KINDNESS Sermons
If you would be so kind as to kindly place your KINDNESS sermons in the comments section of this post...
posted by Jeff Christian @ 9:11 AM
4 comments
If you would be so kind as to kindly place your KINDNESS sermons in the comments section of this post...
posted by Jeff Christian @ 9:11 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Acts of kindness: Saying “Thank you.” Opening a door for someone at the store. Leaving an extra dollar on the tip of a waiter who worked hard. Listening to someone talk. Writing a kind note. Sharing.
When I was a child, I remember a police officer who was my crossing guard as I walked to school. One day I remember he said to me, “Have a nice day.” That was an act of kindness.
When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi, Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in the world, offered the United States one million dollars. An act of kindness.
Someone said something fairly rude the other day to you. But when they came and apologized, they offered you a sampling of kindness.
That time when you were patient with that person who was not being very kind to you, you were returning their selfishness with the fruit of God’s Spirit we know as kindness. Jesus teaches us that mercy is kindness in Luke 6.
Luke 6:27-36
So often in Scripture, exhortations to kindness are meant to be heard as invitations to extend kindness to those who are poor, sick, and oppressed. I think much of Jesus’ teaching in Luke 6 is rooted in places like Zechariah 7:
Zechariah 7:8-10
In Zechariah, for example, kindness is understood as the opposite of oppression.
If we think more broadly for a moment about kindness as more than just being nice, think of kindness as the opposite of oppression. And we need to include oppression of thought, our actions, and especially our words. Anything that puts another person down is oppression. If we are to be Christians here on earth, one act of kindness is to fight for the oppressed, to seek justice for those others have given up on: The poor, single moms, minimum wage workers, those who may not be intelligent, those with mental illness. Not that any of those are the same, or should be lumped together in one category. But those groups are all-too-easy to set aside, to dismiss, and at times, oppress. And so in that respect, kindness is about justice. Justice and mercy together is one angle, and it is one we have addressed here in previous months, so I would like to move on to another aspect of kindness.
It is interesting to me that two of the fruits of the Spirit are ways Paul defines love, another fruit of the Spirit, in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is “patient”… and love is “kind.”
Love is kind.
Kindness. Let’s start where we are. Do people around you at work characterize you as kind? Do people say you are a nice person, a kind person, a considerate person? Do people who know you say about you, “You know, she would go out of her way to help someone, even if it is something as simple as borrowing a cup of flour.”
Do you go out of your way for others? That seems to be the hallmark of Biblical kindness: Your consideration for others, both in your willingness to help them, and in your willingness to live in community, even during those times when you need help.
But the weeds that choke kindness out are autonomy, apathy, pride, and bitter and unforgiving hearts. Kenneson says the weed that kills kindness is self-sufficiency, or to put it another way, leaning on our own understanding. And it makes sense. When you depend only on yourself for everything, you tend to lose patience with those who get in your way, those who stand between you and your will. And when you lose patience, kindness walks out the door as well.
To quote my friend Chris Benjamin: What is the alternative to kindness? Kenneson says it is self-sufficiency. Take self-sufficiency to its extreme and you have a sort of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome world, self-sufficiency to the extreme. Chris said that one of the newest members of the West-Ark Church of Christ in Fort Smith, Arkansas was in the Superdome during Katrina. Chris asked him if it was mob rule and he corrected Chris. A life-long resident of New Orleans, he told Chris that gangs were absent in New Orleans. The man said that the scene was instead “a city of every man for himself.” That is one way of saying what kindness is not; or to put it another way, “kindness was absent.”
Have you ever found yourself in a situation where kindness was absent? Perhaps you were the victim of harsh words; perhaps you were the offender. Maybe you thought something about someone that was less-than-kind.
But again, like last week, let’s be realistic here. If some people try your patience, there are certainly those who try your kindness. There is the ex-husband who is not being cooperative with the kids, treating them bad, being an all-around jerk. There is the check-out girl who won’t even look you in the eye, much less say anything to you. In fact, she doesn’t even have the courtesy to say, “Next.” There is the person who was mean to you in high school who colors the way you see people who remind you of her. (By the way, the movie Mean Girls is a work of non-fiction… pretty much.)
