Matthew 12:15-21
July 16, 2023
Then Jesus went about
all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the
good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When
he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his
disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore
ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’
We have reached the midpoint of this summer series on the fruit of the Holy Spirit. So far, there has been love, joy, peace, and patience. Yet to come will be generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. At the center of it all is kindness. Kindness is a quality that God can work through us to achieve.
And I’ll remind myself – and you, too - why I chose these nine qualities for the sermon series. We had a guest speaker at a presbytery meeting in early May. He led us in an overview of why it’s so hard to be a church these days. There are many reasons, and we don’t need to review them now. Then he added, “If you want your church to grow, if you want your own faith to grow, if you wish to be a people of significance and positive impact, devote your energy to cultivating the fruit of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, and all the rest.”
It's good advice. I believe he’s right. A church doesn’t need a bigger advertising budget. A church needs to develop people who are filled with kindness, who practice kindness, who call forth kindness from others. Imagine what a world that would be.
Some years ago, I pulled up behind a Honda at the stoplight on Grove Street. There was a bright green bumper sticker with the clear invitation: “Practice Random Acts of Kindness.” It was a pleasant thought. It had never occurred to me. Just the words vanquished the curmudgeon in my soul. Then I turned right to head down the hill.
It had been a chaotic morning and I needed a coffee. So I pulled into my favorite overpriced coffee shop, got out, ordered a large cup of steaming hot dark roast. The barista smiled, grabbed the cup, and filled it up. I pulled out my wallet, figuring a twenty-dollar bill would cover it. And she said, “There’s no charge, sir. The person ahead of you paid for your drink.”
There was nobody ahead of me. I wondered what she meant, and she said, “The last person in the store gave me a twenty-dollar bill and said, ‘Please put this toward the next person who comes into the store. If there’s anything left over, keep the tip.” My jaw dropped in gratitude. Apparently, whoever it was had seen the same bumper sticker. A random act of kindness, indeed!
So there I am, with an unnecessary twenty in my hand. I looked at it, back at her, and said, “Here, let’s keep the chain going.” Wow, did I ever feel good! As I turned and floated out the door, I pondered how long the movement would continue on. And I’ve thought many times since about the acts of kindness, both small and large.
When was the last time you bought somebody a cup of coffee? Or a meal in a restaurant? When they discovered what you were doing, how did they respond? Did they resist you by saying, “Oh no, let me pick it up”? Or did they acquiesce by saying, “Next time, let me return the favor”? Such small gestures, such revealing words!
True kindness is never a transactional deal, as in, “you did something for me, I’ll do something for you.” No, true kindness is usually one-sided. It is never intended to be repaid.
Like those two stories of Jesus that we heard from the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus goes about preaching and teaching through the towns of Galilee. He healed every disease and cured every illness. Did he do that for money? No, it was free medical care. There was no bill, no payment, no expectation or requirement. He simply healed for free, prompted by the observation that they were “sheep without a shepherd.”
Jesus was driven by compassion, what somebody once called, “the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside somebody else’s skin.”[1] And he did not expect anything in return. His care, his healing, his stopping to deal with each new situation was a sheer act of grace. Grace was embodied in the same way as compassion - in his kindness.
In Jesus of Nazareth, God chose to live inside of our human skin. He knows eternally what it’s like to inhabit a life like ours. Rather than recoil in horror or sneer in condescension, he comes to us in kindness. He always has. He always will. That is to say, when we talk of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and the rest, we are not talking merely about human virtues. We are talking about the character of God.
What is God like? How do the scriptures narrate our experience of God’s personality? There are a lot of nouns, a lot of adjectives. In the Jewish texts, the word that bubbles up most often is the word “hesed,” as in the Scranton synagogue Temple Hesed. Hesed is a big word, as most Bible words are. It can spin in a number of directions. Yet the gravitational center of hesed is translated “loving kindness.” That is, kindness as an expression of love. That’s always what kindness is. Kindness is more than a noun; it’s really a verb. It’s something you do.
And it has a
transformative effect. The practice of kindness can change us. We had a dentist
in the area. He could be a real character. He would dress up as Santa Claus at
Christmas time and ring the Salvation Army bell. At Halloween, he would put an
open coffin on his front lawn, dress like a vampire, and sit up to scare the
kids who came looking for candy. Doc Bush could be a nut.
What a lot of people didn’t know, and what some people did, is that he would fly to an impoverished area of the world and devote a month to providing free dental care. He did this for nineteen years. When I knew him, he was flying to Jamaica. Wow, what a great place to go, right? Montego Bay for a month! Doc, what an easy gig, huh? And he said, “I thought going there would be a nice gesture. Fill a cavity, hit the beach. But when I got there, the need was greater than I ever imagined. All I did was pull teeth, basic triage for those who ached and had never seen a dentist.”
