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A sermon preached on September 20, 2009 based on Mark 9:30 – 37, on the occasion of the baptism of  Samuel Ryan Winston.

I have the privilege and the burden of serving as a pastor.  The privilege is related to the fact that I am given access to people in intimate, holy times in their lives.  I am allowed in such moments to be a sign of the presence of God, in spite of my human frailty.  

The burden part for me has to do with the fact that people carry around various assumptions about pastors and how they think and act.   Often times people simply assume that I share their assumptions, which isn’t necessarily so. This can mean that people assume they know me, when they don’t really because their assumptions have gotten in the way.   

This can happen in the church setting, but it can also happen in other settings.  For instance, each week I spend time interacting in the makeshift community of parents from Bobby’s travel soccer team.   At some point word got around that I was a pastor, and suddenly  each person’s preconceptions about what a pastor is about came into play in their perceptions of me. 

So there are times when carrying the title of “Pastor” can make my life somewhat lonesome, in that it functions as a barrier to really being known as a person. 

What does it mean to say we really “know” a person?  My wife is the person who knows me best (although her knowledge of me pails in comparison to God’s knowledge of me.)  Sarah is more likely than others to be able to predict the feelings, thoughts and actions that will arise from me in a given situation.

Love means many things, but the deepest form of love involves truly knowing another person, and in that knowledge being for that person. 

Christianity is based on the unusual claim that truth with a capital T isn’t a set of doctrines, a set of laws, or even a book.  Truth is a person.   If you want to know Truth, then you’ve got to get to know Jesus in such a way that you can begin to predict how he would respond to a given situation.  Unfortunately, people routinely confuse “knowing Jesus” with merely learning certain words and formulas about him. 

The Gospel lessons this week and last show the difficulty the disciples had in getting to know Jesus because their preconceptions got in the way.  Last week we heard how Jesus raised up the question of their knowledge of him.  “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter responded with the right title, technically speaking:  “You are the messiah.”   Unfortunately, his preconceptions about what being the “messiah” meant made it difficult for Peter to really get to know Jesus.

That same difficulty is carried over in this morning’s lesson.  For the second time Jesus talks about his suffering and death.  Jesus is sharing intimate parts of himself, his understanding of what he is called to do, and he wants to be known in this way; but what he is saying is distressing and confusing to the disciples, and doesn’t fit with their preconceptions, so they don’t really take it in, nor do they ask further about it. 

On a practical level, the disciples quickly expose the fact that they don’t get Jesus.  As disciples their task is to model their lives on Jesus’ life.   He is going to Jerusalem to lay his life down as a servant, and they start jockeying for position as to who among them is the greatest.  It’s not surprising that they do this, since that’s what we human beings do.   Consciously or unconsciously, wherever we find ourselves, we establish pecking orders, seeking the higher position. 

At this point in the story Jesus takes a little child — like baby Samuel, or his brother Kevin – and, cradling this child tenderly in his arms, says that if you want to attain true greatness in this life, serve children such as this one.   If you want to serve me, as well as God, serve a child. 

So what is the significance of a child for Jesus?  I think a couple of things are in play.

Children are politically powerless.  Especially in the culture in which Jesus lived, children had no status or power, so a kind act on their behalf would have no possibility of being paid back.    A child represents someone to whom the service rendered will necessarily be given freely, and it is this freedom of giving with no thought of reward that Jesus is after.

Children are by nature very self-absorbed, as any parent knows.   Not only do they have no political power to pay you back for your service, they also don’t have the emotional or spiritual wherewithal to really get it about the service they receive.   Although children will have spontaneous moments where they express real gratitude, generally speaking, they are natural ingrates.   If we serve children with the hope of being appreciated by the children, we will serve in vain.   We may well be tempted to lecture our children regarding “all we’ve done for them,” but we’re really rather foolish in giving these lectures.   They won’t succeed in making our children more grateful for our service.  So if we choose to serve children, we must do so with a free spirit that isn’t looking for any kind of pay back, which, I think, is what Jesus was pointing us towards.