In some ways this series is feeling an awful lot like the SAT to me: It gets harder as you get further into the list. Someone told me last week that he has had some trouble with the series because this is the work of God’s Spirit. So why are Kenneson, our classes, and my sermons placing so much of the responsibility on us? Why do I have to cultivate kindness this week? Can’t God just give it to me, and let’s be done with it?
Well think of the other list in Galatians 5, the works of the flesh. If you give into the flesh, or what the NIV translates, the “sinful nature,” you are still going to get worse the more time you spend in sin. If you struggle with an alcohol addiction, you know that it gets worse as time goes on. So hopefully the opposite is true: If you are living by the Spirit of God, these are the things that will surface: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. But God places it on us to cultivate these things. You can’t just say, “Well God gave me self-control. Let’s go eat lunch.” You cultivate, care for the gifts God gives you, a good steward of God’s blessings.
But this virtue of kindness follows patience pretty logically in my book. If you are going to be kind to people who do not deserve kindness, it will try your patience. I still think this is why the “Love” poem in 1 Corinthians 13 only defines love in two positive terms: Patience and kindness.
And if we lack two things in contemporary society, we lack patience and kindness. I think what we face today is the death of courtesy. So as simplistic as it sounds, I would like to suggest this week that as you cultivate kindness, just be nice to people. Spend a week fasting from the violence of time and language that has so overtaken our world. Spend a week without harsh reactions, critical words, or just plain meanness. Spend a week giving up thoughts about others that you know deep down do not please God. Just a week. One week cultivating kindness. That’s your three ways of cultivating kindness this week:
1) Watch your language, especially language far worse than cussing, but language that puts down.
2) Use words of blessing with everyone you meet; no critical words.
3) Listen to your thoughts, and be aware of the ways you think about others.
Probably the most simplistic final word in a sermon you will ever hear me preach; but let me give you one practical act of kindness that everyone here needs to practice with everyone you talk to this week. Wear yourself out saying “Thank you.”
And then as a final Word from the Lord for your day, take this Word from God everywhere this week:
God’s action—Ephesians 2:1-7
Our response—Ephesians 4:29-32
This is the Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Kindness
Kindness: A Lot Like Love
Lueders Church of Christ
Jeremy Loy
October 9, 2005
Today we are talking about kindness, but do we know what kindness is? Is it just doing something nice for someone? But more importantly, can we be kind to one another in a world that is often self-sufficient? Is it possible to be kind in world were often do not know each other well enough to know our deepest needs? Self-sufficiency seems to be a barrier being kind to one another.
We would all agree that we live in a self-sufficient world.
Perhaps one of the reasons we find it difficult to be kind, therefore, is that from an early age our society instills in us a certain subtle prejudice against giving and receiving help. Our society extols the virtues of independence and autonomy. From a very early age, we figure out that to ask for help is to admit that you cannot do it on your own. Parents help their children to become “independent.” Young people know that they are being readied to “be on their own.” Our society admires those who have “made it.” We pay the ultimate compliment to those who are “self-made men.” With this kind of message given to people, it is difficult to ask for help and to give help. We don’t like to receive help, preferring instead to handle things “on our own.” Otherwise, we may be perceived as weak.
Rather than being independent, giving and receiving one another’s acts of kindness binds us to one another. But this is hard we live in a self-sufficient society.
Our faith in God calls us to a different way of life.
Theology of Kindness
The Old Testament tells of the deep friendship between David and King Saul’s son, Jonathan. When the king becomes jealous of David’s military prowess and threatens to have David executed, Jonathan intervenes and warns David, making it possible for him to escape. But before he flees, David and Jonathan make a covenant with each other, promising that they will care for the descendants of the other should one of them be killed (I Samuel 20). Sometime later both King Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle. David, who is now king, remembers his covenant with Jonathan and inquires about Jonathan’s living descendants, “Is there anyone remaining of the house of Saul to whom I may show the kindness of God?” (2 Samuel 9:3). Upon learning that Jonathan left a cripple named Mephibosheth, David, sends for him and informs him that he will eat at David’s table like one of his own sons. This act of covenant love David calls “the kindness of God.”
