It's All About Kindness!
It's All About Kindness!
1 Corinthians 13: 4
Love is a power that enables us to be kind.
Kindness is love expressing itself on people.
Such kindness may be soft, but it is not weak.
Such kindness may be tender, but it is not feeble.
Such kindness may be sensitive, but is not fragile.
The world cannot understand that love is power.
Kindness is the work of that power.
The German philosopher, Nietzsche, hated Christianity for encouraging kindness.
He believed Christian love depleted strong people by making them kind, and wasting
their energies on lepers, cripples, and oppressed people.
He thought that when the strong of the human race exercised kindness that it made the strong weak.
Nietzsche prophesied that if we could rid the world of faith in the Christ, we might again
produce supermen.
The strong could get stronger, and the weak would die out.
Nietzsche was so wrong.
And people who think along such lines are wrong.
Far from being weakness, kindness is enormous strength.
Kindness is the power that moves us to support and heal someone who gives us nothing in return.
Kindness is the power to move a self-centered ego toward of the weak, the ugly, the hurt,
and to move that ego to give itself in personal care with no expectation of reward.
Power can exploit others when it is used to diminish the power of other people.
Exploitive power is at work whenever we maneuver other people to do what we wish them
to do in a way that cheats them of a genuine choice.
Exploitive power is inevitably unkind.
It is the antithesis of the power of love.
Servant power is personal power used to increase the power of a weaker person.
The best example is the power of a parent to nurture your child into an independent personality.
Children need a model of personal power.
They must be confronted with the example of it.
This is the power to decide, to will consistently, to stick with promises,
and to demonstrate affection in the midst of confrontation and tension.
The parent who shows these signs of power is demonstrating servant power, which enhances
power in the children.
Servant power is kindness power.
To the degree that we have it we are free from anxiety about our own weakness.
To the degree that we have it we are free to be gentle, tender, and openly caring.
There is another kind of power that we can call shared power.
This is the power we experience along with another person.
For instance, a teacher's power and a student's power grow through mutual criticism.
A student's growing power is increased by his courage to criticize a teacher,
but it is also increased as he accepts that teacher's criticism.
A teacher's creative power, on the other hand, is increased when he integrates
his student's criticism of him into his own work.
This works in a church.
People minister to each other out of the power that each has been given to discern and rejoice
in the potential strengths of others.
Power must be shared with others equally.
Too often shared power within the church is replaced by negative criticism, and the temptation
can develop to serve each other only by ministering to other people's weaknesses.
Shared power is most effective when we minister to one another's strengths,
and encouraging that which is strong to grow stronger.
Shared power is edifying power.
It is the power to build and to nurture, and to add to the strengths of people.
The point in discussing power is to stress that kindness is not weakness,
but a very definite kind of power.
Exploitive power is inherently unkind.
Shared power is consistent with kindness.
But kindness itself is a direct expression of servant power.
Kindness dares to be weak.
The ultimate model of powerful kindness is God.
God has no need to exploit the weak to increase His power.
God has the power to be indiscriminate in kindness.
Since He is not kind in order to get a return on His benevolence, He can be kind to the
ungrateful and the selfish. (Luke 6: 35)
The Bible stresses God's gracious grace to everyone in Matthew 5: 45:
" He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust."
Kindness is love's willingness to raise the level of life of another person.
But it is more.
It is the power to move close to another person in order to promote healing.
The pity that we have when we watch a television documentary about starving children
is not kindness.
Kindness is the strength to take the starving child in your arms and feed him or her.
Kindness is the power to bear another's burdens by feeling his pain in your own soul.
It takes power to be kind because kindness is risky.
Unlike God, we often fail to be kind because we are afraid to risk the consequences.
The power of love may move us toward kindness, but stop us short when we consider
what might happen to us.
For instance, to move toward another person in kindness is to risk misunderstanding.
If we are kind to a person of the opposite sex, our action may be seen as a flirtation.
If we are kind to a person of another race, we may be suspected of being patronizing or subservient.
If we are kind to a stranger, we may be refused.
Also, after showing kindness to a person, he may take advantage of us.
He may become a parasite getting a grip on our caring nature and take advantage of us.
And we may, in our attempt to be kind, do things so awkwardly that we end up
making a fool of ourselves.
None of us want to look stupid, and certainly not when being kind.
The risks in kindness can be frightening.
It is easier to let professional agencies meet welfare needs.
They know what has to be done and how to do it.
They know who really needs the help and those that are not deserving.
But if we leave the works of kindness to professionals, kindness will be replaced by efficiency.
Love will be lost and welfare will take its place.
This happens if the power of kindness atrophies for fear of the personal risks of kindness.
Kindness is a power that comes from love.
The only way to keep kindness alive in a world where a obvious power is highly regarded
is to come back to the cross of Christ, where divine power healed the world by becoming weak
within the world.
At that moment of human history utter weakness was utter redemptive power.
The kindness of Christ's cross looks like weakness because it is tender, vulnerable, asks for nothing,
gives everything, and stoops personally to those who are weakest and poorest and ugliest.
But it is divine power.
Love moved God to become a person like us.
Love led Him, as a man, to use His power solely as servant power.
In love's power He gave Himself in kindness.
He washed dirty feet, and wept with grief-wracked people, empathized with a harlot,
and entered the lives of the of disowned and disdained.
