I sat in the spa pool with Campbell on the Saturday night, one week before I was to give the Sunday morning sermon. He was to speak the next day and was thrashing around his final thoughts. His sermon was on Loving the World with Patience, mine, Loving the World with Kindness. It seemed the two crossed over – the thoughts, scripture passages and ideas that he was to share were the same as I had been preparing.
I’d have to change my message. Still, he was the seasoned preacher and I not so, and so as is true in much of our relationship, he supported me and tapered his message differently. Like I said in my introduction on the morning of my sermon jokingly, but with a big measure of truth, “we have this way of sorting things out in our marriage. I want it. He lets me have it. End of story.”
If anyone has been following me on Facebook, they would have seen my personal bio. It reads like a conversation between two young friends,
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Kind!” said the girl.
I want to be kind. It is perhaps my greatest desired value in life – to be kind. But that’s not me – yet. Too many times an unkind word comes out of my mouth, or I have unkind thoughts towards someone, or I hold back from kindness. But it is what I long to be. I long to be kind.
And as I was preparing my sermon, I discovered personal challenges around being kind that I needed to explore and give attention to.
Challenge #1 – Why do I want to be kind?
This lead me to question, what is kindness and why does kindness matter?
Campbell had coined this phrase as a summary for the Loving the World series we were in at church, “When my thoughts, feelings and actions come together for the good of another, love is expressed!” I liked that. Kindness was the expression, the doing, the action, of love – for the good of another.
In the dictionary, kindness is defined as tenderness, sympathy, goodness, gentleness, tolerance, understanding, courtesy, decency, patience, benevolence, hospitality, affection, graciousness, generosity – noun after noun that had at their root, the willingness of a person to do good for another.
But why does kindness matter? The antonyms of kindness are a clear reason – meanness, cruelty, hatred, hostility, indecency, indifference, intolerance, mercilessness, selfishness, harshness and thoughtlessness. What ugly words these are. They are the opposite of wanting to do good for another; selfish, horrible words at their root.
- Titus 3:3-5 says, “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy”.
I had been in the supermarket. I learn a lot of life lessons in the supermarket. It was full of shoppers, and the queues were long. There was nothing to do, but to pick a queue and join the wait. The checkout directly next door opened up and people were invited to merge into it. An argument broke out where the two people in front of me spat out their accusations and ugly words at each other over whose right it was to have been first to move to the newly opened checkout. I had never heard so much viciousness in a public place. It was like they each had a set of darts and was throwing them at each other. It was a case where security should have been brought in, and was definitely one of those awkward times where you didn’t know what to do. It was resolved, but only because the front person paid for their groceries and left the store.
It matters to God the way we treat others! God created us for loving, harmonious, relationships with Himself and with others, but instead we have this: I hurt you, you hurt me, I hurt someone else, they hurt the next person. We have all been on the receiving end of pain from meanness, and we have all inflicted it! What the Titus passage tells me is that kindness is the means by which God is saving the world. Eternally, yes, but also right now!!! – by renewing the nature within us with its propensity towards malice, envy, hatred, hostility, meanness.
- Romans 2:4 says, “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?”
Kindness is the means by which God is saving the world. Kindness initiates repentance. Repentance is a change in the way we think, act, or feel, it’s about our attitude. And it’s the ability we have as humans having been created in the image of God, to exercise moral reasoning. When somebody does something towards us, acts in a mean and unkind way, we have a choice. We can return the same unkindness or we can exercise our moral reasoning, and say, “no, I’m not going to be like that. I am going to return this unkindness with kindness”. The other person then has a choice also. Maybe the kindness shown will in turn make them stop to think and decide in the future to be kind in the face of unkindness.
When anyone shows kindness to another person– whether a person of faith or not, whether in Jesus name or not – it can initiate change in their life because kindness does something to the heart and mind of a person. Kindness can help people change towards each other: If I’m kind to someone, they may do the same to another… Kindness is that powerful!
Kindness matters.
Challenge #2 who am I kind to?
There is a verse that says God delights in kindness, and with this in mind I get a sense of this in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. If He delights in kindness, I can imagine correctly that this sermon is said with excitement and joy, with heightened emotion and passion, perhaps like a sports fan that has just seen their team win. And so we should read it that way. Getting my imagination in place, I read on.
