A Meditation on Kindness

Homily for Sunday, January 24, 2010 Buck Mountain Church and Graves Chapel

Lessons:

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Luke 4:14-21

A living one-month old baby was pulled from the ruins in Haiti on Tuesday, a full week after the earthquake. A miracle, wasn’t it? And cause for rejoicing in the face of so much horror and suffering. All around America, people like us watch our televisions and listen to the radio for news about the disaster. We pray for the injured and grieving, for the rescuers and medical teams, for the future of Haiti. We are filled with good-will towards the faraway victims, and we make generous donations. We understand that our kindness is both righteous and necessary.

In fact, kindness may be the most necessary of all virtues. As priest and theologian Henri Nouwen put it, “Jesus’s whole life was a witness to his Father’s love, and Jesus calls his followers to carry on that witness in his Name. We, as followers of Jesus, are sent into this world to be visible signs of God’s unconditional love.”

Being visible signs of God’s unconditional love is pretty easy when it comes to sending aid to earthquake victims. It can be a far more difficult proposition when it comes to showing kindness on a day-to-day basis to the people with whom we routinely interact—our families, our co-workers, our friends. We lose patience. We expect too much of each other. We take our relationships for granted. Love and kindness aren't always easy.

There is another problem with kindness in the real world we inhabit. As an attribute, kindness won’t get you very far in a world that values competition, aggression, assertiveness, self-fulfillment. Getting ahead and getting what we want from life is a philosophy that looks down its nose at kindness. Listen:

She is so sweet... He is such a kind man...He would give you the shirt off his back...She would do anything for you...Have you ever noticed how such compliments are stated? It seems to me that an assessment such as "She is so sweet" carries with it the implication that she must also be not quite right. [There is a Southern female tradition of saying something like, "She is so sweet" and adding "Bless her heart" to imply the speaker meant the exact opposite.] People who are perceived to be truly kind and gentle are also, apparently, often considered to be lightweights, as if they are not tuned in to reality. Unconditional love and kindness won't get you very far in our cynical modern world, or so it seems.

This sardonic attitude is not new, however; the eye-rolling dismissal of gentleness has been around for centuries. Herod displays it when he tells the wise men, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." Herod sees as foolishness the loving devotion that brought the three kings such a distance, bearing gifts for an unknown infant, and he assumes he can trick them into revealing the identity of the babe they seek. But God is in their wisdom as well as their dreams, and the three kings foil Herod's plan to destroy the baby Jesus by taking a different route as they head for home.

The feast of the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th, commemorates the wise men's journey and begins the Season of Light, which will last until Ash Wednesday. Epiphany means "manifestation" or "revelation" and stands for the idea that the birth of Jesus is a revealing of the Word of God in human form. The star shed a very bright light, indeed, and it is the light of love.Our lessons today, for the third Sunday of Epiphany, concern Jesus's understanding of what he is called to do and our instructions for how we are to follow Him. It seems to me that love and kindness are at the heart of both.

As the story is told in Luke 4, Jesus is at the very beginning of his ministry when he returns home to Nazareth. In the synagogue for the Sabbath, he is given the scroll of the prophet Isaiah to read, and he opens to these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." After he reads and rolls up the scroll, Jesus simply states: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." He declares himself to be the anointed one and says that he has been called by God to help the poor, the imprisoned, the sick and disabled, the oppressed. He has been called to make manifest the unconditional love of God. He has been called to a mission of kindness.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians reminds them that a considerate respect for one another will be the tie that binds their church community together. After I read this epistle, I contemplated preparing index cards labeled boldly with the names of the various body parts. I thought I might hand them out to all of you as you entered the church and have you represent an organ or a limb, an eye or an ear. Then I could say, "All internal organs, stand up now!" It didn't take me long to realize that wouldn't go over very well. It would miss Paul's point, anyway. Paul wants us to understand that we make up the body of the church as we bring our unique gifts to the service of the community of Christ. No part of the body is unnecessary or inferior; all are equally important, even if some are more modest and less outwardly visible. If we do, as Paul suggests, think of each other as the various parts of one body, the body of the "one holy catholic and apostolic church," we might appreciate each other more and treat each other with more love and kindness. Eugenia, our left foot, might get a bunion and be a pain sometimes, but we wouldn't want to cut her off, would we? As Paul says, "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it." The point of suffering together is to ease each other's burdens and to give each other hope in the Lord.

