CHAPTER 7 - KINDNESS

7 - KINDNESS

My good friend Ralph Taylor, a minister in Toronto, Canada, tells this story.

When I first arrived at this church there was this gentlemen, Bill. He came to church each Sunday with his spouse and was always welcomed. He was very trusting of her and he was always a part of our community until he physically could no longer attend. He also was a member of our men's Bible study class. His wife brought him and one of the members took him home. Even when his abilities lessened and he wondered where the place in the book was he was welcomed. The men who sat on either side of him made sure they had the same translation and when following in the Bible was impossible enlarged photo copies were made. Three copies for Bill and his seat mates. At the last closing communion where Bill attended he gave me a gift that will be mine forever. As the bread was passed and he took some and ate it, he spoke up and said, ‘I want some more.’

Isn’t that how Jesus went about in Galilee - just being kind and compassionate, particularly to those who most needed help from anyone who could give it? A great many people - perhaps more - were as despised and alienated in those days as we find in our day. Several lists made by well-known Jewish rabbis of Jesus’ time and after designated several despised occupations. Some of those listed would shock us - butchers, doctors and shepherds, for instance. It is quite clear from the gospels that both lepers and the mentally unbalanced were so regarded. One wonders how people like Bill suffering from Alzheimer’s disease would have been treated.

William Barclay recounts an old legend about the sign outside the carpenter shop in Nazareth. Because most people were illiterate, the sign gave passers-by all the information they needed about what went on inside. The sign was a simple ox-yoke. For those who could read, the words beneath the yoke said, "My yoke is easy." It was written in both Aramaic and Greek. The Greek word for "easy" is chrestos. The Greek word for Christ, of course, is Christos. All that distinguishes the two are the two simplest letters of Greek alphabet, iota and epsilon. A yoke that is chrestos doesn’t chafe the neck of the ox that wears it. Or if the yoke is one a man wears to carry buckets of water or some other heavy burden, it fits neatly to the man’s shoulders so that the weight is evenly distributed. That is the kind of yoke Jesus Christ asks us all to wear. The question is whether we are willing to wear it, however long and wearily we may be asked to carry it.

Paul’s Words and Jesus’ Actions

Paul used the noun chrestotos to denote what he meant by this fruit of the Spirit, kindness. In the majestic words of 1 Corinthians 13:4, he expressed a similar idea: "Love is kind." Then he elaborates: "Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful." Sometimes the word is translated as "gentleness," especially in the King James Version. The Roman Catholic Rheims Version uses "sweetness." Old wine is chrestos, mellow.

In Mark’s Gospel (5:21-45), there are two brief stories woven together in an unusual way that show just how Jesus dealt with people in the kindliest way. The leader of a local synagogue had come begging Jesus to heal his twelve year old daughter who was dying. While they were on the way to the man’s house, a woman suffering from a hemorrhage that had lasted for years crept through the tightly packed crowd and touched Jesus’ garment. Immediately he stopped and asked who had touched him. When the woman identified herself, he said to her gently, "Daughter, your faith has made you well." Then he went on his way to heal the dying child.

Arriving at the home, he had to deal with two different groups of people already mourning the child’s death. One group wanted the father to trouble Jesus no further. Others had already begun the weeping and wailing typical of that culture’s way of mourning. In his inimitable kindness, Jesus ignored them both. Approaching her bedside, he simple took the girl by the hand and gently said, ‘Little girl, get up." And she did.

In a society where taboos prevented any Jewish man from touching a bleeding woman or a dead body, Jesus acted with the revolutionary kindness. He gave both of the woman and the girl their lives back, redeeming them there and then.

If we look closely at all his healing miracles, they follow much the same pattern. It was the most natural thing in the world for him to treat the lowliest folk that way. He had a kindly disposition and he showed it in his contacts with people. Can we do any less?

Modern Occasions for Kindness

Debates about the details of biblical scholarship frequently deteriorate into vehement clashes between those who adopt different methods of interpretation or hold different interpretations of the same passage. Respect for each other’s point of view vanishes. Sharply honed arguments slide into angry berating and dismissive tongue-lashing. A graduate seminar in a university may deteriorate in to such a confrontation, but one does not look for such behavior in open discussion in a congregational setting. Unfortunately, it has become particularly evident in the most modern medium of communication - e-mail. A new definition of an old word has come into the language to describe such exchanges: "flaming."

