A New Kind of Kindness(05June2011)
2 Peter 1 M6 11 06 05
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: A New Kind of Kindness
Text: 2 Peter 1:1-8
BIG IDEA: By receiving the kindness of Jesus Christ we will see others as brothers and sisters and show kindness to them.
In the summer of 1989 I was traveling through Romania when it was still behind the Iron Curtain—when it was still under the iron-fisted rule of Nicolae Ceausescu. I was part of a covert mission to teach the Bible and smuggle medicine. I remember how we had been driving for hours through the winding roads of the countryside, occasionally passing by small villages, and how on a country road in the middle of nowhere we ran out gas.
We didn’t know what we would do. There was a small grey shop on the side of the road. So, I walked over and approached a young man who has working there and said (gestured) can you come with me. We walked to our car and I said, “We’ve run out of gas.” (I pointed to the gas tank and gestured that it was empty.) He said, “Wait” (we had nowhere to go). But, he came back 15-20 minutes later, with a container of gas (I think he was a kind of mechanic or at least worked on cars) and he had taken apart one of his cars to give us some of his gas.
We were so grateful, we offered him money, but he refused it.
He said in broken English, “We must be kind to each other.”
He was a young man who by our standards was very poor, a complete stranger to us but showed kindness to us – believing that we must be kind to one another.
In our world, we tend to define greatness as: having a certain kind of appearance, of being able to move really fast across ice and slide a black circular piece of rubber into a net, or being able to make a great film or book, or having the ability to make lot of money.
But, in God’s eyes, true greatness is showing kindness.
Our world doesn’t really regard kindness as that important—but God does.
God pays King David the highest compliment by saying, “David is a man after my heart” (1 Samuel 13:13-14). Part of the reason he says this is because David, though a man of real power and charisma, was also a man of great kindness.
When David became King of Israel, it was at a time when it was customary and strategic for new kings to kill all of the family members of the previous dynasty—so as to eliminate the possibility of any member from the previous royal family from making a claim to the throne. But, David, out of gratitude for the way God showed kindness to him through his friend Jonathan, went to the house of the former King Saul, who was the father of his friend Jonathan, and asked a servant named Ziba, “Is there anyone in the house of Saul left to whom I can show kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:1)
The servant in Saul’s household answered: "There is still a son of Jonathan: Mephibosheth, but he is lame in both feet."
David has Mephibosheth brought out to him and Mephibosheth was cowering in fear certain that King David would have him executed. Instead David says, “You will always eat at my table”—which in his culture it was a way of saying, “I want you to be part of my family.” “Because God showed kindness to me through your father Jonathan, I will show kindness to you.”
David was a man with a heart after God, in part, because he was kind. And he was kind because when David was a nobody, when he was just a lowly shepherd in a small town then unknown called Bethlehem, God had shown kindness to him.
Kindness is one of the fruits of God’s character. According to Galatians 5, Paul says the fruit of the Holy Spirit, or the fruit of God’s character, is (among other things) kindness. Peter in our text today says add to your faith, kindness or mutual affection.
If you have your Bible, please turn to 2 Peter 1:1-8:
1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In vss. 1-4, Peter says because of the grace, the sheer kindness of God, we can participate in the divine nature, that is, we can become part of the family that is God. We can join circle of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and be enveloped in his love and experience the gift of a new heart—and as that happens one the things we do to respond is add the quality of kindness to our lives (vs. 7).
It’s a natural response to God’s gift.
St. Augustine defined sin as Incurvatus in se – turned in on oneself.
This is a theological phrase which describes sin as a life lived "inwardly" for self, rather than "outwardly" for God and others.
Experiencing the love of God can help us straighten our soul so that instead of us living only for ourselves we live for God and others (show this through a gesture).
Having received the gift of the love of God, Peter says now respond to this by adding brotherly or sisterly kindness, or as the TNIV renders it, “mutual affection.”
The Greek word that Peter is using here is philadelphia—which, as you may know, means “love of brother” or “love of sister.” When I was a boy, I remember how the hockey commentators called Philadelphia’s hockey team the “Broad Street Bullies” because they were tough and mean. They commented that it was ironic the Philadelphia Flyers were such bullies because they played for the city whose name means “brotherly love,” but there wasn’t much love coming from these brothers.