All His life He was powerful in kindness.
But they hanged Him; they put Him on a cross and crucified Him till He died.
God, who is love, was killed on a cross.
The Person of power for all the world was weakness of all men.
In this ultimate weakness, infinite power was set loose in the world.
This is the final truth about power and kindness.
Ultimate kindness is ultimate power.
" The weakness of God is stronger than men," Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1: 25.
This is not a riddle about divine weakness.
It means that it takes great power to be free enough to be radically kind, to become weak
with the weak in order to heal them.
So, in Paul's love song, we find the simple line: " Love is kind", and we discover one
of the most revolutionary truths in the universe.
Kindness is intelligent and tough.
Love's kindness works within the limits of life's hard realities.
For that reason, we need to ask some practical questions about love's limits.
For instance, does love never count the cost?
Is love a reckless kindness?
We have limited resources.
The love of God does not turn us into super-people.
And kindness does not work in a vacuum.
It is exercised within it a constant battle between competitors for our concern.
For every minute devoted to a neighbor there is one fewer minute for family and children.
For every dollar given to one charity there is one fewer for others charities.
So, may a generous kindness to some people result in unfairness to others?
Could it be that a kind person, by mismanaging his resources, actually be unkind?
Kindness must be used with wisdom within a structure of justice and fairness.
Consider the role of a teacher.
Love moves and empowers a teacher to be kind toward all students; otherwise,
it will be mere favoritism toward some.
Kindness moves the teacher to encourage the slow and average student as well as
the honor students.
But if kindness forgets to be honest, it will become cruel.
For instance, a teacher criticizes a student's essay honestly but strictly.
Not to do this would rob the student of a chance to grow through an interchange of power.
But there must also be a gentleness, a feeling for the student's anxiety about his own abilities.
So kindness searches for something in the essay that can be praised, at least for its potential.
Kindness compels that teacher to look until finding something worth commendation.
Being encouraged will enable the student to approach the teacher for further help.
Love will enable the teacher to give it to him.
But this must happen within limits.
For there are other students bright and dull who have a just claim on the teacher's energy.
All of them have a right to a well-prepared lesson the next day.
So, kindness to the one student is limited by the fair claims of many others.
But measuring the works of kindness in specific instances does not mean
that we are withholding kindness.
The polite cliche, " Oh, you are too kind, " is nonsense.
Kindness may be stupidly or unfairly directed, but we are never overly kind.
It is just that we are limited to practicing kindness within the demands of life.
Believing that kindness must move within the limits of fairness, we may have to dispense it carefully,
but only in order to prevent foolish kindness from becoming cruel.
If we struggled to be kind within these limits, it will not be unkind to say, " No,"
to a call for help at times.
Kindness without wisdom and honesty easily becomes mere pity, bound to hurt more people
than it helps.
In the Heart Of The Matter, Graham Greene tells the story of Scoby, who has an affair
with a plain woman.
Too " kind" to leave his wife or to tell her about the affair, he is also too "kind" to leave the mistress.
This kind of "kindness" reflects pity not love.
Scoby could not distinguish between them, but his dishonest kindness proved poisonous;
and it finally killed him.
Suicide was Scoby's escape from the pity that tried to pass for love.
We must ask ourselves if all acts of kindness are works of love.
Love is always kind, but kind acts are not always loving acts.
Some acts typical of kindness are acts of anger, arrogance, or ambition.
Those Pharisees gave their tithes with a great public display or using symbols of benevolence
to get power over religious people.
The rich politician may stand with the poor in order to get their vote.
The religious matron sponsoring charities for poor children may be a saving herself from
boredom and reassuring herself that she is superior in comparison with the poor.
The employer who gives a bonus to poorly paid employees may only be trying to manipulate
them into accepting unfair working conditions.
Acts of kindness driven by such demonic energy are not kindnesses at all.
We do few things from hearts of pure kindness.
But this does not take the edge off the power of kindness.
It only tells us that we seldom act with pure motives.
If God used only people with utterly pure motives, He would have to wait until we all got to heaven.
Paul does not does not say that ever one touched by the power will become instantly, totally,
and predictably kind.
He only says that love is the power that moves us in the direction of kindness.
The more we are moved by love, we will also be moved to be kind.
Kindness is always a move toward healing.
Is toughness out of tune with kindness?
Is kindness always gentle?
Kindness may mean forcing an addict to go through the torment of withdrawal.
Kindness may mean saying, " No," to a spoiled child.
Kindness may mean reporting a crime committed by a friend.
Kindness means to withhold what harms as well as to give what heals.
When does love required gentleness?
When does love require toughness?
There are no rules that tell us how to use the power of love in every case.
We must calculate the means most likely to achieve the most healing end.
Loving enables us to use the most useful means; and if healing requires toughness,
kindness must be tough.
We must not be stupidly kind, for love in a competitive world needs both justice and wisdom.
Justice must be the framework, and wisdom must give the insight to tell us when kindness is just.
We will be kind only in part, only imperfectly, for we have not yet reached perfection.
But we must be influenced by God's love, and we will have the power to be kind.
We will feel the stirrings of a love powerful enough to make us willing to be weak.
And we will discover that being able to get close to another person in order to heal
is our greatest strength.
Sermon adapted