I don't know if you are a Masterpiece Theater fan, as I am, but if you are, I hope you won't mind hearing a little bit about Masterpiece Classic's most recent series, Cranford, based on novels by Elizabeth Gaskell, and set in a small town in Victorian England. The main character, Matty Jenkyns, played by Judi Dench, and her sister Deborah are the spinster daughters of the town's former rector, and they are at the center of a circle of women, spinsters and widows, who take it upon themselves to set the moral and social standards for Cranford. Matty looks to Deborah, who is older and sharper, to be the ultimate arbiter in all matters, and though Deborah can appear to be rather strict and harsh, she also can be wise and generous. When Miss Pole, the worst gossip of the group, arrives with some out-of-breath news to impart, Deborah is careful to question her and get a truer perspective on the tidbit before she gives it any credence. After Deborah suffers a stroke and dies unexpectedly, Matty must learn to value her own wisdom. Matty's wisdom is very much the wisdom of kindness.

When Matty was a young woman in love, Deborah had disapproved of her young man, and Matty had ended the relationship. After Matty's second chance to marry the man she loves does not come to fruition, she does not become embittered or resentful. In fact, she believes even more strongly that love should not be thwarted, and she tells her maid Martha that she will permit her to see young men, something forbidden to the maids of her friends. Ultimately, Matty's kindness to Martha and her boyfriend Jim results in their coming to her rescue when she falls unexpectedly on hard financial times. They marry and move in with her, providing her the income of their rent and the company of their infant daughter, whom Mattie treats like her own granddaughter. Imagine! Treating the maid and her daughter as you would members of your own family!

You might think such behavior in defiance of social codes of conduct would completely ostracize Matty from her very proper friends, but that isn't what happens. Matty is such a loving, generous, and kind person, her friends cannot betray her, although they may disapprove of her choices.

When the new-fangled railroad threatens to run right through Cranford, the ladies are up in arms in opposition. They fear the railroad will destroy life in Cranford as they know it. At first Matty is in agreement with her friends and sees the railroad as a dangerous imposition. But Matty is an observer, someone who keeps a close and loving eye on her friends and neighbors, especially the young ones, and she is convinced that it is wrong for her peers to block the kind of progress the railroad will bring. Although interfering with such a matter was very much not in the nature of the very modest Matty, she once again demonstrates her boldness to defend what she believes to be the right thing. Her gentle kindness does not make her weak or retiring.

Over the course of several episodes, Matty suffers many setbacks, some of which might make me want to climb in bed under a blanket and never come out. Near the end, after one more disaster, Matty is reminded of the Greek myth of Pandora, and she believes herself to be, like Pandora, the unwitting instrument of pain for all those around her. (She isn't, of course.) Finally she recalls the end of the tale, how Pandora managed to keep hope in the box from which she released all the world's troubles. So Miss Matty focuses on hope and how to share it with her community. Using up the last of her savings, Miss Matty gives a very special Christmas gift to the town of Cranford. And you know what? Although the gift is bestowed by an act of unconditional love--Miss Matty herself says "Love is the final word"-- it redounds to her in unexpected and wonderful ways.

That's the way of love, isn't it? As J. M. Barrie said, "Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves."
Let us pray for all those who selflessly give to others, who love and care for earthquake victims or for the lonely shut-in down the street. They live in the kingdom of kindness, and we know them by their love. That is what Christ wished for all of his disciples. That is what he wishes for us.