I suspect Jesus also appreciated the insights of modern psychology, which is that the adult person is profoundly shaped by the experience of their childhood; that if a child is well loved, the chances are far greater that they will grow up to be loving adults, and that children who are neglected or abused will more likely grow up to neglect and abuse others as well.  (Check out the childhood of Hitler.)

There are, of course, always exceptions:  people who appeared to have had childhoods that seemed marked by a scarcity of love who grew up to be very loving adults, and people who seemed to have been blessed by every advantage in childhood and grew up to be perpetually self-centered.  These exceptions point to the mystery of the freedom and responsibility that dwells in every human soul.  

Nonetheless, it is true that if you want to have a positive impact on the world, giving love unselfishly to children is a really good place to begin.  It’s humbling work in so far as you very possibly will never get to see the fruits of your labor.  And the world we live in doesn’t value it very much.  (Compare the salaries of childcare workers with that of stockbrokers.)  But there is no more important work than the care of children. 

There is a natural arc to the life of human beings as designed by God.   We begin life as a baby as absolute receivers.  Love is poured into us.  As the child grows, the forms of the love become more varied and nuanced, including the disciplined love that corrects the child, but for the most part children remain primarily receivers in life.   This is as it should be.   

I watched this distressing documentary a while back entitled “Jesus Camp” that showed children at this Fundamentalist Church Camp that intentionally sought to shape the minds of children in a similar way that children are shaped in fundamentalist Moslem contexts.   Children were indoctrinated with a black and white version of the world, and pressed early on towards making a commitment of their life to Jesus Christ.   I remember what appeared to be a nine-year-old boy parroting the language he had heard adults use:  how his life had felt empty, like something was missing, until he gave himself to Jesus.    It was really creepy. 

Check the Gospels:  you will never find an instance of Jesus saying to a child, “Come, follow me.”   Following Jesus involves laying yourself down for Jesus.  You can’t lay your self down until you have a self.  Children are engaged in the process of growing a self, fed by the love they have taken into themselves from adults.

As we nurture our children, we teach them solid values, we teach them about Jesus and the Bible stories.  But we do them damage by pressing them for a Christian commitment prematurely. 

In the arc of our lives there comes a time – maybe at age 12, maybe 50, maybe unfortunately never – when a shift begins to be made from being primarily a receiver to being a giver.  The awareness develops of how blessed we have been, and the need in response to offer up our lives in service.    This is what conversion is about.  There may be a bright and shining moment in which the shift opens up to us, as when Paul met the glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus.  But generally speaking the shift involves an ongoing process in which we move from primarily receiver to primarily giver.  Along the way, mysteries open up to us:  the distinction between “giving” and “receiving” becomes blurred.  We find ourselves receiving wondrously in the midst of giving, and that sometimes we offer ourselves best by allowing others to give to us.  There is a great love flowing through us.

If a person fails to make this shift of focus, they are destined to live out a kind of spiritual constipation.  Scott Peck tells a story from his teen years in which he describes walking down a road and seeing a classmate  in the distance coming in his direction.  He had five minutes in anticipation of their meeting in which he devoted the energies of his brain to coming up with clever ways to impress his classmate with his wit and sophistication.   The meeting happened, and after their brief exchange, he proceeded down the road away from his classmate, spending the next couple of minutes accessing how he’d done.  Suddenly it occurred to him how incredibly consumed with himself he was — that no where in that ten minutes had he appreciated the reality of his classmate’s existence apart from his potential function as an audience and admirer of himself.  He realized that if he continued down this path, he would live an extremely shallow life.   He didn’t change the focus of his life in that moment, but an awakening began that allowed him to proceed the process of redirecting the energies of his life. 

With this arc in mind, the investment of time and energy (love) into our children can be seen as making it possible for them to reach that point of transition.   Unfortunately, there are many people who spend their adult life stuck in the posture of receiving, eternally questing for the love and attention they did not receive as a child.  