The sound-bites of scholars or news analysts on television panels often lead to this kind of disrespectful confrontation too. Such controversy may characteristic of television as entertainment. Conflict makes the story. Putting another person down or denigrating her sincerely held argument is the very opposite of kindness as Paul thought of it. The most recent editions of dictionaries include a word for it: "dissing." It is an abbreviation of the word "disrespect," says The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. That is somethng people from minority groups know a lot about.

A Life-saving Kindness

One day, when two freshman in the same high school class, walked home on opposite sides of the street. One of them, named Kyle, was carrying all of his books. His classmate Jason thought to himself, "Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd." With a weekend planned - parties and a football game with a friend the next afternoon - Jason shrugged his shoulders and went on.

As Kyle made his way home, a bunch of other kids ran past him knocking his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying.

Seeing what had happened, Jason jogged over to him as he crawled around groping for his glasses. As he handed Kyle his glasses, he noticed a tear and a terrible sadness in Kyle’s eyes. So he said, "Those guys are jerks. They really should get a life."

Kyle looked up and said quietly, "Hey thanks!" There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

The boys got to talking. As it turned out, they lived close to each other. They talked all the way home, and Jason helped Kyle carry his books. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. Jason asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with the gang.

They hung out all weekend and the more Jason got to know Kyle, the more he liked him. And his friends thought the same. Over the next four years, Kyle and Jason became best friends. When they were seniors, they decided to go to different universities, but they knew that we would always be friends. The miles between them would never be a problem. Kyle was going to be a doctor, and Jason was going for business on a football scholarship. Kyle was valedictorian of class. Recalling how they had met, Jason teased Kyle about being a brainy nerd. He was so glad it wasn't he having to get up there and speak.

On graduation day, Kyle looked great. Jason could see that he was nervous about his speech. So, he smacked him on the back and said, "Hey, big guy, you'll be great!" He looked at me with one of those really grateful looks and smiled. "Thanks," he said. Clearing his throat, Kyle stood up to start his speech.

"Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach...but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story."

Jason just looked at his friend with disbelief as Kyle told the story of the first day they had met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn't have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at Jason and gave a little smile.

"Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable."

A gasp went through the crowd as this handsome, intelligent and now popular boy told the audience all about his weakest moment. His mom and dad looking at Jason smiling that same grateful smile. Not until that moment did Jason realize the depth of the kindness he had shown to Kyle.

An Alternative to Aggressive Competition

At a time when aggressive competition in business and politics receives such massive social approval, we have developed a sense that kindness or gentleness are weak, effeminate characteristics. Women have a hard struggle to break through the so-called "glass ceiling" into the executive suites because, it is said, they don’t have the aggressive attitudes it takes to get there. They are too soft, too kind, for the rough and tumble conflicts of the business world.

One needs only to see Jesus through realistic eyes to discover how revolutionary it was for him to be compassionate and kind in all his relationships. In no way did this weaken him in confronting the forces marshaled against him. It appears to have made him a great deal stronger than they. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped to give a blind man back his sight (Mark 10:46-52) and to visit with a hated tax-collector, Zaccheus (Luke 19:1-10). Those incidents paralleled his kindness to the children his disciples would have kept from him (Mark 10:13-16). In his prayer from the cross, "Forgive them for they do not know what they are doing," (Luke 23:34) he exemplified unbounded generosity and compassion. Whom did he forgive? Those many officials, Roman and Jewish, who had manipulated the justice system to bring about his execution? The soldiers who had nailed his hands and feet to the cross, then gambled for his garments? The disciples who ran away rather than face what seemed inevitable? You and me?

Will kindness work in this modern age when so many divisive factors prevent it from being applied in so many areas of life? Political parties have made a vision of "a kinder and gentler society" into a campaign slogan. In economic terms kindness to the weakest and most vulnerable among us had been denounced as being too costly a burden for the tax system to bear. We are constantly harangued that taxpayers want to have more of their money for themselves. So governments should reduce spending on programs that distribute wealth from those who have more to the less affluent. A flat income tax system is promoted as the solution to wasteful government welfare programs. Such a system would yield most benefit for those with the highest incomes while those with the lesser incomes would benefit least. Those businesses which cannot make it in competition with others would be allowed to fail, not subsidized as being important wealth creators for their communities. Yet those corporations which can pay for the most effective lobbies receive the greatest benefits from the system.

Kindness Works in Social and Corporate Realms

In June 2000, Rt. Rev. William Phipps, Moderator of The United Church of Canada, issued a statement that arose out of an eighteen month process he had organized by means of electronic mail. This twenty-seven clause Declaration on Faith and the Economy had as its premise that because human history has entered a new era of both change and opportunity, this should be a time for thanksgiving for God’s gifts, confession for our failure to use them wisely and a courageous, ethical response to the challenges before us. Such a view of the world economy imagines a system inspired by God in which all parts work together harmoniously for the benefit of all. It is a system where moral decisions guide national and international policies. Such a system regard economics and politics as spiritual issues.

