(Life on the vine: Self-control) Which Self? Whose Control?

Life on the vine: Cultivating self-control in the midst of addictions
Mark 8:34-36

Something looks different about this last fruit of the Spirit.
The first eight fruit pointed outward.
They were about laying down self,
living our lives oriented toward God,
so that God’s Spirit might produce the fruit in us
for the blessing of others.
Love, patience, kindness, goodness—all for the good of others.
Now, with this fruit at the end of the list, self-control,
it looks like we’re back-pedaling, focusing on the self.
Trying to achieve self-mastery.
Is Paul trying to tell us that in every other Christian virtue
we yield ourselves to God and to others,
we let go of the self, pour out ourselves in love?
But when it comes to controlling passions and desires,
we simply have to let the self take charge,
and by sheer determination, let the self control itself?

Well, in Paul’s world, what did “self-control” mean?
For just half-a-minute, let’s dip into the world of Greek philosophy.
Socrates lived long before Paul and Jesus both.
He and his Greek philosopher buddies
talked a lot about self-control.
The Greek word was engkrateia.
They believed self-control was the foundation of all other virtues.
To learn any virtue at all,
we had to bring our passions and desires under control.
So the first virtue was engkrateia—self-control.
But Plato saw a curious paradox in this word.
Who is the self being controlled? he asked.
Who is the self doing the controlling?
How can you be your own master and your own slave...
at the same time?
The way Plato answered the riddle,
was that we have a noble self, and a less than noble self.
The noble self is our rationality, our reason.
The less noble self is our passions and desires.
So self-control is the discipline of making sure
our rational self overrules our passionate self.
Engkrateia.

And this is the word Paul uses as a fruit of the Spirit.
But a Jewish perspective would answer Plato’s riddle differently.
Hebrew thought was more holistic.
They believed a loving God created us as whole beings—
mind, body, spirit, emotions.
And God called this whole creation very good,
including our passions and desires.
God didn’t create us with a good part and a bad part,
so that the good part has to control the bad part.
We were created in the very image of God.
And we were created for the good pleasure of God our Creator.
But sin distorted that divine image.
The self became dis-ordered,
started serving itself, instead of God,
acting for its own pleasure, instead of God’s pleasure.
So the problem is not that we have passions that are at work.
It’s that our passions got disoriented, corrupted by sin.

Self-control is not our self taking control of the self,
for the sake of the self.
Self-control is yielding our self to the control of our Creator
to reorient our passions, our desires, our mind, our whole being.
It is getting the whole self reoriented toward the pleasure of God,
instead of self.
And like every other fruit,
that’s not something we do by sheer determination.
It’s something we are given
when we let go and yield ourselves to God the gardener.
It turns out this last fruit is just like the rest of them, in that regard.
We don’t grow the fruit, as I reminded the children.
We create the conditions for God to grow the fruit.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
But this is all talking in generalities.
Let’s get specific.
We live in a particular culture here in North America,
where self-control is a complicated matter.
We live in a culture of excess, and a culture of addictions.
Some addictions are obviously life-threatening,
like alcohol, drugs, sex, or food.
Other addictions we laugh about, and readily admit to,
like video games, chocolate, or Su-doh-ku.

Getting free from real addictions is complicated, difficult,
and sometimes...agonizingly painful.
It’s not as simple as saying a little prayer and it’s done.
It might take a lifetime of hard work and treatment,
along with prayer and a strong community.
And that could be a sermon in itself.

But what I invite us to think about together for these few minutes
is how our culture,
and the choices we make within that culture,
encourage us toward excess and toward addiction,
and prevent the growth of this fruit of the Spirit
we call self-control.
This might sound like a broken record,
because it’s come up in almost every one of these nine fruits,
but our culture is often toxic,
when it comes to growing the fruit of the Spirit.
We can fertilize all we want
with whatever spiritual nutrients we have,
but if we ignore the toxic soil
it will be a losing battle.
We cannot grow to spiritual maturity and bear this fruit,
without asking serious questions
about how we live in this culture.

So let me ask a few questions about our culture,
assuming we want to cultivate the fruit of self-control.