The most basic form of this neglect occurs when a child grows up without ever having really been known in their depths by the adults in their lives.  A parent’s most basic responsibility is to really know their child; to know their unique strengths and weaknesses, what causes them joy and what causes them pain.   It is a terrible thing not to be known. 

In certain ways the lot of children in society at large has improved over the last couple of centuries.   John Wesley and the early Methodists worked to help liberate children from workplaces – from factories and mines so they could attend school and have their childhood. 

But in one critical way I think that the experience of children has deteriorated, corresponding to the demise of the extended family and the enormous stress placed upon the nuclear family.   Nowadays relationships with adults are limited to mom and dad (at best,) with teachers coming into their lives a year at a time.   (The parents easily get maxed out between earning a living and caring for children, compensating for the limited attention by giving their children stuff, thereby teaching children the distressing lesson that things can substitute for love.)   Without an extended network of adults who are in the children’s lives long term and truly know them, the souls of children are deprived.   

Church ought to be a place where this trend is reversed.

In the coming year, I would like to propose we make it a goal to emphasize the place of children in the life of our congregation.   Jesus has explicitly directed us to do so, and there is no more important work. 

I want to put a challenge before each of you:  make the effort to learn the names of every child in our church family so you can greet them by name when you see them.  Go beyond learning their names – take note of the distinguishing character traits of each child, so you can recognize them as unique persons and encourage them accordingly.  

In doing so, we will have served Jesus, and the God who sent him.

A sermon preached on September 13^th, 2009 based upon Mark 8:27 – 37, and on the occasion receiving eight persons into membership, and of baptizing Maya Laxmi Roelofs into the Body of Christ.

Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that I am?’ ²⁸And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ ²⁹He asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Peter answered him, ‘You are the Messiah.’³⁰And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.

31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. ³²He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. ³³But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’

34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?

 

There is some puzzling and challenging stuff in this morning’s Gospel lesson.   

It takes place at a critical moment midpoint of the Gospels.    The disciples have been following Jesus around the Galilean countryside.  They have witnessed the growing crowds drawn to Jesus by his remarkable inner authority and the extraordinary miracles of healing and feeding the hungry he performs.   

Through it all, the question grows more insistent:  who is this Jesus?   

And so now Jesus asks the question that has been on everybody’s mind.  Who do people say that I am?   The answers are impressive.  A prophet; John the Baptist reincarnated;  maybe even Elijah, the forerunner for the end times.

Now Jesus puts them on the spot. “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter speaks up.  “You are the messiah.”  It is a bold thing to say.   In those days you don’t just go around casually claiming someone was the messiah, the anointed one of God, the one come to save the people. You had better be right, or else you are committing blasphemy.   You could get yourself stoned for saying such a thing.

Now, here is where things began to get puzzling.   Peter’s given the correct answer, right?  This is the claim that the church has hinged its belief on for 2000 years, right?  That Jesus is the savior, come to redeem the people.  

The first puzzling thing is that Jesus doesn’t say, “Bingo.  You’ve given the right answer, Peter.”  He doesn’t say it’s the wrong answer, but he’s strangely reticent about commenting on the answer Peter has given.  In fact, he tells the disciples not to talk about him to other people.

Jesus then proceeds to talk to them about his destiny, but he doesn’t call himself the messiah.  At the very moment where they are looking to put him up on a pedestal, Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man”, a title which, although it had associations in the tradition with the concept of the messiah, is a very humble title indeed — a title that in essence identifies him with all people.   “I am a man, a human being, as you are a human being.  We are all in this together.”

And then he proceeds to tell them how he will be rejected by the religious establishment — the elders, the scribes, the priests — and that he must suffer and die.  He also says he will be raised after three days, but the disciples seem to be so freaked out about the suffering and death part that they don’t even hear what comes after it. 

