Be
kind. That seems so easy, doesn’t
it? Be kind. Be nice.
Treat other people the way we would like to be treated. It seems really easy. I am sure we all can imagine how wonderful
the world would be if everyone would just be kind to each other. If we all were kind, things would just be so
much better!
If
it is so easy to be kind, why do we have to be continually reminded about
it? Why do we have to have people tell
us to be nice? I hear mothers telling
their kids, “Now be nice!” Shouldn’t it
just be something that we do? It SHOULD
be, but obviously it is not. We can look
at the big things like the murders in the Sikh church last Sunday and know that
people are not being kind to each other.
We can look at the theater in Aurora and know that people are not being kind to each
other. We can look at these big things
and KNOW that people are not being kind.
But
these are the big things, right? And
these are people who are probably not quite hitting on all cylinders,
right? Yes, these are fringe people, but
to attribute all the unkindness in the world to the fringe people is to stick
our head in the sand and ignore the problem.
Be
kind. Our epistle reading gives us this
command. I generally don’t like the word
command, but I will use it here. We are
commanded to “be kind,” period. This is
not, “be kind to people who are kind to you.”
It is not, “be kind to your friends but forget about everyone
else.” It is not, “be kind to the people
who look like us, act like us, and believe like us.” It is a simple, direct, command: “Be kind.”
And, you know, we really seem to have a hard time with it.
Now,
this is not to get down on our world, our epistle reading comes from 2000 years
ago. People have been having difficulty
with this whole “kind” thing since before then.
You would think we would have it figured out by now, but we don’t. We keep walking about through life missing
all sorts of opportunities to be kind. I
would say that, quite often, we do not even intend to be unkind; it just sort
of happens. We get caught up in the
routine of life and the next thing we know, we find ourselves being rude and
pushy.
One
thing we need to remember is that kindness is not just some kind of knee-jerk
reaction. Kindness is not something that
we do innately, it is something that we must work on. Kindness means moving outside of ourselves
and looking around at those who inhabit this world with us. Kindness means that we move beyond our unthinking
reactions and taking time to RESPOND to the situation. Kindness means that we stop and consider the
needs and wants of others along with the needs and wants of ourselves.
In
the epistle, we are told to be kind, tender hearted, forgiving. I see these things as removing the stumbling
blocks from the path of those around us.
When we see someone struggling through life, we are called to help
remove those things that are getting in the way. We will not be able to remove all the
stumbling blocks, but maybe we can remove some.
Tenderhearted means that we are to empathize with the other person and
find a way to give them rest. It seems
as if society keeps looking for ways to put more roadblocks in peoples’ way
instead of looking for ways to decrease the roadblocks. We seem to look for ways of getting more for
ourselves instead of looking at ways we can assure enough for everyone. Keeping the best part for ourselves my be
totally human, but it is not what is required of us as Christians.
Some
may consider what I am saying to be some kind of liberal communism, maybe it
is. But I find it sad that people will
weep over the death of a dog and turn around and scream that a starving person
is “getting what he deserves.” Where is
the kindness in that? Or when people say
that the poor and homeless are lazy; we never take the time to look at how we
may have deprived these people of a chance to thrive.
We
really need to thank God that God does not judge us by our sins. We need to thank God that God, for the sake
of Christ, HAS forgiven us and continues to forgive us. We have been forgiven in our baptism and that
forgiveness continues through our lives.
Now, just because we have received this forgiveness does not mean that
we never sin. Just a quick question to
prove this: How many of us would like to have people from church go through our
house, our bank accounts, or our computer files? See,
we all fall short; it is just the way of life.
We are not as loving as we could be.
We are not as kind as we could be.
We are not the perfect people we would like to project to the world. But even thought we are not perfect, we are
still forgiven, and that is what we need to remember.
This
forgiveness that we find in Jesus is the basis of our desire to be kind. Even in the face of evil, we are called to be
kind. Even in the face of nasty drivers
who we have to wonder if they even passed the driver’s test. (Because, of course, I am the BEST driver
EVER!) We are called to be kind. In the presence of those that have hurt us,
we are called to forgiveness and to be kind.
To all people, to one another, we are to put away “all bitterness and wrath and anger and
wrangling and slander, together with all malice,” and be kind.
What makes me sad is when
I look at the world today, I have a hard time finding kindness. I find lots of fear. I find lots of hatred. I find a lot of people doing all kinds of
verbal gymnastics trying to dress up evil as kindness. I find people getting angry when their lack
of kindness is exposed. I find people
segregating themselves into smaller and smaller groups. I find so many people looking at “them” and
responding with fear. Maybe it is unkind
of me to say anything about what I see around me, but I find it difficult to
keep quiet.
Wow, who would have
thought that something as seemingly simple as “be kind” could be so difficult?
So how do we make a
change? How can we turn the tide of fear
and hatred that we see throughout the world?
It seems so big!
I had someone say to me,
“If you can’t fit it into a wheelbarrow then you need to shrink it down.” So taking on all the extremists would be just
too big. But we all can do smaller
things. We can smile at the
cashier. We can thank the grocery
bagger. We can be patient if the lines
are long. We can let someone merge onto
the highway. We can stand so someone may
have a seat. None of these things cost
us anything! (And as someone who has
worked with the public, a kind, smiling, face can make the whole day
better.) We might choose to not pass on
that snide Facebook post. We can be
compassionate to the plight of others.
We can assume that people are trying to do their best, just as we are
trying to do our best. (Why do we assume
that others are slackers?) It is NOT
hard! However, it does take presence of
mind and involves responding as opposed to reacting.
We can forgive. I think this is one of the hardest things to
do and could be a whole sermon unto itself.
We can present our feelings of hurt and being wronged to God and ask God
to heal them. We can realize that the
people we strike out against are often not the ones who hurt us. The man in Wisconsin may have felt that he was hurt by Sikhs, but even if he was,
it is more than likely that he was not hurt by the particular group of Sikhs
that he attacked.
Hate and fear create more
hate and fear. It is when we RESPOND in
kindness instead of REACTING in fear that things begin to change.
Now, this could end up
sounding like some kind of new-agey, self-help thing unless we remember what
Christ tells us in the gospel reading.
Christ is the bread of life, and it is through this bread, through this
promise that we are give the strength to persevere.