First, how do we live in a culture where
personal, individual happiness is the highest ideal?
And where we have complete freedom to determine for ourselves
what happiness consists of.
And most of time, that’s feelings of pleasure.
Our culture tells us to pursue whatever gives us pleasure.
You insert that kind of value into a culture that also idolizes
autonomy—individual freedom from restraint—
and you have a culture that encourages excess.
You have a cultural breeding ground for addictions of all kinds.
If a little bit of something brings me pleasure,
then a little more will bring even more pleasure.
And why shouldn’t I experience more pleasure?
I reckon a lot of people have never stopped to ask the question.
And so we battle away at our many addictions.

Secondly, how do we live in a culture that worships independence?
We practically bow down to anyone who can achieve greatness,
and seemingly do it all by themselves.
We idealize “self-made” persons—
ones who by their very own blood, sweat, and tears,
were able to pull it off.
Dependent people are weak people in our culture.
To say “I can’t do this by myself,”
is practically to admit defeat.

Now you might think that a culture that encourages
independence and self-sufficiency,
would actually help cultivate self-control.
Maybe, if self-control is about letting the self take charge
and control itself for the sake of the self.
But if self-control is about reorienting our created selves
around the intentions of our Creator,
then that’s a different story.
Just saying we have a Creator,
is admitting we’re not self-sufficient,
that we depend on someone beyond ourselves.
Christians ought to be pretty good at that,
seeing how our theology is centered around our need for grace.
But I’m afraid sometimes our culture trumps our theology.

We could take a few lessons from the 12-step programs, like AA.
And 12-step programs abound, in this culture of addictions.
But the first three steps in these programs are all about not
being independent.
First step is admitting I am powerless over my addiction,
that I can’t manage my life anymore.
Second step is admitting my need for a Power
greater than myself.
Third step is deciding to turn over my will and my life
to the care of God.
That’s pretty good theology,
and a good way to cultivate the fruit of the Spirit.
But it’s not the way of our culture.

Third question, in relation to culture.
I had to ponder this for a while,
when I read it in Philip Kenneson’s book Life on the Vine.
He suggested another obstacle to cultivating self-control,
is our emphasis on “moderation in all things.”
Wouldn’t that actually be a definition of self-control?
Moderation?

But Kenneson asks,
“How is this to be applied to the Christian life?”
Is the Christian life all about finding a good balance,
and avoiding fanaticism?
Is the Sermon on the Mount a call to live a “balanced life?”
Or is it a call to a radical life that goes against the norm?
Kenneson wonders whether we have become addicted to balance
in this culture,
and therefore to mediocrity and lukewarmness.
Self-control is about yielding the whole self to its Creator,
about re-orienting the self entirely toward God and neighbor.
If we take seriously the ethical demands of the cross,
“balance” and “moderation” aren’t the first words
that come to mind.

Jesus did not tell his disciples to “moderate” their selfish drives.
He told them to die to self,
to take up their cross, and follow,
leaving all their personal securities behind.
That was our Gospel reading this morning—
our “Good News” reading.
“Lose your life for my sake,” Jesus said,
“in order to save it.”
Jesus told the rich man who wanted to find the kingdom,
to sell everything, give the money to the poor, and then follow.
Doesn’t sound to me like “moderation in all things.”

Kenneson suggests that the tragedy in our lives
is that we are prone to excess in those things
where moderation is needed,
and we are prone to moderation in those areas
that need our passionate and all-out commitment.
Our culture admires fanaticism when it comes to sports.
During the last few weeks, how many times have you heard
the Major League Baseball slogan,
“I live for this!”
It’s just fine to order our lives around baseball, or soccer, or football,
or you name it.
But try ordering your life
around the radical ethical demands of the reign of God,
and in this culture, you’ll likely be scorned as a fanatic.
Even other Christians are likely to dismiss you.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
Well, our culture may not be very supportive of us
as we cultivate the fruit of the Spirit of self-control,
this radical yieldedness of the self to God and neighbor.
So how should we go about cultivating this fruit?

Kenneson’s first strategy is the same as with the other eight fruits.
We gather...together...to worship.
That is one of the most effective ways to counteract the toxicity
that we often find in our culture.
It’s a way to say,
“No, that’s not the pattern that is going to shape my life.
I belong to the people of God.”