- Luke 6:27-38
But to you who are listening. I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. 32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 BUT love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. 38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
Then, after this excited outpouring of what kindness looks like, He then models it over the too few years ahead of him –
Firstly, with his choice of disciples. He didn’t pick who we may have to follow him. They are men of no social status, and some with bad reputation. Peter, Andrew, James, John – were fishermen “just men from Galilee” not known for status or title or any importance, uneducated other than in fishing. Matthew, a tax collector! He was a Jew taking money from other Jews to give as taxes to the Romans, lining his own pockets as he did so. They were despised among the Jewish people. Simon, the “Zealot”, of the Jewish nationalistic party. He was a political extremist, someone whose politics were not the same as Jesus’ politics. Judas Iscariot – Iscariot, a title rather than his family name, suggesting he belonged to the Sicarii, the most radical Jewish group, murderers and assassins, many of whom were terrorists.
Then, as He enters His wider ministry, we see an ever-increasing circle of love and kindness shown, including the inclusion of:
Sinners. Sinners is a term that almost surely expressed general social disapproval…people who habitually behaved in immoral ways, or in ways that contradicted widely shared religious observance. The Rich, like Mary Magdala thought to be a woman of wealth who supported Jesus and his disciples financially. The Poor, and hungry. Prostitutes, like the woman who anointed Jesus with perfume. Women, who had no social rights, and no voice, like Mary of Bethany who sat at the feet of Jesus. Children, typically to be seen and not heard and yet he said, “Let the little children come to me…” Demon possessed, sick, disabled and diseased. Including the leprous: those who had to live outside of the town and shout the words “unclean” so that passersby knew to take a wide berth. When was the last time someone had touched them, or stopped to talk with them – as Jesus did? People with bad reputation like the woman caught in adultery. Foreigners like the Samaritan Woman to whom he goes out of his way to have conversation with, and tells her the gospel. Social outcasts like Zaccheaus. Criminals, including a thief on the cross. People of other religions like, the Greek woman who begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. Greeks believed in many gods, she was of a different religion to Jesus. This did not matter to him.
Jesus had an ever-increasing circle of people to whom he shows kindness and inclusion to – he eats with them at their places, invites them to where he is, touches them, has important conversations with them, cares for them, includes them.
His kindness extends further still …
To his enemies. An enemy, the greek word being, exthrós is someone openly hostile, acting out of deep-seated hatred. Someone with whom there was irreconcilable differences, someone with a “personal” hatred bent on inflicting harm, like, the Pharisees and Religious Leaders. Yet we see Jesus welcome the likes of Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea. The Romans. Centurions followed him, and he was all good with that.
What we see in Jesus is love, expressed in kindness that is inclusive, diverse, and non-discriminatory. He doesn’t have an in-group that he is kind to and an out group that are outside of his kindness. He isn’t just kind to those who are the same social group or faith as His is. He reaches out to those that no others would because of poverty, disease or reputation. His circle encompasses all.
All of this made me realize, I am so often guilty of being kind only to those who are kind to me, those who I like, who I get on with. I have been selective with my kindness, when it suits me, or to those who have not wronged me, and I have often excluded all those who don’t fit into my nice categories, who don’t share my beliefs and way of living. I had an in-group and an out-group. What credit to me is it if I only show kindness to those who are in my own little group? – Jesus says, even the wicked do this!
The challenge is who am I kind to?
Challenge #3 does my kindness look like God’s kindness?
What is God’s kindness like?
- Jeremiah 31:3 It is unfailing
I remember one year tying $5 notes onto a string for my son’s birthday. He had to follow the string, rolling it up, and as he did so, collect the money. I imagine $kindness notes being on a long string that never ends.
- Ephesians 1:7 It is rich and luxurious
I think of a bath. Deep and warm on a cool night. Filled to the brim with floating candles and rose petals. And as I sink into it, I am surrounded by its luxury.
- And in Jeremiah 9:24, “but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
God exercises kindness (actively kind) and delights in it (gets excited about it)!
In a TED talk that I listened to, George Saunders said, “What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there in front of me suffering and I responded sensibly, reservedly, mildly.”
Is my kindness like God’s, or is it sensible, reserved and mild?