Peter, in verse 7, says, “Add to your faith brotherly or sisterly love (mutual affection).”
Now agape love (which Jade will elaborate more on next week) is not a completely different kind of love from philadelphia. Agape love has less emphasis on our emotions, and more on our will, but philadelphia suggests an affectionate love among brothers and sisters who follow Christ.
Family in biblical times was defined much more broadly than the way we define family today. For most of us here, when we think of family we think of the nuclear family—mom, dad, son, daughter. (As theologian Rodney Clapp points out, our idea of the nuclear family streams down to us primarily from a model of the 19th century European bourgeoisie family. The average household today in North America is between 2 and 3 people, but the average Hebrew household was often between 50 and 100 people and included non-blood relatives)
Jesus called people beyond his nuclear family--his family. He said anyone who does the will of God is his “brother, sister, mother.” (Matthew 12:50).
So, the word philadelphia means—brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, moms, dads – but it refers to something that is broader than just our nuclear, biological family – it refers to our brothers and sisters – may be of different races, social, and economic backgrounds who have a common Father in God.
In the first centuries the love that Christ’s followers had for one another was so powerful that the Roman world took note.
Lucian of Samosata, a writer in the second century, was complaining about how unbelievably openhanded and generous the Christians are to everyone. He wrote: “The earnestness with which the people of this religion help one another in their needs is simply astonishing. They spare themselves nothing for this end. Their first lawmaker put it into their heads that they were all brothers [and sisters].”
In the ancient world, when you walk past garbage dumps you probably find on those garbage heaps newborn babies left out to die. The sewers of ancient Antioch were clogged with one-day-old discarded baby girls. We have letters from the ancient world, where people say, “If it's a boy keep the baby, if it's a girl discard the baby.” And those babies would be consumed by dogs and crows. In some cases owners of slave houses would come and take the babies to raise so they could sell them as slaves; or people who ran brothels would come and take the babies to raise them to become sex slaves. But then along came the Christians who rescued the babies and raised them as their own because they knew that these babies were made in the image of God and had a common Father.
In the second and third centuries two great plagues swept the Roman Empire. People fled in the thousands from cities to try to find safety in the countryside. They often abandoned sick relatives on the way. If a family member seemed too sick, they would just throw them off to the side of the road.
One group that was different was Christians. Some of the Christians would stay behind to care for these sick people, and often all that was needed was just a little bit of care and they would come through.
The Church Father Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim about the Christians “see how they love one another!”
When early Christians did not have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community would fast until everyone could share a meal together. The world had never seen this kind of love before. It is estimated that in the year 250 A.D. in Rome under Pope Cornelius, 10,000 Christians fasting 100 days a year may have provided a million meals to the poor.
We might say, “Those people were incredible.”
In one sense they were. In another sense they were ordinary people like you and me, who were touched by an extraordinary God, and saw people as brothers and sisters and treated them with kindness.
You don’t need to be a “super saint” or a fully matured person to show kindness.
When my wife was a ___ year old girl she won a writing contest in Japan and the prize was the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa. Though she was just a girl she remembers vividly how Mother Teresa told a story of visiting a very poor town in India and a 5 year old boy coming out stretching out a fist to her and saying “This is for the poor children.” And he opened his fist and out poured a small handful of sugar. Later his mother said to Mother Teresa, “When my son heard you were coming to town, he said I want to give sugar to her for the children.” (They were so poor that they didn’t have any candy—but each day the mother let her son lick his finger and dip in the sugar and have a finger of sugar as a treat. He told his mom to take the sugar he would have eaten for 5 and give it to Mother Teresa.)
You don’t need to be this seasoned, mature person to show kindness.
You just need to have experienced some kindness from God to show it, or “pay it forward.”
And you start to see your fellow human beings as made in the image of God—they are your brothers and sisters—and show them kindness.
When we have been shown the kindness of God as Peter says, we can “pay it forward.”