We all have a tendency to turn inward,
to focus on our small self and our narrow desires.
Good worship reorients us.
It redirects our attention.
It draws us from ourselves and into God.
Good worship draws us into the grand story of “God with us.”
And by “good worship” I don’t mean a good production.
I don’t mean flawless music performances and seamless transitions
and dramatic presentations.
Although, they might be part of it.
I mean...worship that draws everyone in,
and gives them all the tools they need to fully participate
in this collective offering of ourselves to God.

Good worship reminds of why we exist,
why our self was created.
And why was that, you might ask?
In the words of the Westminster Catechism,
“to glorify God and enjoy God forever.”
We were created to worship, serve, and please God.
We are who we are, in order to give God pleasure.
And since we were created for worship,
good worship will also bring us pleasure—
not the shallow pleasure of getting our personal desires satisfied,
but the deep, profound pleasure of living out our true identity,
of being at home and at peace with our Creator.

So worship re-orders and re-orients our desires.
Someone who is trapped in addiction,
suffers from dis-ordered desires.
Perhaps part of the path to freedom from addiction,
is engaging with God’s people in the act of worship.

This is not at all to say that in worship
we leave our passions and desires behind.
Some of the 16th-century reformers, including the Anabaptists,
got part of it wrong when they were trying to reform the church.
They stripped worship spaces of nearly all the art,
the symbolic, tangible, and sensory elements of worship.
They were right to bring the preaching of the Word
back into a place of prominence.
But they went overboard, I’m afraid,
when they essentially invited the mind to worship,
but they dis-invited their bodies.
They left little space for physical and sensory
participation in worship.
Some of them even prohibited singing.
Maybe they thought worshiping only with their heads
would keep their passions in check,
would aid in self-control.

But worship is not about squelching our passions.
It’s about redirecting our passions.
It’s about ensuring that our passions and desires
are oriented toward God, and toward the reign of God,
and not toward the narrow, self-serving pleasures
that our culture finds so captivating.
Believe it or not, passion and self-control can happily co-exist,
when those passions are oriented in the right way.

Self-control is not about denying ourselves pleasure.
It’s about finding deeper pleasure,
by being formed in Christ,
by living our God-given humanity to the fullest.

God knows, we need the fruit of self-control in our lives,
in the church,
in the culture we inhabit.
But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we can control ourselves
by ourselves.
We experience self-control as we yield ourselves—
mind, body, spirit, emotions—
to the God who created us.
So let us offer our whole beings to God.
And let us do so right now, in song.

—Phil Kniss, October 29, 2006

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(Life on the Vine: Goodness) Why Christians Need Heroes

Life on the Vine: Cultivating goodness in the midst of self-help
Mark 10:17-27; 2 Peter 1:3-8

Somewhere along the line, I developed a knee-jerk suspicion of heroes.
Maybe it was my Mennonite upbringing.
We were proud of our humility.
We made sure not to make heroes out of any of us.
If one of us got too uppity, we had ways of taking care of that.
For my mom, it was quoting Proverbs:
“Now, Philip! Pride goeth before destruction!”
Besides, as children of God, we’re all on the same level,
equally susceptible to sin,
equally capable of being good.

Of course, we told stories of good and faithful people—
Felix Manz, Dirk Willems, Mother Theresa, Corrie Ten Boom.
Or our own relatives—many times our family told stories
about Grandpa Lloy Kniss, a C.O. in World War I,
who suffered ridicule and beatings for refusing to fight.
But these stories were told mainly to teach us a moral lesson.
Be kind. Be honest. Have courage. Make peace.
When you face a situation like that, do like they did.
But never did we make saints of these persons,
or make them to be the image of goodness.
We said there was only one worth imitating, Jesus himself.
To go beyond that was idolatry.

We had good reasons for this.
If we elevate one of our own, put them on a pedestal,
we are tempting them with the sin of pride.
Furthermore, there is real danger in making super-heroes
of exemplary Christians.
If their faithful deeds were super-human,
then we’re off the hook.
Because we’re just ordinary.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
But this morning, I’m asking us to reconsider.
For cultivating the fruit of the Spirit called “goodness,”
I’m suggesting Christians need heroes.
Even us Mennonites.
Not comic-book-style Super-Menno’s.
No, just exemplary disciples of Jesus,
people who can become exemplars for us,
mentors, models.
Someone to point to and say,
“Ah, follow Christ that way, and not this other way.”

