True Benevolence

Eric and Don were raised in Grace Church.

After graduation from high school Eric went immediately to the university where he took a degree in pharmacology. A faithful worker in Grace, he was eventually elected a deacon.

Don went to work in the auto plant after graduating from high school, planning to save enough to start college within a few years.  Eventually he was able to get his degree and he is now a high school math teacher.  He married Robyn during his first year teaching.

Like Eric, Don has worked faithfully at Grace Church.  He was elected church treasurer about five years ago.

When his mother passed, Eric, whose business had been flourishing, gave a donation of $5000 to the church kitchen fund.  Eric’s mom had loved organizing church dinners but the so-called “fellowship hall” was little more than a big room with an inadequate used stove bought at a second-hand store. The church members wanted to update the outdated facility but had thought it was impossible.  Now, by adding a small amount to the fund each month, they would be able to have a new kitchen in about four or five years.

Then, on a Saturday morning, Don came by to see Pastor Sullivan. After the visit, the pastor called an emergency meeting of the deacons and trustees for that very evening.

With obvious stress, Don began to speak. He explained that a friend had recently started a chain of Christian bookstores. He thought it had a great potential so he and Robyn invested their savings in the plan. More than that, he had invested the church kitchen fund, thinking that the profits would allow the church update the old kitchen that much sooner. The scheme went bankrupt. The money was lost.

An outraged Eric shouted, "Has the DA been called? This is grand theft. "

The stunned deacon board—except for Eric—wanted to hear the verdict of the church. They did, however, accept Don's resignation.

The next Sunday morning Don told the story to the shocked church.

He also told the church that Robyn was going quit nursing school to go back to work and he was going to moonlight until they had paid back all the money.

Pastor Sullivan led the church in accepting Don's apology and in showing forgiveness. Several people hugged both Don and Robyn, promising to pray for them. Some even offered to babysit whenever they needed help.

An ominous note was struck when Eric was heard to growl, "I don 't believe this,” as he stormed out of the meeting.

Don went to work paying back the money while Eric went to work telling as many people as possible what he thought of Don. In his Sunday school class he talked openly of how the morals of the church had declined. In business meetings he complained that today’s churches ignored sin.  At the church meals, he was often seen standing in the corners of the shabby fellowship hall whispering to other members.  He was even heard telling some new members that his beloved church had become "a den of thieves." Inevitably, Eric got a hearing from the folks who were always disgruntled about something.

About a year later, Barbara Washington, a woman who had been a Christian only a few years, spoke up during a business meeting and recommended that Don and Robyn be elected as youth sponsors. Eric exploded. He rose to his feet and said, "l don 't know about the rest of you, but I think our youth sponsors should be role-models for the youth, not people who might dip into the pizza fund whenever they feel like it.”

Robyn started to cry and Don led her quietly from the room. Barbara firmly replied, "What better role-models for our youth than someone who knows what the grace of God is all about.”

Several people applauded but Pastor Sullivan knew something had to be done.

After the business meeting, he asked Eric to come to his office.

"Eric,” he said, "I am concerned because you won't you forgive Don and put this behind you?  It’s time.”

“I know what you want, " Eric snapped, "you want me to be like Barbara 'look at my halo' Washington."

"Not at all,” the pastor said, "I want you to be like God. "

Take careful look at Ephesians 4:32-5:2.  There is a command you shouldn’t miss.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Walk in Love

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Surely it must be one of the most daunting commands in the Bible.  “Be imitators of God.”  Listen to some of the alternative translations.

            --“Do as God does. After all, you are his dear children.”

--“As children copy their fathers you, as God’s children, are to copy him.”

--“You are God’s children whom he loves, so try to be like him.”

In America we have a saying, a somewhat sexist saying; that goes, “Like father, like son.”  We use it when a child’s behavior resembles his father’s; usually, we are referring to a son copying his father’s negative behavior.  Here, Paul has in mind our copying God’s good character.