As have seen in this series our love and kindness for others is rooted in God’s love for us. It is a response to grace. One of Peter’s good friends the apostle John writes:
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In this series, we've seen how in response to the sheer kindness of God, his sheer kindness of opening his arms to us and inviting us to enter into the family that is God, that is, the circle of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to receive the gift of being included in the love of God, we are to then respond by adding certain things to that gift. One of those additions, according to Peter, is kindness.
As was true of David, we show kindness to others because God has shown kindness to us.
And in some cases that kindness might be dramatic like rescuing babies, or advocating on behalf of a sex trade worker, or standing beside a person who is very sick.
It might be as simple as offering someone a smile, showing hospitality opening our home or heart to someone. It might mean that you talk to someone after service that you don't know, or invite someone to do something with you – I don't necessarily mean it has to be out on a “date” just invite someone to do something with you.
(note to Penny—this will seem like a tangent--but I’ve been asked recently by a few different people to address this—let me know if you have some feed-forward here):
(I did my undergraduate studies at a private school just outside of Chicago--I have a feeling this story will make into an all church camp skit!--at a place in the Midwest, and a time when young people still dated. I remember how during my first semester my RA named Rob--the student head of the dorm-- said, “Ken, I think you're experience here will be enhanced if you take the time to date.” I thought about it. I thought about how in my high school students really didn't date. We hung out in groups and occasionally students paired up as couple. I hadn't dated in high school; I just hung out with friends. But, I took Rob's advice, and I decided I would not let my natural shyness and very real fear of rejection hold me back, and I started asking girls out. They weren't romantically charged dates, I didn't spend a lot of money… it was more hanging out, going somewhere I want to go anyway, but just with a girl. Sometimes I'd have two dates on a weekend, sometimes one--often none. And occasionally it could be a little awkward, because I was in the habit of asking girls out that I didn't really know. I remember a couple of cases where I asked girls out and they responded, "Uh, I’ll get back to you.” And then a few days later after classes she would say “can I talk to you for second” and she’d pause and say, “Uh, I have a boyfriend… but I'm glad you asked me out. It feels really good to be asked out.” I never had a serious girlfriend as an undergraduate, but going out with girls from time to time was one of the best things about my student experience – I should've studied a little bit more. Now, I know that Vancouver is not a dating culture, but if you're like me and are naturally shy and are afraid of rejection why not overcome that and invite people out for coffee, or go for a run, whatever it is you like to do – and even if the person can’t make it, it’s nice to asked out when you ask someone without any pressure.)
So kindness could be advocating on behalf of a woman or a child who is vulnerable to the sex trade, sitting down and having a meal with the homeless person, but it could also being gracious to a hotel maid as Ken Pierce said last Sunday, inviting someone out to do something with you with no pressure. It could be showing kindness to a member of your family.
At this time, I will ask Penny Crosby, who’s been an active member of our community here at Tenth as a Bible study teacher and as someone who’s opened her home many times to the Tenth Church board and staff and others in our community, to come and share part of her journey.
PENNY’S testimony:
Growing up my Mom has always been my greatest fan. She totally adores me and while I don’t think she is blind to my failures they just don’t matter – maybe they make me even more lovable to her. I realized one day a few years ago that our conversations were always about me. How was I doing? It was Mom asking me questions, taking an interest in me and my kids, telling me I looked good, supporting, encouraging, and delighting in me.
Well Mom is now 87 years old and has Alzheimer’s leaving her disorientated from loss of memory and confusion. She went through a very challenging stage where she seemed to have a hard time even thinking a nice thought let alone saying one. It was a big blow to me. The kid who could do no wrong became the adult who did EVERYTHING wrong. Mom was threatened by me, angry at me and just plain old didn’t like me. It was at this point that I was really called by God to step up to the plate with Mom. It is pretty easy to love a person who is loving to us but what about someone antagonist? It was a very painful transition for me…
As I think on this I realize that this was just another way Mom and I were being asked to change roles. So the Mom I grew up with is my role model in loving her now. I think of all the teenage years where I rolled my eyes and looked with antagonism at Mom. The times I was so consumed with myself and just accepted that she was there for me that I did not support her personally. Now the tables have turned. It is my turn to notice that mom looks beautiful – and she does! It is my turn to ask her about her day, to be interested in what she is interested in, to draw her out… Yes, even to take care of her physically. Recently Mom and Dad moved into the apartment building that Wayman and I live in so that we can be close. So that I can cover for Dad and see her out of bed in the morning and give her her medications. To make her breakfast while she showers and to sit and engage her about her day. I take her to doctors appointments, help with her personal care and care for their home. I am so blessed to have had such good training in this from the one who now needs it.