Philip Kenneson, author of the book Life on the Vine,
identifies several obstacles we face in cultivating goodness.
One of them he says, is that our Western culture
has democratized goodness.
We have given up on the notion that goodness has its source
in some authority beyond ourselves.

He gives an illustration.
Since the goodness of something
depends on what we believe about its purpose,
if I say, “This is a good watch,”
it’s obvious what I mean, because its purpose is clear.
It’s good, because it tells time accurately.
But if I say, “This is a good car,”
I could mean different things,
depending what I determine is the purpose of my car.
I might mean it does a good job getting me to work.
I might mean it’s one of the fastest cars on the track.
I might mean it’s could win first place at an antique car show.
And if I say, “This is a good human being,”
then it’s anyone’s guess what I mean,
because there are so many different understandings
of the purpose of being human.
In modern Western culture, we have decided
the purpose of human existence is a private, individual matter.
And we all have different ideas about the purpose of being human,
so we’ll never agree on what make a “good” human being.

Thus, we have democratized goodness.
Goodness is simply what the majority of people believe is good.
Oh, we have legal definitions for some things that are “wrong,”
but not much to help us know what is “right” or “good.”

Where does this leaves us as people of faith?
Where does this leave us as people who believe that God,
and only God,
is absolutely good.
That God alone determines what is good.
That our bondage to sin makes it impossible
for us to be good apart from God.
But that God, in love, created us with the capacity for goodness,
as we find our life in the life of God.
If we believe that, then we have to admit our culture has it wrong.
We are not capable of deciding what is good by majority rule.
We need God’s Spirit to guide and inform us.

־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־־
There’s a great Gospel story for modern Western ears.
It was read this morning, and I want to call our attention to it again.
You can find it in your Bibles in Mark 10: 17-27.

One day, a man ran up to Jesus, knelt before him, and asked,
“Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Fascinating question.
Tells us a lot about this man, and his theology.
He saw Jesus as an expert on the subject of goodness.
And he believed goodness was a human virtue
that required expert training to develop.
He wanted Jesus to teach him a few things about goodness,
so he could learn them, practice them at home, be good,
and inherit eternal life.
Inherit it! That is, life would be owed to him.
It would be his right, he would be entitled to it.
What must I do, he said, to be entitled to eternal life?

In essence, Jesus’ answer was, “You don’t get it.
You’re asking the wrong question completely.”
But he didn’t say that. He played along at first.
He ticked off a list of things to do.
Well, Jesus said, you know the law.
Have you honored your father and mother?
Have you refrained from murder?
Have you kept from committing adultery?
stealing? lying? cheating?

Jesus played right into what this man wanted to hear!
He recited the do-good-er’s check-list.
And with every law mentioned,
the man checked it off in his mind,
and his shoulders rose, his head lifted.
Keeping the law was his forte.
He was entitled to eternal life, and he knew it.
Jesus was setting him up for the zinger.
The man said proudly, v. 20, “I’ve kept all those laws since I was a kid.”
“Well,” Jesus said, “looks like you’re almost there.
Just one more little thing on your to-do list.
Sell everything you own, give the money to the poor,
and come follow me.”
Verse 22 says, “When the man heard this, he was shocked,
and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”

Wow! No doubt he was shocked.
Jesus just turned the whole issue on its head.
He listed all those laws, but basically what he was saying was
it’s not about dutifully doing the deeds.
That last “little thing” Jesus mentioned,
wasn’t even one of the laws.
So it’s not about being legally perfect.
It’s about risking everything
and giving yourself to God so completely,
that you’d be willing to lay down your life,
and say to God, my life is in you.
See how that turned the man’s question upside down?

He asked, “What can I do, so I can be entitled to life?”
And Jesus answered, “Just one thing. Give up your claim to life.”

You know, this is one of the most difficult Gospel stories to swallow.
Some people might say the miracle stories are hard to accept.
Like feeding 5,000 or raising the dead.
We try to explain away miracles, to make them easier to believe.
But this story, this one takes the cake.
There are precious few people I’ve met
who are ready to take this one seriously.
Not even me.
We have all—way too quickly, I’m afraid—
explained this one away,
so we don’t have to take it at face value.

