“Gentle and Riding on a Donkey”

Matthew 21: 1-11

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, April 13, 2025

In the dusty, hot, dry desert south of Reno, Nevada, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has an unusual collaboration with the Northern Nevada Correctional Center – a medium-security prison. Inmates there train wild horses so that they will accept a saddle and rider. The BLM, as the Bureau of Land Management is called, has a problem: too many wild mustangs ranging over government land. These horses are the descendants of animals that were released or escaped from Spanish explorers, ranchers, the U.S. Cavalry and Native Americans. Over 70,000 feral horses and burros run wild in many places throughout the West. In order to keep their numbers down, the BLM has tried several approaches. One of the most humane is getting people to adopt them. But before they can be put up for adoption, they have to be tamed. That’s where the wild mustang training program fits in, along with the prison inmates who train them.

I read a New York Times article about it that explains, “There’s a term in the horse world known as ‘gentling.’

It refers to working with a wild horse until it becomes responsive to a trainer’s commands, meaning that it no longer wants to kick you in the face. If handled properly, it even bonds with its trainer.” The article explained that inmates work with each horse for four months. During that time, the horse goes from being completely wild, to gradually allowing itself to be led on a lead, then finally permitting someone to ride it. The inmates work hard, under the instruction of an expert cowboy, learning patience and pride in their work, as the horse learns to trust them and respond to their guidance. Training a horse to be ridden is also referred to as “breaking” a horse, but many trainers prefer the word “gentling,” because you don’t really want a horse whose spirit is broken – who just puts up with a rider because it is afraid of punishment. You want a horse who has learned to trust you, who isn’t afraid of people, one who loves instead of fears its owner.

The word “gentleness” in the Bible is something like that. As you know – because I have mentioned it a lot – the New Testament was originally written in Greek.

The Greek word prautes, translated as “gentleness,” “humility,” or “meekness,” doesn’t mean weak, shy, or wishy-washy. Rather prautes in ordinary, everyday Greek of Jesus’ day was the word used to describe an animal that has been tamed. It is no longer fearful or aggressive; It doesn’t have to fight back. because it trusts its master.  A horse that is gentled will not kick or bite. A dog that has been tamed will obey its owner’s commands. It has learned to trust its master.

Gentleness is the last of the Fruits of the Spirit in our Lenten sermon series. In the biblical sense means that we, too, have learned to listen to God’s voice, because we have learned to trust God. Because of that trust, we willingly obey God’s commandments. We will not fight against God or try to go our own way when God is calling us to a different path. Much as a gentled horse can pull a heavy load, plough a field, or carry a rider a long distance, if we are gentle, that is, willing to follow God’s guidance, rather than go our own way, we can accomplish great things for God’s kingdom.

Gentleness is not weakness; rather, it is strength under control – under God’s control. It is trust that God always provides a way  through any pain or devastation.

A couple of weeks ago we read Psalm 32. It contains some of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. God says, “I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.” Are we sometimes like an untamed horse or mule, that won’t come near anyone, but just kicks out at everyone or runs away from its master? How often do we run away from God, rather than listening to God’s counsel and teaching?

A synonym for this fruit of the spirit is “teachable.” Eugenia Gamble, who wrote Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit writes that gentleness is “being conformable to the will of God,” being “malleable” and “pliable in God’s hands”; not being too proud or stubborn to learn what God is trying to teach us.

Eugenia writes that “gentleness” is “associated with a deep trust in God and a commitment to His ways, even in the face of adversity.” It springs from the confidence that “all the resources of God are being brought to bear in every circumstance” [of our lives].

I saved the fruit of gentleness for today because Jesus is often referred to as “gentle.” In our Palm Sunday scripture, Matthew quotes the Prophet Zechariah: “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey…” Yes, Jesus was gentle. He welcomed little children and blessed them. He gently touched the sick, to heal them. He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 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.” Jesus also said that those who are gentle will inherit the earth – yes, the phrase usually translated as “The meek shall inherit the earth” is actually “the gentle will inherit the earth,” in Greek. This seems like a strange saying until we think about the meaning of gentle as “strength under control” -  God’s control.

Eugenia Gamble explains this beatitude: “when we conform ourselves to God’s values, including [gentleness], that is where real power lies. It is not to be found in the world’s power structures but in God.”

St. Francis de Sales once said, “There is nothing so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.” No one personified this statement as well as Jesus himself. Jesus went to his crucifixion meek as a lamb, but not weak as a lamb; rather, he was in full control of his own destiny. He told his disciples, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father” (John 10:17-18). In the Garden of Gethsemane, when Peter tries, ineffectually, to defend Jesus by pulling out a sword and cutting off the ear of the High Priest’s servant, Jesus says to him, “Put your sword back into its place, for all who take the sword will die by the sword.

Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say it must happen in this way?” True gentleness is strong, not weak, as Jesus amply demonstrated.

But what about the time Jesus turned over the tables of the money-changers in the Temple courtyard, and chased out those who were selling livestock? Was that gentle? Aristotle wrote that “gentleness is the quality of a person who is always angry at the right time and never at the wrong time.” A gentle person does not give in to every emotion – fear, anger, or despair. It doesn’t mean we ignore our emotions, but we don’t base our actions on them without careful reflection and asking ourselves how God would have us respond. Jesus was not reacting on the spur of the moment to what he saw what was happening in the Temple. I believe he had thought about it and decided he needed to make God’s displeasure known in a memorable way.

He actions that day left a much bigger impression than simply preaching about the evils of selling overpriced sacrificial animals in the Temple and cheating pilgrims out of their offering money by unfair exchange rates. Turning over the tables and chasing out the cheaters, while saying, “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers” made the message plain. Gentleness doesn’t mean rolling over and playing dead in the face of evil. But it does mean carefully thinking through our responses and making sure they are in accordance with God’s will.

Eugenia Gamble writes that the opposite of this kind of gentleness “is self-promotion, self-interest, and self-aggrandizement.” If Jesus had wanted to enter Jerusalem that first Palm Sunday as an earthly king, he would have chosen a war-horse, and he would have gathered prominent people or even armed followers to join his procession. People were familiar with processions such as this, as Pontius Pilate the governor or King Herod would have entered the city on many occasions accompanied by such shows of power.

But Jesus entered Jerusalem “gentle and riding on a donkey.” He could have called twelve legions of angels to accompany him, but instead he chose the sweet voices of children, the “Hosannah’s” of the poor and down-trodden, palm branches instead of golden ornaments and humble garments strewn on the path.

This is our king. This is our savior. This is the one we have pledged our lives to follow – Jesus the gentle, Jesus the humble, Jesus the one who gave his life for us and for the world. Hosannah!

Reference: Gamble, Eugenia Anne. Tending the Wild Garden: Growing in the Fruit of the Spirit. Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition, 2024.

Sermon ©Deborah Troester 2025