This loving stuff in the Bible is not always easy or pretty! Sometimes I get really frustrated when she tells me the same thing for the 20th time. I don’t always understand why she can’t make her own cup of tea. I get irritated when I want her to move faster. I am impatient and can easily be mean. There are times when I have to do what the passage here tells me – to make every EFFORT and it is great effort – to be kind, to be gracious, to be patient. My Dad is the most amazing role model for me. I refer to my Dad as the grace tap. The more challenging my Mom’s situation becomes the higher the grace tap gets turned on. These days he seems to gush out grace to mom.
One of the biggest blessings through this is the indescribable joy that comes from loving another. It is not the kind of delight that comes from “I help you so then you help me” and there is an “evenness” to the give and take. It is a kind of joy that fills you just I think because you are doing the thing that God has told us to do. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “I feel God’s pleasure when I run” – I feel God’s pleasure when I love and care for my Mom. I think that this is the part of second Peter that we have been talking about that God has given us a new nature, it is the God part. Sure I am required to make every effort to care for another but I am blown away sometimes as I recognize the joint effort of God and I working together.
The more firmly I am grounded in the Lord’s great love for me, the more I am connected to Him as my source, the more able I am to love unconditionally, to not get caught up in the emotions and ups and downs of the other and to be drawn into their moods, frustrations and trials. As I rest in the Fathers love for me I am free to give and to care without worry for myself… that is a lovely place to be!
Thomas Merton once said the great Saints were not those who love much, but those who knew they were loved much by God.
Do you know that you are loved much by God? Have you received this grace of God? If so, extend that grace to others through acts of kindness.
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: A New Kind of Kindness
Text: 2 Peter 1:1-8
BIG IDEA: By receiving the kindness of Jesus Christ we will see others as brothers and sisters and show kindness to them.
In the summer of 1989 I was traveling through Romania when it was still behind the Iron Curtain—when it was still under the iron-fisted rule of Nicolae Ceausescu. I was part of a covert mission to teach the Bible and smuggle medicine. I remember how we had been driving for hours through the winding roads of the countryside, occasionally passing by small villages, and how on a country road in the middle of nowhere we ran out gas.
We didn’t know what we would do. There was a small grey shop on the side of the road. So, I walked over and approached a young man who has working there and said (gestured) can you come with me. We walked to our car and I said, “We’ve run out of gas.” (I pointed to the gas tank and gestured that it was empty.) He said, “Wait” (we had nowhere to go). But, he came back 15-20 minutes later, with a container of gas (I think he was a kind of mechanic or at least worked on cars) and he had taken apart one of his cars to give us some of his gas.
We were so grateful, we offered him money, but he refused it.
He said in broken English, “We must be kind to each other.”
He was a young man who by our standards was very poor, a complete stranger to us but showed kindness to us – believing that we must be kind to one another.
In our world, we tend to define greatness as: having a certain kind of appearance, of being able to move really fast across ice and slide a black circular piece of rubber into a net, or being able to make a great film or book, or having the ability to make lot of money.
But, in God’s eyes, true greatness is showing kindness.
Our world doesn’t really regard kindness as that important—but God does.
God pays King David the highest compliment by saying, “David is a man after my heart” (1 Samuel 13:13-14). Part of the reason he says this is because David, though a man of real power and charisma, was also a man of great kindness.
When David became King of Israel, it was at a time when it was customary and strategic for new kings to kill all of the family members of the previous dynasty—so as to eliminate the possibility of any member from the previous royal family from making a claim to the throne. But, David, out of gratitude for the way God showed kindness to him through his friend Jonathan, went to the house of the former King Saul, who was the father of his friend Jonathan, and asked a servant named Ziba, “Is there anyone in the house of Saul left to whom I can show kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:1)
The servant in Saul’s household answered: "There is still a son of Jonathan: Mephibosheth, but he is lame in both feet."
