Second Friday of Eastertide

4/24/2020

Introductory Note: This morning we wake up to the Holy Spirit who lives and works in us to produce the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness. Kindness, according to one Bible dictionary is simply ‘Love expressed in charitable, helpful acts.’ The Greek word for ‘kindness’ is chrestos which speaks of deeds that are ‘practically useful and timely,’ and requiring of the doer a measure of inconvenience, sacrifice, vulnerability, and/or disadvantage. Kindness, then, is more that doing something nice or pleasant or sweet at little cost to the yourself. For an act to be kind it must cost.

The Good Samaritan is a good example, demonstrating the range of the meanings of ‘kindness.’ In stopping and helping the beaten man left for dead, the Samaritan puts himself at great risk and cost in the course of showing kindness to the victim. It cost the Samaritan time, money, comfort, convenience, freedom, as well as risk of danger to himself.

Of course, our Lord’s life was a continuous display of kindness crowned by His crucifixion and death for His enemies. John Stott wrote of the divine kindness of our Lord this way, “The Son of God did not stay in the safe immunity of his heaven, remote from human sin and tragedy. He actually entered our world. He emptied himself of his glory and humbled himself to serve. He took our nature, lived our life, endured our temptations, experienced our sorrows, felt our hurts, bore our sins and died our death. He penetrated deeply into our humanness. He never stayed aloof from the people he might have been expected to avoid. He made friends with the dropouts of society. He even touched untouchables. He could not have become more one with us than he did. It was the total identification of love.”

Christ’s Easter People are useful, helpful, charitable people, receiving God’s grace and blessing, and then, in turn, blessing others with the grace and blessing they themselves received from the Lord.

Epistle Reading: Ephesians 4:31-32

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 [Instead] be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Meditation: “Be kind to one another”

According to Paul, before we can be kind to one another we must put some things away. Reflect on all the things Paul calls us to ‘put away’ in verse 31. (What Paul means by putting something away is similar to the way we put the garbage out to the curb to be trucked away to the dump. So, to ‘put away’ means to take your soul’s garbage out to be taken away to the dump.)

Is there any animosity or offense that you are nursing against someone? Put it away from you. Is there anything you are boiling mad about (wrath) or stewing over (anger)? Put it away from you. Is there anything you are in uproar about, gossiping and slandering others about, or plotting some retaliation over a grievance? Put it away from you. Take the garbage of your heart and soul out to be trucked away to the dump.

Instead – ‘be kind to one another.’ Do something useful for others. Do something helpful and practical for one another. Why? Because we are Easter People who’ve been given a new Life that fulfills what the prophet has said, (Isaiah 2:4): Instead of making war against one another, ‘we beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks; we put our weapons down and offer instead our helping hands.’

Our Lord calls us to be kind to one another and He has given us a list of kindnesses that are precious to Him. The list is not exhaustive, but it is a beginning. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells us: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’

What is precious about such acts of kindness done for Christ’s sake is that Jesus counts these things as kindnesses done to Him directly, personally. Jesus, says, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

Cloud of Witnesses

“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.”

– Samuel Johnson

“Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.”

– Corrie Ten Boom

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Mustard Seed Theology (for small kiddoes)

Note to parents: I think the tendency in teaching a lesson about kindness to children is to have the child do a kindness for his or her sibling, or parent, or neighbor; or for the family to huddle up and decide on doing a kindness for others, like bag food and take it to the Food Bank. (I know this was my first inclination.)

This isn’t wrong, of course; on the contrary. But I think for small children it is equally important for them to know and feel through all their senses first God’s kindness to them. If the child can have her heart and mind opened to the superabundance of God’s kindness that she receives and enjoys every day, in every little thing, then the child will learn something vital: Kindness is the way of her Heavenly Father; kindness is at the heart of all things; and kindness is the fruit that the Holy Spirit is producing in her heart.

How does a parent help a child interpret the world as a never-ending river of kindnesses flowing from the Heavenly Father? Firsts, see the world as such. James says (1:17), “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights …”

Then ask your child, ‘What good and perfect gift that is useful, helpful, practical, beneficial does the Father give to you? Begin a list: Existence and personality, breath and pulse, strength and movement, thought and memory, senses and sensations, food and drink, arms and legs, hands and feet, family and friends, sleep and waking, to name a very, very few.

Once your child gets the hang of this list making, he or she will name an infinite number of kindnesses from God. Then ask your child ‘What is a proper response to our Father for such kindnesses? (Hint: according to 1 Chronicles 16:34 (and almost every psalm) our response to God for His every kindness is to ‘give thanks.’)

Here’s where you can have great fun. Start singing, dancing, shouting, clapping, or jumping in your thanks to God for His every kindness – big and small. Think of the scene in ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ when George Bailey returns from a bleak world of what-might-have-been to his precious ordinary, humdrum life with a new-found exuberant gratitude for the least thing.

At more contemplative times, you can wonder together with your child what life might be like if you didn’t have these kindnesses from God, like memory, birds, water, colors, gravity, sunshine, … If you and your child really think earnestly about these things it would be understandable if you fell down on your faces and thanked your heavenly Father with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength for even the simplest things.

(By the way, if you Google ‘The Rabbit Room,’ (a website of Christian artists), you will find a fabulous book entitled ‘Every Moment Holy.’ It is a book of liturgies for ordinary events of daily life, such as: drinking your first cup of coffee; washing dishes; changing diapers; celebrating birthdays, and so on. It’s worth checking out.)

Mustard Seed Truth: God’s kindness to you is everywhere and everlasting.

Mustard Seed Scripture: 1 Chronicles 16:34 “O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”

Morning Prayer:

O Lord, grant me the grace to put away all animosity and offense, all anger and bitterness, all grumbling and idle chatter, all irritability and frustration with others. Grant me power to cease from pressing my rights, to cease my accusing, judging, condemning, and fault-finding. Rather, let me receive my brother and sister as he and she are in Christ, and forgive each one every day. Take this sword from my hand and this spirit of warfare from my heart. Instead, dear Holy Spirit, fill me with your fruit of kindness. Give me your eyes to see the needs of others; give me your heart that is ever drawn to the needy; your hands to do what is needful, your feet to quickly bring help in time of need. Lord, let my every kindness done for the needy be as kindness done unto You. Amen.

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Second Friday of Eastertide

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