No, of course, Jesus wasn’t talking to all rich people,
only those certain few rich people who, unfortunately,
have allowed their wealth to keep them from serving God,
with their good deeds and generosity.
Apparently, this man was a selfish miser, we say.
And no, of course, Jesus didn’t mean what he said in v. 23,
that it would be easier for a camel
to go through the eye of a needle,
than for anyone with wealth to enter the kingdom of God.
No, no. There’s...some other explanation.
And clever Bible scholars, no doubt scholars
with an American middle-class lifestyle like mine, to protect,
came up with a theory.
The so-called “needle’s eye” Jesus was talking about
was a low, narrow passage in the city wall.
It’s difficult, but a camel can get through it.
You have to unload it first,
and help it scoot through on its knees.
Jesus meant it’s hard, but definitely possible with some effort.
I say, baloney.
Jesus meant a camel, and he meant the eye of a needle.
Literally impossible for human beings to achieve.
But possible, with God. Verse 27.

And some of us wiggle out of this story by claiming not to be rich.
Jesus must have meant the very, very wealthy.
Like the 300+ billionaires that live in this country.
More baloney.
Do you have a car to drive?
A job that brings enough income to buy or rent
a decent home to live in?
Do you have a good education?
Got extra food on the shelves?
I do.
We’re in the richest 10% of the world.
We obviously fit Jesus’ description:
“those who have wealth.”

So let’s be real radical here, and real simple-minded,
and assume Jesus meant it, when he said,
“How hard it will be for those who have wealth
to enter the kingdom of God!”
You know why it’s so hard?
Because we, like that rich man in the story,
think it’s all about how many good deeds
we can check off the list.
We forget that the question is not
how much good we can do with our resources,
or how generous we can be with our wealth.
The question is how much we are willing to risk for the kingdom.
How much are we willing to put our wealth on the line?
How ready are we to let go of
the very thing that brings us a sense of security?
When we look at the story this way,
I have to wince.
Because I’m not at all sure I’m that ready myself.
I can preach this Gospel story till I’m blue in the face.
But to be honest, I’m not sure I’m ready to live it.
I’m not sure I could hear God’s voice to me,
if God was telling me to give up what I have,
to release it all for the Kingdom of God.
I’d be quick to come up with an alternate explanation.
God surely must have meant...10% of what I have.

The fruit of the Spirit of goodness is not cultivated
by doing more good deeds,
and trying harder for the sake of the Kingdom.
Goodness is cultivated by sacrificing all for the only One who is Good.
It is placing our very life, placing our security, in the hands of God.
It is to do the one thing the rich man lacked the courage to do.
To trust fully, and only, in the Goodness of God.

And this brings me back to my opening statement
that we Christians need heroes.
In other words, we need to have examples to follow.
We need to see, and know, that some people have indeed
given up everything for the sake of the Kingdom,
and survived...even thrived.
We don’t need more “Good Teachers”
who will train us to do more good deeds,
give us techniques to master the finer points of the law.
We need people who will show us by example
that giving up all, for the sake of the Kingdom of God
is a good way to live.

I’m not saying we need heroes to worship,
or to put on a pedestal as super-humans.
Besides, there aren’t any super humans.
Not even Jesus.
He was fully God...and fully human.
But his humanity was in every respect like ours.
Read Hebrews 4.
Rather, Jesus showed us how to be human.
He is our supreme hero.

But by God’s grace,
there have been some disciples of Jesus in history,
and there are some disciples of Jesus that we ourselves know,
who have shown God’s goodness by example.
They are exemplary in their faithfulness to the Kingdom of God.
So let us thank God for them.
Let us tell their stories.
And when we discover them among us,
in our own community, in our congregation,
because they are here among us,
let us, figuratively speaking, sit at their feet
and learn from them.
They are not perfect.
They are fallible examples of faithfulness.
But we should seek out opportunities to be with them,
watch them, interact with them,
being challenged by them.
If we want to cultivate goodness,
we will be far better off choosing to live
in a Christian community of mentors and examplars,
than by going off by ourselves
and trying to memorize a list of good deeds
and trying harder to inherit life, or inherit “goodness.”

Oh, it’s a lot easier to live independently and freely,
to decide ourselves which checklist of goodness we’re going to use,
and then give it our best shot.
That’s the American way.
But the way of cultivating the fruit of goodness in Christian community
is a lot more difficult and complicated.
Choosing to join a community of disciples of Jesus,
who are called to sacrifice all for the Kingdom of God,
now that’s a challenge.