David has Mephibosheth brought out to him and Mephibosheth was cowering in fear certain that King David would have him executed. Instead David says, “You will always eat at my table”—which in his culture it was a way of saying, “I want you to be part of my family.” “Because God showed kindness to me through your father Jonathan, I will show kindness to you.”
David was a man with a heart after God, in part, because he was kind. And he was kind because when David was a nobody, when he was just a lowly shepherd in a small town then unknown called Bethlehem, God had shown kindness to him.
Kindness is one of the fruits of God’s character. According to Galatians 5, Paul says the fruit of the Holy Spirit, or the fruit of God’s character, is (among other things) kindness. Peter in our text today says add to your faith, kindness or mutual affection.
If you have your Bible, please turn to 2 Peter 1:1-8:
1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In vss. 1-4, Peter says because of the grace, the sheer kindness of God, we can participate in the divine nature, that is, we can become part of the family that is God. We can join circle of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and be enveloped in his love and experience the gift of a new heart—and as that happens one the things we do to respond is add the quality of kindness to our lives (vs. 7).
It’s a natural response to God’s gift.
St. Augustine defined sin as Incurvatus in se – turned in on oneself.
This is a theological phrase which describes sin as a life lived "inwardly" for self, rather than "outwardly" for God and others.
Experiencing the love of God can help us straighten our soul so that instead of us living only for ourselves we live for God and others (show this through a gesture).
Having received the gift of the love of God, Peter says now respond to this by adding brotherly or sisterly kindness, or as the TNIV renders it, “mutual affection.”
The Greek word that Peter is using here is philadelphia—which, as you may know, means “love of brother” or “love of sister.” When I was a boy, I remember how the hockey commentators called Philadelphia’s hockey team the “Broad Street Bullies” because they were tough and mean. They commented that it was ironic the Philadelphia Flyers were such bullies because they played for the city whose name means “brotherly love,” but there wasn’t much love coming from these brothers.
Peter, in verse 7, says, “Add to your faith brotherly or sisterly love (mutual affection).”
Now agape love (which Jade will elaborate more on next week) is not a completely different kind of love from philadelphia. Agape love has less emphasis on our emotions, and more on our will, but philadelphia suggests an affectionate love among brothers and sisters who follow Christ.
Family in biblical times was defined much more broadly than the way we define family today. For most of us here, when we think of family we think of the nuclear family—mom, dad, son, daughter. (As theologian Rodney Clapp points out, our idea of the nuclear family streams down to us primarily from a model of the 19th century European bourgeoisie family. The average household today in North America is between 2 and 3 people, but the average Hebrew household was often between 50 and 100 people and included non-blood relatives)
Jesus called people beyond his nuclear family--his family. He said anyone who does the will of God is his “brother, sister, mother.” (Matthew 12:50).
So, the word philadelphia means—brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, moms, dads – but it refers to something that is broader than just our nuclear, biological family – it refers to our brothers and sisters – may be of different races, social, and economic backgrounds who have a common Father in God.
In the first centuries the love that Christ’s followers had for one another was so powerful that the Roman world took note.
Lucian of Samosata, a writer in the second century, was complaining about how unbelievably openhanded and generous the Christians are to everyone. He wrote: “The earnestness with which the people of this religion help one another in their needs is simply astonishing. They spare themselves nothing for this end. Their first lawmaker put it into their heads that they were all brothers [and sisters].”
In the ancient world, when you walk past garbage dumps you probably find on those garbage heaps newborn babies left out to die. The sewers of ancient Antioch were clogged with one-day-old discarded baby girls. We have letters from the ancient world, where people say, “If it's a boy keep the baby, if it's a girl discard the baby.” And those babies would be consumed by dogs and crows. In some cases owners of slave houses would come and take the babies to raise so they could sell them as slaves; or people who ran brothels would come and take the babies to raise them to become sex slaves. But then along came the Christians who rescued the babies and raised them as their own because they knew that these babies were made in the image of God and had a common Father.
