listened to others but also spoke his mind. He taught and guided others, but he never went so far as to coerce or bully. He savored the beauty of creation and the pleasures of life – but not to the exclusion of caring for the poor.
How do we follow his example – how do we live a temperate life?
With the gift of self-control.
Self-control is the power to choose well so that we can live within the limits that God sets for us. Limits that are intended to enable us to flourish and love God and neighbor. Proverbs tell us that without self-control, our lives are like an ancient city without walls. Without walls, the city would have been vulnerable to attack. When our lives lack self-control, we are unprotected from the surrounding culture that bombards us with destructive forces. And, we are unprotected from those forces and desires within us like envy or grief, lust or fear, that if unchecked, can wreak havoc in our bodies, in our lives, and in our relationships.
But as with the other fruits of the Spirit, it is important to know this: self-control is a gift from God, a gift that God wants to give us. Don’t let that first word fool you: self-control, self-discipline – it is not something that God expects us to do on our own, without God’s help. As the epistle, Second Timothy puts it, “for God gives us a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.”
God gives us the gift of self-control, self-discipline, so we can choose well. So that we can withstand temptations from without. So that we can avoid getting tossed about by every emotion that flitters across our hearts and minds. So that we can live like Jesus: focused…balanced…whole…fit to love God and neighbor.
When it comes to the gift of self-control, when it comes to living a temperate life, I would like to drill down to explore what it looks like in two specific and practical areas of our life: the words we use and our anger.
We have all heard the old nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” We also know that nursery rhyme is not true. Words can wound; words can hurt a lot – and for a long time.
The Bible has a lot of passages that deal with the danger of the tongue, the power of words to wound. One of my favorite verses is one from Paul to the church in Ephesus: “let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
Building up and giving grace – what difference might that make if we were to take it to heart? We might consider the ratio of our words of complaint to our words of gratitude. We might ask ourselves: how quick are we to criticize, both those close to us and those who are part of our community – and how slow are we to offer words or notes of affirmation and encouragement?
Self-control with our words. We can choose to refrain from saying every thought that enters our head. We can choose to think before we speak – and to talk less and listen more. We can choose not to repeat unwanted advice for the 15th time.
Our goal should be words that bring a blessing. To that end, the acronym, T.H.I.N.K. can be helpful. Is what we want to say or write, True? Is it Helpful? Is it Inspiring so that it improves on the silence? Is it Necessary? And, is it Kind?
Speaking words that bring a blessing – even if that is our goal, that does not mean that we never speak out or raise a concern. Which brings us to another force that can be a force for good – or for destruction if not controlled and temperate: anger. “One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty,” Proverbs tells us, referring to a human king. “And one whose temper is controlled is better than one who captures a city.” Or, as Paul tells the church in Ephesus with seemingly paradoxical words: “be angry but do not sin.”
“Be angry but do not sin.” In other words, anger cannot be avoided. It is a given – part of the human condition, part of how we are made. “Anger is love’s alarm bell,” Carlyle Marney once wrote. We get angry when we are hurt or threatened, or when someone we love is hurt or threatened.
God gets angry, the Scriptures tell us, at what ought not to be. God’s anger is always closely linked to God’s sadness. In another passage, Paul writes about how our sins and divisions “grieve the Holy Spirit.” Both God’s anger and sadness are inseparable from God’s love, and are constructive rather than destructive. God gets angry and sad when we pursue self-destructive paths or when we hurt others or injure God’s creation. God’s sadness, anger, and love are always directed to putting things right.
The problem for us then, is not that we get angry. It is what we get angry at and how we get angry. Too often, we get angry over a little thing that happen to us but are relatively indifferent to the injustices suffered by others. A wise man once said, “the size of a person can be measured by the size of the thing that makes them angry.”
How big are the things that we get angry about? Are we really going to get angry about an Eagles loss, the person who cut us off in traffic, or how slow our line at the grocery store is moving? And how many big things, like economic injustice or the abuse of others do we find ourselves simply accepting without any anger?
Anger is a gift, but how we handle our anger can be a sin. Is our anger constructive, like Jeus’ anger, or destructive, like his opponents’ anger? Rightful anger in a parent leads to discipline for a child’s growth. Sinful anger leads to verbal or physical abuse which beats a child’s body or spirit. Rightful anger in a mistreated people leads to a courageous drive for justice that will not be beaten down. Sinful anger leads to bombs in crowded markets which kill innocent people and does nothing to bring about justice.
To become angry is to play with fire. Like fire, anger can be a good gift, bringing needed light or heat. But like fire, our anger can easily go out of control, wreaking havoc and causing collateral damage.
Phillip Yancey tells of a friend whose marriage was going through rough times. One night, this man passed a breaking point and exploded. He pounded the table and screamed at his wife: “I hate you! I won’t take it anymore! I’ve had enough! No! No! No!” How do you think this husband felt several weeks later when he woke up in the middle of the night and heard strange sounds coming from his two-year-old son’s room. “I hate you…I won’t take it anymore…No! No! No!” (Living Pulpit, Oct.-Dec. 1993, 48).
Friends, there is grace. Our sins can be forgiven. Broken relationships can be healed. But God gives us the gift of self-control so that we don’t have to take back words that hurt others. God gives us the gift of self-control so that our anger will not burn out of control and do damage to others or to our health in the first place. Like those ancient city walls, the boundaries and the power God gives us to respect those limits and live within those boundaries is to protect us. To protect those we love and those we encounter. And to protect all God’s children.
Perhaps, temperance is not an outdated idea. Perhaps self-control is a fruit of the Spirit that may not be exciting, but is something we crave. A few years back, Kerry led a Bible study on the gifts of the spirit with 35 women in Pottstown. At one point, she asked those women what they thought of that gift of self-control. One woman seemed to speak for all when she said:
“Whoa, I wanna get me some of that!”
Friends, hear the good news. Through Jesus Christ, we can get us some more of that.
Amen.