Peter takes Jesus aside, intent on correcting Jesus’ thinking.  “Whoa, hold on just a moment, Jesus.  You’re getting off message.  You’re not going to suffer and die.  You’re going to give us what we’ve been waiting for.” 

To which Jesus explodes:  “Get behind me, Satan!  You are talking about human things; not divine things.”  

Ouch.  This is the one and only time Jesus called a human being “Satan” — to the guy, no less, who will later come to be viewed as the first pope — the guy who represents the Church.   

There are some great ironies here, particularly in the light of the fact that we are hearing this on the day in which eight of you have just taken vows in regard to Church, and we have baptized little Maya into the Church.

Isn’t Church a good thing?   Again, I don’t think we get a straight answer:  Maybe, maybe not.  It is remarkable that right here in the heart of the Gospel story, there is this critique of religious institutions, indeed the church, in our inclination to lose our way.   Be careful, Jesus seems to be saying.  Don’t use your religion to escape from God.  

One of the things that religion often tries to do is to reduce the great mystery of God, and to deceive us about the adventure that is faith.  In place of trusting with our heart, we are encouraged to believe in doctrine.  We are led to think that if we can get the terminology right — Jesus is the messiah, for instance — than we’re in the club of the saved.   In place of the adventure of following Jesus, we’re given dexterity with the club’s code words.  

At this point in the passage Jesus immediately goes into talking about what it means to follow him.   Again, he doesn’t say anything about what they are required to believe about him – rather, its all about living the kind of life that they see him modeling:  a life of love, willing to sacrifice all.  

There was a great 20^th century preacher by the name of George Buttrick who served as the chaplain at Harvard.  He said that from time to time a student would walk into his study, and say, “I don’t think I can believe in God.”   George would reply, “Well, sit down and tell me about this god you don’t believe in.  Chances are, I don’t believe in him either.”  The student would be taken aback.  Invariably he’d sit down and proceed to describe a God who resembled Santa Claus, rewarding people who live good lives, making their paths through life happy and blessed, and giving coal to the ones who do bad things.  “Yep, I don’t believe in that God either,” George would say.

And then George would proceed to talk with the student about Jesus, a guy who was incredibly loving and merciful, an advocate for the little people of the world, and for all his trouble on their behalf this Jesus gets nailed to a cross.  And oddly, he did what he did, even as he knew exactly where he was headed, telling his followers to trust God and lay down their lives as well.

Life is strange.  Eight years ago this past Friday, we all shared in the greatest trauma that our generation of Americans has endured, when hijackers crashed those four planes, killing nearly 3000 innocent victims.   

That, I think, we would all agree, was a horrible, horrible thing.  

And yet, in the days immediately following, we saw life more clearly than perhaps we ever had.   We realized that life isn’t about accumulating more and more stuff, or reaching a more and more comfortable and privileged station in life.   We intuitively understood what Jesus was getting at when he asked, “What does it profit a person if he or she gains the whole world, and yet, loses his life – his soul?”

And we had these heroic images raised up for us:  Firemen, offering up their lives, racing into burning towers in hopes of saving the people trapped inside there.  

We pondered the courage, the love, the freedom from ego that would allow them to do such a thing, and we admired them intensely, and realized that strangely, in their willingness to give their lives away, they were on to what life is all about.  We got it about what Jesus meant when he said, “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

There is this program called Radio Lab I enjoy listening to.  Recently I was listening to one of their podcasts in which a man tells his story – an incredibly gripping story – of the day over twenty years ago when he tried to end his life.   He had fallen into this deep depression.  Outwardly, his life was good.  He had a job, he had a wife and a three year old daughter whom he loved.   But the depression had convinced him that he himself was bad – that everybody would be better off if he didn’t exist, which is what depression will do to people.  He described leaving for work in the morning, kissing his wife and daughter goodbye, telling them he loved them, knowing he would not see them again.   

He lived in the San Francisco bay area.  He drove past his work and kept on driving, until he reached the Golden Gate Bridge.   He parked his car, put coins in the meter, walked out on the bridge like just another tourist.  It was a beautiful day.  He came to an embankment where he could look down to the water below.  He said to himself, it’s time to do it.  And so he vaulted out into the air in free fall.  