The word David uses can mean “love” or “steadfast love”, but also “kindness,” “lovingkindness,” “mercy,” “goodness,” and “devotion.” It is what Job claims his friends withheld from him (Job 6:14) and what the Proverbs say that we should pursue along with righteousness in order to find life and honor (Proverbs 21:21). It is one of three things that Micah tells his audience the Lord requires of them: “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). And when the word of the Lord come to Zechariah, the Lord says, “Render true judgments, show kindness 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.” (Zechariah 7:9-10).
With the fruit of kindness, we are confronted again with the overlapping nature of the fruit of the Spirit. Kindness is a particular manifestation of love’s other-directedness. Kindness is being helpful to those who need help. Such helpfulness stems from God’s helpfulness. Christians are moved by the Spirit to reach out and help others because their own identity is intimately tied to the help they have received at God’s hand. To paraphrase I John 4:19, “We help because God first helped us.”
Titus 3:3-4 says, “3At 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. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.”
I Thessalonians 5:15, “15Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.”
This fruit by its very character is one of the most outwardly visible fruit of the Christian life. Kindness is not a state of mind. Kindness is not the absence of unkindness. Rather kindness is when people go out of their way, often quietly and without fanfare, to engage in kind actions.
We know from the early church historians that many people during the first century were confused about what these strange followers of Jesus were called. Because the Greek word of Christ was so similar to the word for “kind”, apparently many people mistakenly (though perhaps fittingly) called Jesus’ early followers not “Christians” but “the kind ones.”
Cultivating Kindness
Reflect on your own life. Are you self sufficient? What do you do in your own life that you cultivate self sufficiency rather than kindness? How important are others when you tell your life story? Try to imagine your life story without mentioning others. Indeed, other people are very important to our lives.
Look up the word “one another” in a concordance or in the concordance in the back of your Bible. Note how many times the NT writers call us to do something (admonish, comfort, do good, be kind, etc.) to or for “one another.” We are NOT independent. Rather we ARE dependant on one another.
Continue to think about the NT metaphor “body of Christ.” In what ways do you believe you are vitally connected to other members of the body? Have there been times when you felt more connected to other members of the body? What do you think accounted for this connection?
Carefully consider the gifts and abilities you believe you believe you have been given. Do you consider these gifts completely your own or did you come to see them by interacting with other people who identified and affirmed your abilities? In what ways have you been led to believe that these are your own, that they are yours to exploit for your own benefit or gain? What would it mean for you to begin to think of these gifts as existing both for the edification of the body of Christ and for the benefit of the reign of God?
What would it mean for us to think of our work as service to others rather than as simply a means to secure our own end? What would it mean to consider other people’s work as service to us?
In closing, God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked and Jesus urges us to offer this same kind of mercy-filled kindness. As Jesus noted, most of us find it easier to be kind to those who are kind to us, yet such kindness reflects little light of the kingdom of God. As people empowered by God’s spirit, we are called to reach out in kindness to our neighbors – those who are easy to love and those who are not.
Cultivating Kindness
What is the kindest thing someone has done for you lately? Have you tried to do something kind for someone? What is it? What do we usually think about when we think about kindness? What do you think of when you think of kindness?
Typically, kindness is equated with being polite or nice. Some years ago a movement started that called people to practice random acts of kindness. In other words, to be nice and be polite. I am not sure if the goal was to make people feel better about themselves or to make the world a better place. Either way, both are good things. Now think of the fruit of the spirit, among which is kindness, and ask yourself, is kindness just being nice and polite, or is there even more to it?
Kindness in scripture is more often equated with love. The word for kindness in Hebrew and Greek is interchangeable with mercy, goodness, loyalty, faithfulness, but most of all steadfast love. Kindness is the visible action of love directed toward others. God is praised for being kind – for showing his steadfast love in so many ways. There is an example in the Bible of a mortal like you and me putting the kindness of God into practice. [Read from 2 Samuel 9.]
There’s more in this story than politeness. Here is kindness with long lasting implications that spanned generations. What does this tell us about the character of God and the kindness of God? It shows that kindness is the fruit of the spirit that holds us together. It is love directed toward others for their sake and not just our own. Talk about life on the vine – kindness is like a ground covering vine or ivy that binds the earth so that it doesn’t erode away. It is the raw material of the social fiber.
Knowing what the kindness of God is, we can understand why it is hard to cultivate kindness in our culture. Our culture is hostile to kindness because . . .