In the second and third centuries two great plagues swept the Roman Empire. People fled in the thousands from cities to try to find safety in the countryside. They often abandoned sick relatives on the way. If a family member seemed too sick, they would just throw them off to the side of the road.
One group that was different was Christians. Some of the Christians would stay behind to care for these sick people, and often all that was needed was just a little bit of care and they would come through.
The Church Father Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim about the Christians “see how they love one another!”
When early Christians did not have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community would fast until everyone could share a meal together. The world had never seen this kind of love before. It is estimated that in the year 250 A.D. in Rome under Pope Cornelius, 10,000 Christians fasting 100 days a year may have provided a million meals to the poor.
We might say, “Those people were incredible.”
In one sense they were. In another sense they were ordinary people like you and me, who were touched by an extraordinary God, and saw people as brothers and sisters and treated them with kindness.
You don’t need to be a “super saint” or a fully matured person to show kindness.
When my wife was a ___ year old girl she won a writing contest in Japan and the prize was the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa. Though she was just a girl she remembers vividly how Mother Teresa told a story of visiting a very poor town in India and a 5 year old boy coming out stretching out a fist to her and saying “This is for the poor children.” And he opened his fist and out poured a small handful of sugar. Later his mother said to Mother Teresa, “When my son heard you were coming to town, he said I want to give sugar to her for the children.” (They were so poor that they didn’t have any candy—but each day the mother let her son lick his finger and dip in the sugar and have a finger of sugar as a treat. He told his mom to take the sugar he would have eaten for 5 and give it to Mother Teresa.)
You don’t need to be this seasoned, mature person to show kindness.
You just need to have experienced some kindness from God to show it, or “pay it forward.”
And you start to see your fellow human beings as made in the image of God—they are your brothers and sisters—and show them kindness.
When we have been shown the kindness of God as Peter says, we can “pay it forward.”
As have seen in this series our love and kindness for others is rooted in God’s love for us. It is a response to grace. One of Peter’s good friends the apostle John writes:
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In this series, we've seen how in response to the sheer kindness of God, his sheer kindness of opening his arms to us and inviting us to enter into the family that is God, that is, the circle of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to receive the gift of being included in the love of God, we are to then respond by adding certain things to that gift. One of those additions, according to Peter, is kindness.
As was true of David, we show kindness to others because God has shown kindness to us.
And in some cases that kindness might be dramatic like rescuing babies, or advocating on behalf of a sex trade worker, or standing beside a person who is very sick.
It might be as simple as offering someone a smile, showing hospitality opening our home or heart to someone. It might mean that you talk to someone after service that you don't know, or invite someone to do something with you – I don't necessarily mean it has to be out on a “date” just invite someone to do something with you.
(note to Penny—this will seem like a tangent--but I’ve been asked recently by a few different people to address this—let me know if you have some feed-forward here):
(I did my undergraduate studies at a private school just outside of Chicago--I have a feeling this story will make into an all church camp skit!--at a place in the Midwest, and a time when young people still dated. I remember how during my first semester my RA named Rob--the student head of the dorm-- said, “Ken, I think you're experience here will be enhanced if you take the time to date.” I thought about it. I thought about how in my high school students really didn't date. We hung out in groups and occasionally students paired up as couple. I hadn't dated in high school; I just hung out with friends. But, I took Rob's advice, and I decided I would not let my natural shyness and very real fear of rejection hold me back, and I started asking girls out. They weren't romantically charged dates, I didn't spend a lot of money… it was more hanging out, going somewhere I want to go anyway, but just with a girl. Sometimes I'd have two dates on a weekend, sometimes one--often none. And occasionally it could be a little awkward, because I was in the habit of asking girls out that I didn't really know. I remember a couple of cases where I asked girls out and they responded, "Uh, I’ll get back to you.” And then a few days later after classes she would say “can I talk to you for second” and she’d pause and say, “Uh, I have a boyfriend… but I'm glad you asked me out. It feels really good to be asked out.” I never had a serious girlfriend as an undergraduate, but going out with girls from time to time was one of the best things about my student experience – I should've studied a little bit more. Now, I know that Vancouver is not a dating culture, but if you're like me and are naturally shy and are afraid of rejection why not overcome that and invite people out for coffee, or go for a run, whatever it is you like to do – and even if the person can’t make it, it’s nice to asked out when you ask someone without any pressure.)