He remembers clearly that at the precise moment he saw his hands let go of the bridge, he suddenly realized the terrible mistake he had made.  It takes just four seconds for a person to hit the water after jumping, and in that time he thought of all he would miss — his little daughter and all she would experience in life.  He also saw the pain he was inflicting upon his family and felt terrible regret.  With every fiber of his being he wanted to live.  

Well over a thousand people have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Only 26 has survived that jump.  Remarkably, he was one of those 26.  Most of the other 25 survivors described having a similar turnaround in their attitude toward life in those four seconds before they hit the water.   

Life really is a good gift from God, but something about the way we approach this life, and the way the world encourages us to approach life, leads us to get stuck inside the prison cell of our little ego, blocking our perception of the gift we have been given.

Jesus knew this.  He knew that life as it is typically lived in this world is a dead end street; that following the path the world prescribes for us — and sometimes it is religious institutions doing this prescribing — will eventually lead us to some version of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking down.  He saw that living our lives focused on getting more and more of the world’s carrot sticks; whether they be money or status or religious brownie points, is a doomed life indeed.

So he said, “Come, follow me.  I’ll show you a better way.   Follow me, and I will help you escape from the prison cell.”  

This is why we’re here.  That’s why eight of us made vows this morning, and why we baptized little Maya into the Church, in the hope that together we will live in such away that as she grows up in our midst, she will catch hold of the truth that life isn’t about more and more stuff, more and more status and prestige and comfort.  It’s about finding a life that resembles the fireman’s willingness to race into those burning towers.  

We probably will never have to do anything as severe as what those firemen were called to do on that bright, sunny morning eight years ago.  But in small ways, simple ways, God will help us shape a life in which we daily lose ourselves in a great love, and in that losing, finding ourselves, and the only kind of life worth living.     

A sermon preached on September 6, 2009 on James 2 and Mark 7 that bombed, proving you can’t script an amen chorus, which is by its very nature, unscripted.

It is a striking verse we heard this morning from the apostle James: “do you with your acts of favouritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? — that if we favor certain people; specifically, if we favor the rich, the powerful, the privileged, over people who are poor and powerless and underprivileged, that the very faith we profess to believe in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ is called into question. 

(Preach it brother Jeff.)

That if we do, in fact truly believe in the glorious Lord Jesus Christ, well then, we will not treat some people as less worthy because they are poor, powerless and underprivileged.

(No sir!)

That the Lord Jesus Christ has opened our eyes to the fact that all people are worthy of our attention,  because the Lord God made them all. 

(Amen.)

And Lord Jesus died for them all.

(Amen.)

And if we believe that some are more worthy of our attention than others, we demonstrate that we have forgotten in whom it is we trust.

(Amen.)

And it is not the almighty dollar.

(No sir.)

It is the Almighty God.  

(Amen.)

That is whom we are called to place our trust.  

(Amen.)

But you may be thinking, “Brother Jeff, don’t we all show favoritism, at least some of the time?”

(We were thinking that, Brother Jeff.)

As well you should, because we are frail, and sometimes our faith is weak, for it is not easy being a human being, and sometimes, yes, we do forget in whom we trust.

(That’s true, brother Jeff.  Amen.)

The Gospel story brother brother Bob read for us this morning  even suggests that Jesus himself –  Jesus the man who got tired, who at times felt absolutely drained and depleted, that this very Jesus wasn’t immune to having moments of favouritism; that in his fatigue he initially told this poor Gentile woman that she was not worthy of his attention; that she was, in fact, merely a dog.

But she wasn’t a dog was she?

(No she was not.  No sir!)

She was a child of God made in the image and likeness of God Almighty! Can I get an “Amen?!”

(Amen!)

And this woman’s little daughter, plagued by a dark demon, was a beloved child of God as well;  precious in the Lord’s sight.