And that is precisely the challenge that caused one man to be shocked,
and turn and walk away from Jesus.
My invitation to us all this morning, including myself,
is to take courage,
and together as a faith community invite the Spirit to come,
and guide us and guard us and preside over our life together.
And then, God may grow the fruit of goodness among us.

Turn to #303 in the blue Hymnal Worship Book,
“Come, gracious Spirit.”
This is a familiar invitation for the Spirit of God to come.
But this is not a prayer for individual spiritual inspiration,
it is a prayer of the community
for the Spirit to preside over our life together.
Before we sing this sing,
everyone take a look to your left and to your right,
in front of you and behind you.
See who is sitting around you.
These are the ones being referred to in this hymn,
when it says “we” “us” and “our.”
Let us sing this together,
to the Spirit of the One and Only source of goodness.

—Phil Kniss, October 8, 2006

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(Life on the Vine: Kindness) Beyond Random Kindness

Life on the Vine: Cultivating kindness in the midst of self-help
1 Chronicles 16:34; Proverbs 21:21; Micah 6:6-8; Zechariah 7:8-10

Did you know there was a world-wide movement
dedicated to spreading kindness around the world?
It started at a conference held in Japan.
Later, in 2000, a world declaration was signed in Singapore,
and there are now officially 18 member countries, including ours,
in the World Kindness Movement.
In a parallel movement in the U.S.,
the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
was established ten years ago.
It distributes educational materials to schools,
elementary to university.
It produces bookmarks, stickers, and the like,
which you pass out to others and encourage
random acts of kindness to spread everywhere.

There is something truly heart-warming about this,
especially in a world climate of such mean-spiritedness, hostility,
violence, and hatred.
The fact that some people are united, the world over,
to spread kindness,
is amazing, and wonderful,
and may God bless them and multiply their numbers.

But you might expect it from me, if you listen much to my sermons,
that I’m not likely to take any wildly popular movement,
and just jump on the bandwagon,
without giving it some careful and critical reflection.
After all, my job as a preacher is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
and history shows that the Gospel of Jesus Christ often,
perhaps usually,
runs counter to whatever is wildly popular in broader society.
The Gospel is typically counter-cultural.
So maybe we should let the Gospel ask a few questions of this movement.
There might, in fact, be a big difference
between the fruit of the Spirit called kindness,
and “random acts of kindness.”

I do not in any way, disparage people
who simply want to put a smile on a stranger’s face,
when they feed quarters to parking meters that are about to run out,
or pay the toll for the unknown car behind them at the toll booth,
or go into a coffee shop, and buy the next 10 cups of coffee.
And sure, it’s not a bad thing to write an anonymous note
of encouragement and blessing to someone.
There is a selfless element to it all because it’s anonymous.
It cannot be thanked or reciprocated.

But let’s think about the character of God’s kindness, found in scripture.
The “fruit of the Spirit” reflects God’s character, remember?

The Hebrew word most often translated “kindness” is chesed,
also translated “lovingkindness” or “steadfast love.”
Chesed is central to any biblical understanding of love and kindness.
Chesed shows up in verses like 1 Chronicles 16:34
“O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
for his steadfast love (chesed) endures forever.”
That sentence appears dozens of times in scripture.

And it’s that same word chesed
that is used nearly every time we humans are told to show kindness.
Proverbs 21:21—
“Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness [chesed]
will find life and honor.”
And here’s a prophet’s definition of kindness; Zechariah 7, 9-10—
“Render true judgments, show kindness [chesed]
and mercy to one another;
do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor;
and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”
And of course, Micah 6:8—
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness [chesed],
and to walk humbly with your God?”

So kindness is a lot like “love,” the first fruit of the Spirit.
In love, we see a posture toward people that lays down self
in order to enter into the life of the one we love.
It’s not about how I feel, or what it does for me.
And we might say kindness is simply
love demonstrated in acts of helpfulness to others.

Now, think about the character of God’s love and kindness—
which sacrificially enters into the lives and experiences of others,
is there for the long haul, is bound by covenant—
and contrast that with “random acts of kindness.”