1. Our culture tolerates rude, angry, unkind, and violent behavior. No one really likes this, but they have become so commonplace that we have just accepted it. Talk shows and sports thrive on a culture of conflict in which it is more important to be tough and take no “guff” from anybody. We mentioned random acts of kindness – recall that this is a take off on the phrase random acts of violence.
a. Even in church it is possible to accept and tolerate crude and unkind behavior. One of the reasons we find it difficult to debate and discuss serious and controversial matters is because there has been too many occasions of attacking the person rather than the argument.
2. But this sort of behavior is a symptom of the deeper problem. The rude behavior we see is the product of radical independence and self-sufficiency. Why is there road rage? Because people act and drive as if they are the only ones who matter. Why do people get rude at restaurants? Because they hold their satisfaction in higher esteem than the person who waits on them. Our culture promotes radical independence and self-sufficiency.
a. Technology has enabled us to be radically independent. Remember when phones operated on a party line? Now you and every member of your family can have your own mobile phone. Against the experience of the public concert or radio broadcast is the iPod or MP3 player which allows you to have your own personal concert with every song you can ever imagine. [Have you seen the MP3 commercial of people going about their lives stoically while their reflections and shadows enjoy their own private party?]
b. But technology is not the cause, it is just the enabler. For many generations now we have praised the self-made man (and it is typically a man) and the pioneer spirit. We have acclaimed the rugged individual who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps. We learned from Shakespeare that we should “neither a borrower or a lender be, but to thine ownself be true.” Many people in our culture assume that the old maxim “God helps those who help themselves” is really in the Bible.
c. How exciting to watch when two fiercely strong-willed and independent individuals fight over who will pick up the check at a restaurant. They will even trick one another out of paying and bribe waiters and waitresses. A few even threaten the friendship if the other pays the bill. Why? Why would someone risk a friendship over an act of kindness? Well even those of us who aren’t quite in that league still understand the awkward feeling of obligation and dependence. We would rather be the giver than the recipient because receiving erodes our feeling of self-sufficiency. [Sometimes the greatest act of kindness is letting someone be kind to us. It has a cumulative, contagious effect on culture.]
Knowing the disease is the first step to taking the cure. Isn’t it wonderful when medical science affirms that something very simple might be a solution to some of the worst problems we know? Recently studies showed that blueberries have a greater effect at reducing the development of cancer than any other fruit. You can prevent cancer by eating blueberries! It is that simple.
Likewise, cultivating kindness will overcome so many of the problems we suffer from as a culture. It is that simple. If David could demonstrate the kindness of God then I believe we can too with the help of the Holy Spirit. I believe there are some ways we can begin to cultivate true kindness – the kindness of God . . .
1. Start by listening to others. If kindness is love directed to others for their sake, then we need to start paying attention to others. Genuine kindness doesn’t simply give someone something they don’t really need just so the giver feels better about himself or herself. For kindness to really blossom among us we need to listen carefully to one another. Just giving our time and attention to others for their sake is kindness.
2. Intentionally cultivate connections with others. Kindness is not a virtue that can be developed in isolation. Kindness is all about the quality of our relationships with one another. In our fragmented, self-sufficient culture we will need to intentionally create connections. This is why we have started a “Connections Ministry.” This is why we have Care Groups and LIFE Groups. They are intentional, deliberate means of forming connections. (I myself have been skeptical of the role and need for such groups and ministries. Back at Winslow we didn’t have to create groups and ministries to form connections. Then I realized that Winslow was a "big" small group. Such ministries are just an intentional way of doing what is natural in a smaller church. (I recommend that we take Random Acts of Kindness one step further, I call it Intentional Relationships of Kindness. So what if the abbreviation is IRK. That's no worse than RAK).
3. Imitate God’s loving kindness. This is what David did. This is what Paul urges us to do (Eph. 4:31-32) 31Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior. 32Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. [Notice the description of kindness].
The Kind Ones:
It is said that in the ancient world the early Christians were sometimes called the Kind Ones rather than Christians. This is due in part to the fact that there is just one letter of difference in the word for Christ (christos) and the word for kindness (chrēstos). People were confused about the name.
I would think that it is also due to the fact that the early church demonstrated the kind of life that would make them live up to both names. My hope is that the people of our age will also be confused as to whether we are Christians or the Kind Ones. Let us strive to live up to both names.
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