Then, he said, “It changed me. My altruism developed into a true concern for others. I wanted to give them back their smile.” Never charged them anything. Did it out of the kindness of his heart. The more he did for others, the more he wanted to do. As stated in his obituary thirteen years ago, “He truly believed he could help fit the world’s conflicts one tooth at a time.”[2]
Kindness is a verb, not merely a noun. I enjoy the books and podcasts of Malcolm Gladwell. He’s an insightful observer of life, a wonderful writer, and a faithful follower of Jesus. In a recent interview, here’s what he said:
My point is that being kind to strangers is a habit,
it's a contagious habit, it's something you have to practice if you want it to
be. And I always think that's why, for example, there's so much talk in the
Bible about kindness, because you have to keep doing it if you're going to do
it. You can forget how to do it. It's a muscle you've got to exercise.
And there's so many things which people think of as
traits, and I would say, they're not traits, they're habits. So you could say,
when people say that curiosity is a trait, what they mean is, that kid was born
curious. Well, actually, I don't believe that, I believe it's a habit. What I
believe is that's someone who practices being curious, and the more they
practice, the better they get at it. It's like saying playing the piano is a trait.
No, it's not, it's a habit. You're not born being able to play the piano, you
have to learn it, and then you have to keep doing it if you're going to be any
good at it.
Kindness is that. You might have a predilection towards it, but you got to practice it if you're going to be any good at it.[3]
In a time of caution, kindness is an act of courage.
In a time of selfishness, kindness embodies generosity.
In a time of suspicion, kindness creates relationships.
In a time of greed, kindness expresses freedom.
In a time of division, kindness builds bridges.
So the calling for the church, the church that wishes to grow, is to express what we believe through acts of kindness. As we have experienced the kindness of God through the love of Jesus Christ, so we extend it to strangers, to enemies, and friends. The quilts that we make for the homeless, the food we collect for the hungry, the trash we pick up from the roadside, the music we offer freely to the community – see this for what it is: the kindness of God is working its way into the world through us. Lives are changed. We are changed.
So is the calling for our souls, so often bruised and broken by the world. One of the best ways to work through our own healing is to stop hovering over our bruises and to do something gracious for somebody else. When te world puts them down, find a way to lift them up. Fix a meal. Offer a ride. Find a way to spend time together. Go for a walk side by side. Send a handwritten note. Schedule a weekly phone call. Arrange for a surprise party. Celebrate their achievement. Show up at their public activity. Mail them an anonymous gift card. Buy them a coffee, pay for their meal. Most of all, be a human being to another human being.
Don’t settle for being yourself; be Christ-like. That is the work God wishes to do in us, creating and re-creating us to love as his Son loves: abundantly and without restrictions, freely and never seeking a reward. The more we do it, the better we become.
The fruit of the week is kindness. What is one thing that you might do this week? What gracious act could you offer to someone else? Take a moment. Write it down. Get on with the work of building your own soul and building up God’s church.
I’m talking about kindness. What is it, really?
In a certain town, a rabbi made a generous gift to a neighbor that had fallen on hard times. He did this each year on the eve of Passover. He would send his son to deliver a small sack of coins. Each year, it was a generous gift.
It came to pass that one year, he sent his son with the sack of coins, saying, “Take this to our poor neighbor.” A short time later, the son returned. He was visibly angry. He tossed down the sack of coins and threw himself in a chair.
The rabbi said, “I told you to take this gift to our poor neighbor.” The son said, “Poor neighbor indeed!”
What do you mean? The son said, “As I approached his hovel, I looked in through the window and saw our poor neighbor setting his table with expensive china dishes.” Did you say china dishes? “Expensive china dishes!”
“Not only that,” said the son, “I looked in once again. He was lighting the candles on two expensive silver candelabras.” Did you say silver candelabras? “I said expensive silver candelabras.”
“And not only that,” said the son, “I looked again, and our poor neighbor was pouring a very fine wine into crystal goblets.” Did you say a fine wine? “I said a very fine wine.”
“Hmm,” said the rabbi. “That changes everything. Apparently,
our poor neighbor is a man accustomed to fine things. Take this gift back to
him. Remind me next year to increase my gift.”[4]
[1] Frederick Buechner, “Compassion,”
in Wishful Thinking (New York: Harper and Row, 1973)
[2] Obituary: Richard D. Bush, https://www.lawrenceeyoungfuneralhome.com/obituary/659599
[3] Malcolm Gladwell on the Carey
Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast, https://youtu.be/OtoD9i8Ii60?t=1733
[4] Story attributed to Fred B. Craddock,
a very kind man.
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