(Amen!)

And she knew – in spite of all the world might tell her otherwise that God would hear her cry!

(Amen!  Yes He would!)

And although she wasn’t a dog, this woman was not too proud to beg.

(No sir!)

Because this woman knew that in relation to God we are all beggars!

(Yes we are!  Amen!)

And she wasn’t too proud to gather the crumbs of God’s grace wherever they are to be found.

(Amen!)

And because she trusted God and wasn’t too proud to gather crumbs, she discovered God in His glorious grace giving her not merely crumbs but rather the entire loaf instead.

(Amen!)

That her plate was full!

(Amen!)

Her cup running over!

(Amen!)

This woman cared not for riches,

(No she did not!)

But she did love her child, 

(Yes she did!)

And she was willing to do whatever needed to be done for that beloved child.

(Amen.)

And so St. James had it right when he asked us, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?”

(Amen.)

For did not Jesus himself marvel at this poor woman’s humility, her perseverance, and indeed the richness of her faith?

(Yes he did.  Amen.)

And did not St. Paul have it right when he declared, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”

For indeed, no one has any reason to boast in the presence of the Lord.  

(Amen.)

And so St. Mark goes on to tell us, that this same Jesus – his heart filled now to overflowing from his encounter with that wonderful woman of faith, came forth to begin once more his ministry, and the people brought to him another poor soul,  a beggar with an impediment of speech, and they begged Jesus to help him.

(We’re all beggars before God, brother Jeff.)

Amen.  Now this man had no silver or gold to contribute to Jesus’ treasurey.

(No sir.)

And he had no leverage down in the mayor office.

(No sir.)  

No pull with his congressman.

(No sir.)  

This poor man had none of these sorts of things, and yet Jesus did not turn him away.

(No he did not.) 

For Jesus recognized in this poor man a beloved child of God

And he took him aside, so as not to embarrass him, and Jesus proceeded to go the extra mile with this poor man.  

(Amen.)

He put his fingers in his ears, and he spat on the man’s tongue.  

(Amen.)

And then he sighed deeply unto heaven, crying Ephphatha!

(Ephphatha!)

Be opened!  

(Be opened!)

And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue released, and he spoke plainly.  

(Amen.)

Now this morning you and I are going to come forward to receive the grace of the glorious Lord Jesus.

(Amen.)

We come, everyone of us, as beggars.

(Amen.)

There are no favorites here; the Lord Jesus loves us all (Amen.)
was willing to die for us all.   

(Amen.)

We come willing to receive crumbs that fall from the table, but God intends to give us much more –- God intends to fill the great emptiness of our souls.  

(Amen.)

We come this morning with impediments to our spirit

(Amen.)

Blockages to our souls

(Amen.)

Our vision clouded.  

(Amen.)

Our hearing muffled.  

(Amen.)

Our tongues held back from what needs to be said.

(Amen.)

And the Lord Jesus will draw near.

(Amen.)

He’ll place his fingers in our ears.

(Amen.)

He’ll mix his saliva with ours, gaze up to heaven, sigh deeply in his spirit, and cry, Ephphatha! 

(Ephphatha!)

Be opened!

(Be opened!)

And it will be so.

A sermon preached on August 30th, 2009 based upon James 1:17 – 27.

Earlier this summer, for a variety of reasons both known and unknown to me, I fell into something of a funk.  In this dark state of mind I spent a day in New York City, that teaming, bustle of life and energy, in order to assist my sister as came home from the hospital following her hip surgery.  New York can be invigorating or distressing, depending on your state of mind.  In this case I felt myself being pulled further into myself.  I saw all these “beautiful people” moving with seeming focus and intention, and in comparison to their imagined lives I felt unattractive and aimless, acutely aware of my shortcomings rather than my strengths.  I felt as though my interior state was being broadcast out into the world –  that a negative energy was eaking out of my soul and a “stay away” sign was sandwiched over my shoulders.  Perhaps you know what I’m talking about. 