So kindness could be advocating on behalf of a woman or a child who is vulnerable to the sex trade, sitting down and having a meal with the homeless person, but it could also being gracious to a hotel maid as Ken Pierce said last Sunday, inviting someone out to do something with you with no pressure. It could be showing kindness to a member of your family.
At this time, I will ask Penny Crosby, who’s been an active member of our community here at Tenth as a Bible study teacher and as someone who’s opened her home many times to the Tenth Church board and staff and others in our community, to come and share part of her journey.
PENNY’S testimony:
Growing up my Mom has always been my greatest fan. She totally adores me and while I don’t think she is blind to my failures they just don’t matter – maybe they make me even more lovable to her. I realized one day a few years ago that our conversations were always about me. How was I doing? It was Mom asking me questions, taking an interest in me and my kids, telling me I looked good, supporting, encouraging, and delighting in me.
Well Mom is now 87 years old and has Alzheimer’s leaving her disorientated from loss of memory and confusion. She went through a very challenging stage where she seemed to have a hard time even thinking a nice thought let alone saying one. It was a big blow to me. The kid who could do no wrong became the adult who did EVERYTHING wrong. Mom was threatened by me, angry at me and just plain old didn’t like me. It was at this point that I was really called by God to step up to the plate with Mom. It is pretty easy to love a person who is loving to us but what about someone antagonist? It was a very painful transition for me…
As I think on this I realize that this was just another way Mom and I were being asked to change roles. So the Mom I grew up with is my role model in loving her now. I think of all the teenage years where I rolled my eyes and looked with antagonism at Mom. The times I was so consumed with myself and just accepted that she was there for me that I did not support her personally. Now the tables have turned. It is my turn to notice that mom looks beautiful – and she does! It is my turn to ask her about her day, to be interested in what she is interested in, to draw her out… Yes, even to take care of her physically. Recently Mom and Dad moved into the apartment building that Wayman and I live in so that we can be close. So that I can cover for Dad and see her out of bed in the morning and give her her medications. To make her breakfast while she showers and to sit and engage her about her day. I take her to doctors appointments, help with her personal care and care for their home. I am so blessed to have had such good training in this from the one who now needs it.
This loving stuff in the Bible is not always easy or pretty! Sometimes I get really frustrated when she tells me the same thing for the 20th time. I don’t always understand why she can’t make her own cup of tea. I get irritated when I want her to move faster. I am impatient and can easily be mean. There are times when I have to do what the passage here tells me – to make every EFFORT and it is great effort – to be kind, to be gracious, to be patient. My Dad is the most amazing role model for me. I refer to my Dad as the grace tap. The more challenging my Mom’s situation becomes the higher the grace tap gets turned on. These days he seems to gush out grace to mom.
One of the biggest blessings through this is the indescribable joy that comes from loving another. It is not the kind of delight that comes from “I help you so then you help me” and there is an “evenness” to the give and take. It is a kind of joy that fills you just I think because you are doing the thing that God has told us to do. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “I feel God’s pleasure when I run” – I feel God’s pleasure when I love and care for my Mom. I think that this is the part of second Peter that we have been talking about that God has given us a new nature, it is the God part. Sure I am required to make every effort to care for another but I am blown away sometimes as I recognize the joint effort of God and I working together.
The more firmly I am grounded in the Lord’s great love for me, the more I am connected to Him as my source, the more able I am to love unconditionally, to not get caught up in the emotions and ups and downs of the other and to be drawn into their moods, frustrations and trials. As I rest in the Fathers love for me I am free to give and to care without worry for myself… that is a lovely place to be!
Thomas Merton once said the great Saints were not those who love much, but those who knew they were loved much by God.
Do you know that you are loved much by God? Have you received this grace of God? If so, extend that grace to others through acts of kindness.
posted by Shigematsu at 7:54 PM
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