Right now, as I write this, there is this person in our life. I hesitate to call them friend because of the tense issue between us, they feel more like an enemy. I am so angry. I have been stressed, have lost sleep, and am just really angry about the injustice of it and the dishonouring of our character to treat us this way. The trouble is, they feel the same back towards us. They owe us money. When we outlined what was owed, the response back was that they saw it in terms of repayment for favours shown. That they’d been so generous to us that this debt be waved in lieu of that. From our point of view, we had been generous to them when they were in a really low and difficult time. And if it were favours for favours, we would not be lacking – though I’m sure they would think otherwise. It felt like an impasse. Some of the debt was for work done, for events attended but not paid for, for product borrowed and not repaid. What were we to do? We do not like to let conflict ruin relationships, and were prepared to do the hard conversations to make things right. I put myself in their shoes and saw myself as in the right. And in my shoes, the same, I was right. And I had the right to be paid. I’m working on this blog post on kindness. Oh God, I wish I weren’t! I hate it because I know I will give in to God, and I just don’t want to today. God delights in kindness and sometimes kindness is shown through generosity, forgiveness, and not letting money be God. But I felt like I was being walked over. If we forgave the debt, they would think, “good, see I was right” and there would be no appreciation of the debt waved. But did it matter what they thought? Or did it just matter what God thought? Was I using kindness, begrudgingly, by entertaining this idea of forgiving the debt as an easy way out of conflict avoidance, but where I would always be a grudge holder, never really letting it go, bringing it up again the next time something went down? I imagined God, feeling really excited about waving the debt. Delighted to do so. I could imagine Him jumping out of bed in the morning eager to do this kind thing. But I know people, I knew it wouldn’t be appreciated in the same eager way, as His delight is. I thought about a reserved, sensible, held back kind of kindness – but “Oh God, its money, and we need it!” We have bills to pay. We are at this person’s mercy. The bank is being difficult. And I am proud, I don’t want to be under anyone’s control or face the humiliation of not being about to pay our debts. I thought of this person’s character – the many good things I know of them. And all I could conclude was that they must be in financial trouble because it didn’t make sense. But I don’t know that. I feel like they just don’t care about us, and our situation. I don’t know that either. It’s just how it feels. We always have to ask, money owed is never offered. I heard today that there are many more drawers to open in the cabinet of someone’s life and we just don’t have all the understanding of why people do things. I don’t even know the outcome yet. Some of the debt we will definitely ask to have paid. If the total were paid, we would meet our debts, but I know we wont ask for it all back. And right now, I’m mad about that. Why is it always us that has to give in? I guess its true to say, my kindness is begrudging, angry, resentful, held back, kindness. Yet, do I dare to test the words of Jesus? “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”. If I gave with this kind of measure, if I were kind and forgave the debt, would the same measure be given to me – sometime, maybe in the future somehow? Or would I just begrudgingly have to wait for it in the Kingdom of Heaven? But would it be worth testing out?
How do I be kind like He is kind?
The fruit of the Spirit is kindness, it tells us in Galatians. True kindness within me is when I give God permission, and allow him to do something deep in me, where who I am, my being, becomes kindness. But I’m not always ready or willing to give Him permission.
There’s this thing I do that I hate. I can be angry in a kind way. Let me explain.
We had this 16-year-old boy living with us. He was a friend of our son and things weren’t good at home, so he came to us. He needed a phone and plan but was unable to because of his age. We agreed to become his guarantor. The phone contract would be under my name, he would pay all the costs, and the use of it would be solely his. It was a plan that extended over 2 years, paying a certain amount each month. When he turned 18 years old, he was able to take on the contract for himself. We just had to go into the local phone provider store to change the details over into his name. As he was working full time, he had to take time off work in order to be able to get to the store within their open hours. We went together. What became obvious was that there was an error on their records, which showed that my eldest son was the owner of our account, and we required his permission to do the change over. I was the actual account holder, but somehow a mistake had been made and no matter what way we tried to get around this, it kept coming back to needing my son’s permission. I was frustrated and angry. How had this happened? I received and paid the monthly accounts, not my son. It was my account, not his. They had somehow made the mistake of having his name as the holder and signatory. I could do nothing. I found myself doing this thing I do – being angry in a ‘kind’ way and said to the young girl who was assisting us, “its your fault. Something has happened and now I am unable to access my account”. (I said it ‘nicely’ but with a very pointed undertone). I saw her take a step back. I saw her prepare herself for an interaction with a difficult customer, and at that point, I realized I had done this thing I do, again. I backed off pretty quickly, changed my tone. She replied, “It is not my fault personally …” and though I was still very frustrated, I admitted defeat with their policy and we walked away to try and resolve the issue another way. When I was in my car alone, driving home, I felt so disappointed and upset with myself. I had been someone who the customer service girl would go home and describe as “I had this difficult customer today …” I would’ve made her day hard. It was not her fault, but she was made to feel that way. I prayed to God telling Him I didn’t want to be that person, that I wanted to be kind and asked Him to forgive me. To help me be kind as He is kind, compassionate as He is compassionate, to forgive just as He forgives me (Ephesians 4:32). To love as the Lord loves (Hosea 3:1). To be merciful as He is merciful (Luke 6:36). The good thing is, that with His Spirit’s help I can re-set, re-focus, re-adjust my mind, my actions and my will back into kindness as many times as I need to.