I found myself sitting in a drug store waiting for some prescriptions to get filled for my sister, feeling like the proverbial black hole.  In this state, I noticed an elderly woman, looking disconcerted.  I realized that she wanted to get a product off a top shelf, but wasn’t tall enough to reach it herself.  I am tall, and I wasn’t doing anything at the moment but waiting, so I was in a perfect position to offer the woman some assistance.  It didn’t take much thought on my part  — if it had, perhaps I wouldn’t have acted.  I rose and said to the woman, “May I help you?”  She was so grateful, and the task so simple — lifting down a package of toilet paper; placing it in her shopping cart.  She proceeded to tell me how a store that was closer to her apartment had recently closed, and so now she was forced to come a longer distance to get the basic household items she needed.  I didn’t know what to say, but I made a point of intently listening and smiling sympathetically.  She concluded her little rant by saying, “And ‘thank you’ for listening.”

Now here’s the truly striking thing:  to a large extent, the interaction immediately lifted me out of my funk.   I had offered kindness, and it had been received, and in doing so, I got out of myself.  I had made a simple human connection, and in so doing found the bridge to cross over out of my personal black hole.

You might wonder why the help I was providing my sister hadn’t done the trick.  I think it was part of the equation, but that in this particular instance I needed to make a connection with a stranger to feel again like a part of the human race.  In other instances, it may well be the family member with whom the connection needs to be made. 

There is something wondrous to me regarding what took place in that day.  I was given opportunity to be a giver, to offer a concrete act of kindness for this frail, old woman.

On the surface level, I was the giver, and she was the receiver.  I am confident, however, that I received far more than she did in that interaction. 

You’ve probably had similar experiences:  you’re in your front yard, say, or maybe in the parking lot of the grocery store.  Somebody is lost, and stops to ask you for directions. You know where they are trying to get to, and are able to give them clear directions. They are grateful and head on their way, leaving you with a sense of contentment for having been able to do something so clearly helpful to another human being.  You ended up feeling blessed. 

Our reading from James begins, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights…”  Every generous act of giving, wherever it is found, regardless of whether you are the giver or the receiver, provides contact with God. 

If you ask me why I believe in a God of love, I think that maybe above all else it has to do with experiences such as these.  At such moments it seems obvious to me that creation isn’t meaningless, that there is a clear intention to it — that this whole big adventure we find ourselves in called “life” is arranged to call us, in our freedom, to find together the way of love and kindness.   We are designed to live kindly.

I’ve been reading an interesting little book entitled, The Power of Kindness:  The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life, by Piero Ferrucci.  Here’s a a part that caught my eye:

“The gifts of kindness and its qualities are various.  Why are grateful people more efficient?  Why are those who feel a sense of belonging less depressed?  Why do altruistic people enjoy better health, and trusting individuals live longer?  Why is it that if you smile, you are perceived as more attractive?   Why is it advantageous to take care of a pet?  Why do those elderly who can talk more with others have less probability of contracting Alzheimer’s disease?  And why do children who receive more love and attention grow healthier and more intelligent?  Because these attitudes and behaviors, which are all aspects of kindness, bring us closer to what we are meant to do and be.  It is so elementary:  f we related better with others, we feel better.

“Kindness is a way of making less effort.  It is the most economic attitude there is because it saves us much energy that we might otherwise waste in suspicion, worry, resentment, manipulation, or unnecessary defense.  It is an attitude that, be eliminating the inessential, brings us back to the simplicity of being.”

Deep down I think we all know this.  But as James say, “we are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.” 

James isn’t inclined to a lot of abstract theological reflection, and as such he reads quite differently from the Apostle Paul with whom at times he can seem in conflict.

James is more of a nuts and bolts — the hands-on mechanic in contrast to the theoretical physicist.  “Be doers, not just hearers, of God’s words,” says James.  “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this:  to care for orphans and widows in their distress…”

I take “orphans and widows” to be shorthand for human beings who are vulnerable, and I think that in a certain sense, we are all orphans and widows.  We are underneath everything quite fragile.  But contrary to the world’s way of seeing things, this is not a bad thing:  it is in our vulnerability that we also find the tenderness of kindness. 