The notion of our lives reflecting God’s character is found in the beatitude, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God.”  The words “sons of God” are an idiom, a figure of speech that has nothing to do with parentage.  It means those being talked about are acting like the person or thing mentioned in the phrase.  Jesus once called James and John “sons of thunder,” meaning they were loud.  Peacemaking mirrors the work of God; peacemakers reveal their kinship with God.  In the same way, the traits Paul lists in this passage shows our identity.  Not only do they identify us as the new people of God, they reveal we are God’s children.  In telling us to “walk in love” Paul calls us to a lifestyle marked by seeking the good of others, just as a loving God seeks our good.  This is what I am calling true benevolence.

Before we examine these traits we need to see there are elements that will undermine the benevolence that ought to distinguish our lives.  They are implicit in the words found in Ephesians 4:28-31.

Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Yielding to these attitudes and behaviors may call our identity into question.  When we unleash them in the Christian community, we “grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom [we] were sealed for the day of redemption.”  The New Living Bible says it this way, “Don’t cause the Holy Spirit sorrow by the way you live.”  Paul is making the incredible statement that our conduct and demeanor may bring grief to God, in part because such displays belie our identity as the redeemed being made ready for heaven.   Such language may seem strange but it reminds us that the gospel calls us into a relationship with God, a Father who wants the best for us.  Like any good father, God is saddened when we sully his best.

Such attitudes and behaviors not only cause the Spirit sorrow, they threaten the integrity and sweetness of Christian fellowship.  The “unity of the Spirit” and “the bond of peace” begin to unravel.

And, of course, when these traits are manifest in the life of any church, the effectiveness of that church’s witness is diminished.

So, what are these traits that call our identity into question?

Some of the traits that need to be banished are manifested in self-centered, vindictive attitudes. 

Before we look at the attitudes Paul wants us to avoid, we need to look at the strange command in verse 28.  (Let the thief no longer steal…)  Really, do we need to tell Christian people not to be thieves?  Maybe Paul was addressing those whose former lifestyles accepted theft as a way to get by, to survive.  Some cultures are like that.  The ministry of Christian nurture helps smooth the rough edges off some converts. 

But don’t miss the remainder of that command, “ . . . rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”  Here’s a lesson the thief and the rest of us need to learn, think about other people.  In the recent movie Doctor Strange, his mentor tells the fledgling superhero that he has failed to learn an important lesson.  “Which is,” the doctor asks.  The mentor replies, “It’s not about you.”  In the pursuit of being like Christ, the thief and the rest of us need to learn that not everything is about us.

In World War II Britain faced the problem profiteering and the black market.  Thorough these activities those who were more committed to their own greed that to the cause of victory exploited their neighbors.  Those who operated the black markets and those who bought from them took from their neighbors.  They thought only of themselves.

The trait that most clearly belies our identity as God’s children, the trait that gives birth to the others Paul condemns, is selfishness.  Paul holds up Jesus as the great example of selflessness.  He “gave himself up for us.” 

What are these destructive traits?

Paul speaks of “bitterness.”  This is a refusal to be reconciled.  It keeps score of wrongs, real and imagined.  Years ago, in another church, I knew a church member who imagined another member had insulted him.  He was still angry when I moved to Ohio.  Five years later I returned for a wedding; he cornered me and began pouring out his complaint as if it had happened the day before.

Paul speaks of “anger.”  This is not indignation at injustice or moral wrong.  This is uncontrolled rage.  Certainly this is a warning we would do well to hear today.  There seems to be so much anger in the air.  We see it in stores, in schools, on the highways, in our churches.  Paul told the Galatians that the fruit of the Spirit’s work in our lives is “self-control.”   Such rage grieves the Spirit because it undermines the Spirit’s work in moving us toward Christlikeness.

Paul also wishes to banish “hateful feelings.”  Some translations use the word “malice.”  The person in the grip of such feelings plots the downfall of others, looks for ways to do harm rather than good.  Rather than being like Christ who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38), they seek to harm.

