Goodness and Kindness Week 27 Believe RUMC

Goodness and Kindness

Week 27 Believe

RUMC

 Jesus was kind enough to make wine for a young newly married couple when they ran out of wine at their reception.

 Jesus was kind to the adulterous woman saying, “I don’t condemn you either. Go and sin no more.”

Jesus was kind to the 5,000 feeding them with 5 loaves and two fish.

Jesus was when he healed the 10 lepers them even though no one else would even look at them.

One of Jesus’ best known STORIES is about a man lying beaten and bloody along the road and a hated Samaritan stopped to help. It was not a random act of kindness. It was an intentional act of one who modeled his life after the goodness and kindness of God.

Those stories of kindness are just the beginning. Jesus is the perfect example of what it means to be good and kind.

I’ll admit when I first started preparing this message, I was a little cynical just about using the words “good and kind.” I finally realized it is because so many times I have heard things like “I’m not a religious person, but I am a GOOD person.” Or, “He never went to church, but he was a KIND person.”

Kudos to those folks, but that is not what we are talking about.

 We serve a God whose fundamental nature is goodness. Think back to the very first chapters of the Bible. What phrase is repeated again and again. “It is…<<<good>>>Everything God created was “good” because it came from the good creator.

There was that tree that was in the garden… what was it called? <<< The tree of the knowledge of GOOD and evil.” >>> That tree represented the opportunity to choose between the goodness of a relationship with God, and the badness alienation from the good creator.

Goodness is not just PART of the nature of God, it is the SUM TOTAL of God’s attributes. God’s love, God’s grace, God’s hope, God’s joy… all add up to God's goodness.

 Then there is kindness. God’s kindness grows out of God’s goodness. Kindness is goodness in action. The Hebrew Bible often talks of God’s loving-kindness which was proven in the divine covenants and God’s patience with human failure. Divine kindness is God’s goodness alive and well in guiding, sustaining and preserving his people through history.

Goodness and kindness are not human traits that make up for someone’s lack of faith or faithfulness to God. Goodness and kindness are the very heart of God’s fundamental nature that became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ.

That is why Jesus is the ultimate model of goodness and kindness. It wasn’t because he was good in human terms, but because God is good. It wasn’t because Jesus was kind in human terms, but because God is kind. Jesus’ kindness and goodness was a perfect reflection of God’s goodness and kindness.

 Now, turn in your bibles to Ephesians 4:32….. What does it say? “Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32, NLT)

In our English translations, we miss a subtle word-play. The Greek word for “kind” is chrestos. The Greek word for “Christ” is Christos. Paul’s readers could not miss the point that Jesus was the perfect reflection of God’s kindness.

The call is clear. God is good. Christ is good. And we are to be kind as Christ reflected God’s kindness. Be Good as Christ reflected god’s goodness.

So how do we do that? How do we reflect Christ’s goodness and kindness?

 It starts with the words we say. We have a choice to make with every syllable we speak. Good or bad. Kind or cruel. And it makes all the difference in the world.

People teaching about resiliency in children say that it takes 1000 positive comments to erase the damage done by one critical comment that tears down a child’s self esteem.  Adults are probably not far behind. Toby Mac does a great job of singing of the power of kind words. Listen to his song “Speak Life.” 

So the first step in kindness and goodness is to “speak life,” or let our words reflect the kindness and goodness of God in Jesus.

 The second is with our actions. You know exactly what I am talking about.

CATHERINE RYAN HYDE wrote ad book and 17 years ago “Pay it forward” was released as a movie and it started something of a movement of kindness.

In it a boy named Trevor explained his idea of how he could help change the world:

If someone did you a favor—something big, something you couldn’t do on your own—and instead of paying it back you paid it forward to three people, and the next day they each paid it forward to three more, and the day after that those 27 each paid it forward to another three, and each day everyone, in turn, paid it forward to three more people, in two weeks that comes to 4,782,969. According to his logic, in 20 days it could spread to the entire population of the world.

His teacher said that it was an “OVERLY UTOPIAN IDEA.” What do you think? Perhaps reaching the whole world is not as easy as Trevor thought, but the principle is sound. Kindness is contagious. So is unkindness.

 Turn to the passage we read this morning….  These are instructions Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica. It says, “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.” Isn’t that a novel idea!

•           What if instead of yelling back across the aisles, congress started treating each other (and more importantly US) with kindness.

•           What if instead of spewing vitriolic hate, the protestors for white supremacy, or black lives matters, or immigration, or whatever the protest happens to be stopped shouting and began to act kindly. I am not unrealistic enough to think that will happen today… but it could… and if it ever happened… it would change the world.

But the lesson of “Pay it forward” is that it starts not with them, but with us. One person at a time. One act of kindness at a time.

But not kindness for kindness sake. Not goodness for goodness sake. We seek to be  good because God is good …and we want our lives to look more and more like God. We seek to be kind because God is kind …and we want our lives to look more and more like God.

 There is an old, old fable I want to share in closing. 

Many years ago, on a little island, lived a bunch of happy people. They loved their friendly little island with its beautiful trees, water, and sand. The islanders had a special tradition of trading warm fuzzies with each other. Warm fuzzies were like little balls of pure love that made everyone feel good all over.

People would offer warm fuzzies freely, and if you needed one all you had to do was ask. Even people you didn’t know would reach into their pockets and pull out a warm fuzzy, and just give it to you! Every warm fuzzy was like a big hug from a friend. And there were always plenty of warm fuzzies to go around.

Everyone felt safe and loved and they all helped each other to feel safe and loved.

But one day a grouchy, grumbly, mumbly tourist came to visit the island. He didn’t understand what everyone was doing but he was sure he didn’t like it. He kept cold prickles in his pockets and warm fuzzies didn’t make any sense to him. So he decided that he would tell a lie to the islanders, to convince them to stop with all that warm fuzzy business.

The grouchy tourist told the islanders that their warm fuzzies were the most precious things in the world. He told them that instead of sharing them, they should be keeping them. What if the world supply of warm fuzzies ran out? What would they do then?

All of a sudden the islanders began worrying and acting selfishly, keeping their warm fuzzies to themselves. And a funny thing happened. When people stopped sharing their warm fuzzies, people stopped receiving warm fuzzies. Instead of everyone feeling warm and fuzzy inside, they started to feel cold and prickly inside. This made everyone kind of sad, everyone except for that grouchy tourist that is.

Thank goodness something nice happened next. You see, one of the islanders had left for college. She came home to visit and brought her warm fuzzies with her. When she arrived home, she started giving warm fuzzies to everyone she saw. The islanders started to realize what they were missing and that they had made a mistake. Holding onto their warm fuzzies didn’t make them happier, it made them miserable. They figured out that giving their warm fuzzies away not only made their friends happy, it made them happy too.

The good news is that we can be just like those islanders!

We can keep our goodness and kindness to ourselves and wallow in our collective unhappiness. OR… OR We can give away our warm fuzzies, like these cute little pom poms. You are welcome to take whatever is left over after everyone receives one, if you want to literally give them away. My idea was to stick them in your pocket as a reminder that God created you to be good and kind, and God is shaping you to be a good person who treats others with kindness. They are a reminder to freely give away  words and acts of kindness and goodness. You see, when we offer a good deed to someone who didn’t even ask or expect it, that is the best kind of warm fuzzy there is. When we offer a kind word to help someone feel better, that’s the best kind of warm fuzzy there is.

From our scripture today, “See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil. May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ... The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”