Corporations and communities which fail to function in this manner succeed only in creating greater divisions between those who prosper and those who suffer privation. They destroy the social harmony that could exist when compassion displaces consumerism. They generate greed rather than good will and relationships based on mutual caring. The end result is moral bankruptcy. In some cases such as the Enron Corporation’s massive deceit of its employees and investors alike, it results in financial bankruptcy as well.

A vigorous debate has been taking place about the need for improvements in the provision of health care in Canada. In March 2002, one of the first to make a presentation to the Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care was the premier of Saskatchewan, the province where Canada’s universal health care system began. As might be expected, he asserted that a single payer system in which all Canadians are enrolled is fairer, more efficient and cheaper to operate. Fairness comes from the fact that the costs are paid from income taxes. Those who have greater incomes pay more taxes than those with less. But everyone receives the same level of care regardless of income. Efficiency and savings come from the fact that this is an insurance system where costs are paid from the one source with only one administrative structure.

How one person can affect the quality of life of a whole community was told by Rabbi Harold S. Kushner in his recent book, Living A Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001).

A devout Jewish businessman suffered an enormous personal loss in a fire that destroyed a textile factory he owned in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Motivated by his faith and personal integrity, he felt genuine compassion for the community and the three thousand employees who had lost their jobs a few days before Christmas. Defying his insurance adjusters, lawyers and financial advisors he rejected the option of transferring his plant to another part of the country or across the world where operating costs would have been less expensive and his profits greater. Instead he rebuilt the factory in the same community.

Special Kinds of Kindness

Such opportunities and challenges may not be open to every person. Yet each one of us is a steward of the gifts God has given us to help create a beautiful, peaceful world where abundant living is a reality, not just a dream. It begins with taking care of that portion of the world’s resources which are within our control, however little they may be. Being kind to the environment is just as important as being kind to our neighbors.

A woman in Montreal, Canada, whose husband worked in a biological laboratory, had an opportunity to rescue a number of chimpanzees destined to be euthanized after their usefulness to the pharmaceutical and the entertainment industries had ended. At her own expense she made a protected home for them to live out their natural lives in relative comfort.

The movie, Iris, tells the story of Irish Murdock, a noted British author who died in 1999 from Alzheimer’s disease. Based on the book written by her husband, John Bayley, who cared for her for several years before she died, Iris presents a strong case for advocating increased Alzheimer’s research funds and political support from individuals and corporations. Ellie Tesher, a journalist with the Toronto Star, had watched her own mother vanish behind the blank curtain of this disease. She wrote about the movie’s message for aging baby-boomers who face the daunting task of providing for the health care, nursing facilities and home support network for parents suffering from what Tesher called, "this silent stalker." She wrote, "Anyone who has seen the future’s possibilities in the vacant stare of a relative knows that these needs are critical, not a political option."

After a successful intervention in the emergency for children following the war in Kosovo, War Child Canada is carrying on two levels of work in a new relief project in Afghanistan. In the field, it works with Afghan Female Refugees to meet the desperate needs of children in refugee camps. At home in Canada, it is working to create a culture of caring especially among youth. Said one of its officers in a television interview, "We have a responsibility as global citizens to do something to help those who suffer from global conflicts."

In a lecture in 1950, the late Professor James Sutherland Thomson, then dean of the Faculty of Divinity (now Religious Studies) at McGill University, Montreal, said that we have gone about as far as we can go in the discovery of what individual salvation through faith in Jesus Christ means. The next stage of development will be the application of our belief in salvation to the social, political and economic spheres of human endeavor. In his Robertson Lectures delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1954, he elaborated this theme:

The promise of all economic good is within the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Jesus taught us that food and clothing should not be concerns that engender anxious worry, much less project totalitarian strife. ... There is no heavenly gospel indifferent to the hopes of the earth. His word is that in seeking the Kingdom of God and the divine righteousness all these things should be ours as well. We are therefore to seek a righteousness of God in the economic world not because we want it, but because it is His will to give it, not as a secular engagement, but in the assurance that we are fulfilling a divine purpose. Here lies a vast evangelistic field whitening to harvest. And the time is short.

The time has come to realize this hope of economic evangelism for the whole of humanity. It is the natural product of kindness written into the mandate of all governments and businesses.