Sermon Preview for August 16

August 16, 2026 - Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost

Preacher:  Rev. Anne J. Scalfaro

Sermon Title:   

The Art of Gentleness                                     

Third Sermon in Cultivating the Fruit of Gentleness

Part of Abide & Grow: Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit

Sermon Blurb:

There is a prophetic nature to the Fruit of Gentleness expressed by Isaiah in his prophecy about a little child coming to lead all creation into a whole new way of being. Yet one of the most difficult things about living as people trying to co-create God’s kin-dom “on earth as it is in heaven” is that it just seems so impossible given the prevalence of destructive human impulses and actions. We struggle to envision anything different than how we are living now. 

When we get stuck in seeing only what is before us, it is often artists who ignite our imaginations and give us fresh vision—not ignoring reality but juxtaposing it side by side with possibility.

Join us on Sunday as we explore the Fruit of Gentleness as a call to prophetic, transformational living using two well-known paintings: Horace Pippin’s Holy Mountain III (1945) and one of Edward Hick’s renditions of Peaceable Kingdom (1834)—both based on Isaiah 11:1-9.

Scriptures:  Matthew 5:5; Isaiah 11:1-9

Matthew 5:5 

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Isaiah 11:1-9   

1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,

    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,

    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

    the spirit of counsel and might,

    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see

    or decide by what his ears hear,

4 but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor

    and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;

he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

    and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist

    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

6 The wolf shall live with the lamb;

    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;

the calf and the lion will feed together,

    and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze;

    their young shall lie down together;

    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,

    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.

9 They will not hurt or destroy

    on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord

    as the waters cover the sea.