“Known by our fruit.: kindness” July 29.2018 First UMC Carroll

The heart of this sermon was Walter Wangerin's  story The Rag Man.  I chose not to print it here out of respect for copyright concerns.  I have linked to a video of the author telling the story himself.  (He does a better job anyway)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNH0E4bmnOg

“Known by our fruit.: kindness”

July 29.2018

First UMC Carroll

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace patience… kindness.  This morning we are going to focus on “THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS . . . KINDNESS.”

In our series, “known by our fruit,” we have talked about how the church should be known by the way we love one another and by the Joy we show in worship.  We have talked about how the church should work for peace with justice and work to be a sanctuary where Patience and holy time can be experienced.

Today we explore what it means for the church to be a people who both experience and share kindness.

Interestingly enough the English word kind derives from Middle English and Old English words meaning “natural, native, or innate.”[1] Kindness then is the quality of being who we naturally are, who we were created to be, following the God created innate kindness within us.

That makes perfect sense since we are made in God’s image, because one of God’s primary characteristics in scripture is God’s loving-kindness.

So, we were created to be kind in the image of God’s loving-kindness.  So, what is kindness.

Listen to this parable.

I saw a strange sight…. (telling thestory) I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing in my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush, child. hush now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear tenor voice: 'Rags!' Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music.

'Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!'

'Now this is a wonder,' I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn't disappointed.

Soon the ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into a handkerchief, signing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

'Give me your rag,' he said gently. 'and I'll give you another.'

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left without a tear.

'This is a wonder,' I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

'Rags! Rags! New Rags for old!"

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

'Give me your rag,' he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, 'and I'll give you mine.'

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood -- his own!

'Rags! Rags! I take old rags!' cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more to hurry.

'Are you going to work?' he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head. The Ragman pressed him: 'Do you have a job?"

'Are you crazy?' sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket -- flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

'So,' said the Ragman. 'Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine.'

So much quiet authority in his voice!

The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman -- and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on, he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

'Go to work,' he said.

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible speed. On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I need to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman -- he came to a landfill. He came to the garbage pits. And I waited to help him in what he did but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he signed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.

Oh how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope -- because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know -- how could I know? -- that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.

Light -- pure, hard, demanding light -- slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow or age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him.

Then he handed me new clothes. Shining and new.  My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

Let me draw three lessons about kindness out of this story.

The center of kindness is personal relationship that never gives up on anyone. God’s kindness is not an abstract idea. It is not a theory. It is not an emotion.  God’s kindness is grounded in God’s personal investment in the lives of God’s people. And God’s kindness never gives up.

So, bearing the fruit of the spirit that is kindness starts with a purposeful, persistent, personal relationship with the other person. Kindness never gives up.

Not on a woman sitting with her arms and legs in a pathetic “x,” not on the girl with the bleeding head, not the man with only one arm, not the drunk, not you and not me.

No one is too far gone for gods kindness. We are likewise called to never consider anyone beyond the reach of the church’s kindness.

Second, we see that God’s loving-kindness is not limited to God’s favorite people.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back . . . because [God] is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” [2]Jesus doesn’t tell us to love our friends and treat them nicely. He says love your enemies and do good to them! Why? Because that is the nature of God’s lovingkindness. No one is shut out of God’s kingdom. God is kind to the ungrateful. God is kind to the wicked. God is even kind to those who have strayed off like a lost lamb… God’s kindness never shuts anyone out.

Kindness doesn’t shut out the immigrant, the poor family around the corner, the addict, the mentally ill person, the abuser, the convict or ex con or anyone else.  God’s kindness and therefore the kindness we bear as a fruit of God’s Spirit is a kindness that believes no one is too far gone.  No one is unlovable.  No one should be excluded from the kindness of the church’s ministry.

First Kindness never gives up. Second kind ness never shuts anyone out…

            Finally, Kindness makes a difference. By that I don’t mean kindness can change things… although it can… but I mean if you want to be kind, you have to be willing to change things.

The rag man took the tears, the wound, the disability, the affliction on himself… freeing those people. Kindness is not just feeling sorry for them, it is doing something about it… it means change.  Sometimes it is social structures. Sometimes it is economic or housing, or employment, or relationships. Kindness might be giving a bottle of cold water, insulating an old house, building a ramp, offering some money, or a better a job, giving a warm- or cool- place to rest, or a ride to the nearest shelter.

 or … or… most difficult of all… sometimes the greatest kindness is to change ourselves.  Change our biases, our prejudices, our assumptions, or our behavior. 

Kindness is not a feeling, it is not an emotion, it is not an idea… kindness is action.  Webster's definition of kindness as a noun is incorrect. The way I see it, Kindness is a Verb. It's an action. You have to do something in order to incite an uprising of kindness.

The fruit of the Spirit is kindness that never gives up.

The fruit of the spirit is kindness that never shuts anyone out. 

The fruit of the spirit of kindness that changes things.

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[1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/kind

[2] Luke 6:35 (NIV)