Does my kindness look like God’s kindness?
Challenge #4 is my kindness sincere? Or am I a kindness professional?
This for me was my biggest challenge.
- In Romans 12:9 it says, “Love must be sincere”, and in 2 Timothy 2:24 “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone”.
I was talking with my son who had shifted to study in a new city. He was telling me about the Life Group he was attending that was part of a church. He described two of the core leaders. One was the girl whose home the group met at each week. The other was the leader who was responsible back to the church. The first, he described as very friendly, very kind, very generous. The second, he said was also friendly, kind, and generous, but it felt different – like it was required of him to be that way. That it was his job. We had at the time been pastoring for about 27 years. I had learned to be kind. Of course I wanted to be, there’s no doubt about that, but I had learned it as part of our job. It was a big challenge to me to realize that much of my kindness was part and parcel of our job description. We were paid to be kind.
Is my kindness sincere or just part of my job description of being a Christian?
Challenge #5 what are my limits to kindness?
There are debates on do we do kindness right or not? Books written about are we helping or hurting someone with our acts of kindness? I don’t really want to get into that kind of debate. Here’s why.
I was in the supermarket again! Ahead of me were two high school boys in their uniforms, buying potting mix. I immediately and within a short space of time, processed the situation this way – a few weeks earlier I had been at one of my son’s parent/teacher interviews. We had walked around the school to each of his classes to talk with his teachers. In one area of the school, we walked passed these beautiful pod gardens. It was in the agriculture studies area of the school, and the students got to learn about plants, and grow them. I loved it! So I’m in the supermarket and I recall the pod gardens and think to myself that these boys ahead of me in the queue must be buying potting mix to do some extra homework. Perhaps grow some vegetables at home, or whatever. They were short of a couple of dollars and I thought that this was something that I could help with. I could be kind. I’d be generous and pay the amount they were short. So I did. They responded with “thanks Miss”, but the cashier looked at me in a strange way. I figured she just wasn’t used to people randomly paying for other’s groceries. That night, we were sharing stuff at the dinner table. I shared my day – and what had happened at the supermarket. My family broke into fits of laughter. That kind of rolling around the floor laughter! Tears streaming down their faces, kind of laughter. I asked, “Whaaaaat? What are you laughing at?” and then came the realization. Something they knew about but something I was very naïve to. The boys were buying potting mix to grow marijuana. And I had helped them!
At the time we had an older guy staying with us. He had had a very broken upbringing and life. He had been in the gangs where drugs and violence were a big part. He too had been in fits of laughter over my story and my naivety. But when the laughter died down, he said,
“but they’ll remember it though. No one is kind in their world!”
There was nothing I could do. I’d paid for the potting mix. I’d enabled the boys to grow marijuana. But our friend’s words impacted me, “they’ll remember it though. No one is kind in their world”. I prayed for them.
My story made me realize this – I would rather have been kind, even if in a naïve kind of way, than hold back kindness. I would rather be kind even if the receiver thinks they have gotten one over on me, than to live a life that analyzes every situation to see if it is worthy of my kindness. The fact that I was able to be kind to a couple of young boys that day, in whose world there might never be kindness shown, now seems more important to me than what they were going to use the potting mix for. I possibly enabled marijuana to meet a physical addiction, but it is also likely that I had spoken to the heart through kindness shown. I’m pretty sure God wanted me to know this. Several weeks later, I was reading and thought on the boys. It was like Graciousness washed over me. God wanted me to know this.
I read again Titus 3:3-5 this way –
- “At one time we too (the boys in the store) were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures (marijuana). We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another (no one shows kindness in their world).But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, (perhaps through a naïve person like me) he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (who knows what God will do?)”
The challenges are all very real. But what they teach me is that –
Kindness is powerful!
It matters to God how we treat each other!
It matters who we are kind to!
It matters that our kindness is sincere!
Why would I have limits to kindness, when God does not to me?
And, should not my kindness look like God’s kindness?
Because the thing is, when I grow up, I want to be kind.