Ferrucci continues:  “Kindness has to do with what is tenderest and most intimate in us.  It is an aspect of our nature that we often do not express fully — especially men in our culture, but also women — because we are afraid that if this vulnerable side comes to light, we might suffer, be offended, ridiculed, or exploited.  We will find rather, that we suffer by not expressing it.  And that by touching this nucleus of tenderness, we enliven our entire affective world, and we open ourselves to countless possibilities of change.”

James reminds us that the truth is, after all, fairly simple.  If there is something kind and helpful that you can do, then, by God, do it.  It is often the case that the kindness we were created to express gets blocked with the very people with whom we live the closest.   There are a lot of good books that couples can read to help heal a troubled marriage.  In essence, what they all say to readers is, “If you want a happier marriage, start being kinder to each other.”  That can sound like a gross simplification, but the problem in marriages — or in any significant relationship for that mater — often comes down to a failure to pay attention to the varied expression of kindness in the relationship.  James declares, “be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.”  We assume we know what kindness would sound like, look like, in our relationships, and then we become angry when either we aren’t getting what we are looking for in terms of kindness, or our expressions of kindness aren’t being appreciated. 

In these marriage self-help books, you will find help in communicating regarding what kindness looks like for one another, so that the couple can begin to be more effective in expressing that kindness.  Often we find we’ve been pretty dense about these things.   We get locked into focusing on a very limited expression of kindness, when kindness is conveyed in a variety of forms, including, giving a compliment, taking the time to listen, doing stuff that needs to get done in the overall economy of the relationship, going to a job that supports the family, praising a job well done, expressing gratitude for the kindness of the other, saying the words, “I love you; I’m really glad you are a part of my life.”

Often times it is very little things that we can do that our partner would find great joy in, but we haven’t taken the time to find out what these things would be, stubbornly determined that our partner begin to better recognize what we have already been doing before we will consider adding to our repertoire.  And often times we just assume our partner ought to know exactly what we need from them in terms of kindness without our having to tell them; but this simply isn’t the case. 

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It is a common complaint that when we turn on the news, what we hear about is bad news. Particularly the local news programs, which seem to have this obsession with reporting on murders and accidents and such, thereby seducing our attention and ratcheting up the fear that works against our natural tendencies towards kindness.   You don’t hear much on the news programs oof the simple acts of kindness that hold this world together, or the creative attempts that many countless dedicated individuals are making to try and solve the big problems that plague society.  The bad news, of course, is real, but the good news is real as well, and often overlooked, and along with it, the motivation to be a part of the solution is missed as well. 

A couple of days after the experience with the old lady in New York, and in a better  rame of mind, I took Fred to a doctor’s appointment.  It was an office shared by several doctors, and so there was a big waiting room with many people, and as I sat there I began to make a point of watching for the little acts of kindness that are right there in front of our eyes, easily missed.  And this is some of what I witnessed in the course of a couple of minutes:  A Hispanic mother taking care of her three little kids, pausing to express concern to a pretty young blond teenage girl that her name might have been called by the receptionist while she was outside taking a cell phone call… A little girl of three, the youngest of four children with a mom, who, with great animation began to sharing something important with me, and me pleased to hear what she had to say, but just not getting it.  The tired looking mother, watching, smiled and interpreted: “‘Goofy high-fived me.’  We just got back from Disney World” … A woman passing by, picking up the magazine this same mother had dropped… A stranger holding the door for another stranger.

Watching for these simple acts of kindness, my soul was strengthened, as I experienced the grace of the Father of lights. 

How might our lives feel differently if each day we began our day with prayer, reframing what our coming day was ultimately all about?  That instead of accomplishing a lot, or winning, or whatever, the simple objective of the day was to give and receive kindness?