How selfless are these random acts, after all?
By remaining anonymous, and doing these acts to random strangers,
we intentionally keep our distance.
We purposefully do not enter into the experience of the other.
And one of the main reasons we do it,
is it makes us feel good.
Even if the recipient of our kindness sees our face,
and we make a connection,
that connection is momentary, it is superficial,
and we really don’t want to know much more about
what their deeper needs are,
or about how they experience life.
A random act of kindness is little more than helping someone
who did not ask for help, and may not have needed it,
and without connecting on a deeper level,
and then leaving without any further obligation on either party.
It is clean, quick, convenient, and costs little.
It’s the perfect virtue for our modern, Western, do-it-yourself culture.
Isn’t it great to be able to do something good for someone else,
without all the messiness of being in a relationship?

Being independent, self-sufficient, and self-reliant
has to be one of the highest,
if not the highest virtue of American culture.
We all know how agonizingly hard it is to ask for help.
Our culture has drilled it into us.
Asking for help is a sign of weakness.
It means we have failed to be self-sufficient.
In the book, Life on the Vine, Philip Kenneson suggests that our culture
instills in us a prejudice against the giving and receiving of help.
If we offer help, we risk offending the person we want to help,
by implying they are weak or inadequate.
And we don’t like to ask for help, for the same reason.
We wait until things are desperate,
before we reach to someone else for help.
And God help us, if we ever have to be indebted to someone.

But Kenneson makes a rather thought-provoking statement in his book.
He says that healthy human relationships are comprised
of a web of indebtedness to each other.
Being indebted to someone
creates a bond to that person,
a strong reason to stay connected.
When that indebtedness goes both ways,
the relationship is healthy.
And when that mutual debt can just...sit there,
without being paid off immediately,
the bond is strengthened even more.
Kenneson used an illustration,
that if you gave a nice gift to someone you cared about,
and immediately they went out and got a gift of equal value,
and gave it to you, you would wonder why.
It’s an unhealthy sign,
that they are not comfortable being in debt to you,
that they prefer not to be bound
in an ongoing relationship with you.
Someone who pays off all of their relationship debts immediately,
does not know how to receive the gift of kindness,
and probably doesn’t know how to give it either.
But these market-style exchanges of love and kindness,
are the kind our individualistic culture is most comfortable with.
They are the least demanding.
And we eagerly embrace anything that doesn’t jeopardize
our independence, our self-sufficiency, our freedom.
But I would argue that genuine kindness does exactly that.
It jeopardizes our illusion that we are self-sufficient.
It emphasizes that we are bound to each other.

So my challenge to the church this morning is not
that we stop doing kind deeds to strangers.
No, keep that up.
But we need to move beyond...far beyond random acts of kindness.
We need to cultivate the fruit of kindness,
to create the right conditions in our own community of faith,
whereby this fruit of the Spirit can grow and flourish among us.

Maybe one of the best things we can do,
is exactly what we are doing this morning—
worshiping God.
Every day, all day, the world around us is telling us how important it is
to be self-directed and self-sufficient.
So one day a week, for a couple hours,
we get a chance to come to this place and hear a different story.
We hear that it is God who created us, and not we ourselves.
We sing songs of the marvelous grace of Jesus,
by which we are saved.
And if we believe what we sing,
it’s hard to think of ourselves as self-sufficient, isn’t it?
Every Sunday in church we hear a different story.
We are exposed to a different narrative.
I don’t suppose a couple hours once a week
is quite enough to counteract what we hear the rest of the week.
But it’s a start.
And it’s one of many good reasons
to make regular church attendance a priority.
But even better, is to be part of a small community of people of faith
who spend much more time together than just Sunday mornings,
who truly enter into each other’s lives
with self-sacrificing love and kindness,
and help each other internalize the narrative of the Gospel,
so we might stand a fighting chance
of resisting this story our culture feeds us all the time.

And when we do come together to worship,
there is hardly a more powerful ritual
that tells this counter-story of the Gospel of Jesus,
than the ritual of coming to the Lord’s Table.
This table is one that embodies sacrificial love and kindness.
And to partake of the cup and the broken bread
is a powerful antidote to the world’s gospel of self.
It’s an acknowledgment that I desperately need help
from beyond myself.
It’s an act of gratitude to the one who embodied kindness,
even to the death.
It’s an opportunity to not only think about,
but to “taste and see” the goodness of the Lord.

—Phil Kniss, October 1, 2006

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