Paul gives special attention to the ways we belie our identity as God’s new people through our words.  Several translations have Paul condemning “foul language,” making us think of language that we say would make a sailor blush.  That’s not a bad translation so much as a limiting translation.  The Greek word not only means corrupt or putrid, it can carry the idea of unwholesome, polluting, even “vicious.” Our words may be instruments of healing and help or they may be instruments of hate and harm.

Such harmful language can involve “clamor” or “shouting.”  This imagines face-to-face confrontation.  Threats and insults form the substance of such destructive communication.  The person who gives vent to such words is like the cobra that spits its venom into the face of a victim.

Such things happen in our churches but I wonder if the more common misuse of our language is found in the word “slander.”  Paul knows hostility housed in our hearts will be expressed in our words.  Anger, bitterness, and hateful feelings lead us to begin a “whispering campaign” to let everyone know just why we feel incensed.  Sadly, this kind of slander can even masquerade as concern for the church.  Of course, Facebook and e-mail allow us to carry on this campaign without leaving our homes.  Such efforts can be very effective.  Perhaps Paul’s great poem about love—I Corinthians 13—reminds us that “love is . . . ever ready to believe the best of every person” because we are so prone to believe the worst. 

Instead of allowing such attitudes and actions to flourish, the new people of God are to foster other qualities.  These qualities are exemplified in the self-sacrificing love of Jesus Christ who came to let us know what God is like.  To the degree we manifest these elements of true benevolence in our lives we reveal ourselves to be children of God. 

If we want to be like the Father, these are the traits we will develop.

The first is kindness. This involves action rooted in an inner disposition that seeks to be good and beneficial to another.   Being kind means we will consciously seek the best for another.

As they listened to this letter, the Ephesians may have recalled Paul’s words in chapter two, words about how a God who is rich in mercy acted benevolently toward those who were “dead in trespasses and sins…so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”  God modeled kindness.

We must grow in kindness; it doesn’t come naturally.  Retaliation is far more natural than kindness.  Yet, Paul suggests we are to seek good even for those who injure us.  Frederick Faber expressed a fact about Christian kindness that is easy to forget in an age when we seek those who can out-argue the critics of Christianity, who can trounce the skeptic.  Faber, himself a scholar, wrote, “Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.”

A second trait is compassion. The Greek word is “eusplangchnoi” and sometimes refers to the proper functioning of our intestines.  “Tenderhearted” is a good translation.  Paul has in mind a response that comes from the very core of our emotions.   W. L. Walker says, “Compassion, literally a feeling with and for others, is a fundamental and distinctive quality of the Biblical conception of God.”  God is the God of all compassion.

In Greek thought, God was sometimes pictured as the unmoved mover, as indifferent to our pain and suffering.  The Biblical God shows no such apathy.  Neither should his new people be indifferent to the plight of others.   Larry Richards suggests this kind of compassion is so profound that it is actually life-changing.  Many of those who sought to end the slave trade were moved by the stories of how men and women were kidnapped from their homes and taken to far away lands to toil for the slave owners.  One of those so moved was Josiah Wedgewood, manufacturer of the famed Wedgewood pottery.  He created a medallion that symbolized the message of the British abolitionists.              

          The writings of former slave-ship captain John Newton and others who had witnessed the horrors of slavery and this image of an African slave, bound in chains and pleading for help, aroused the pity of those in England who had never set foot on a West Indies sugar plantation.  They determined to act to end slavery.

The compassion Paul speaks of is a compassion that cares enough to act.

A third trait of true benevolence is forgiveness.  It is easy to show kindness to the kind, to show compassion to the compassionate; but it is hard to forgive those who have wronged us. Yet, he says we are to “forgive one another.” 

Just in case we balk at that, Paul gently reminds us that we, too, sometimes need forgiveness.  As Phillips translates the verse,  “Be as ready to forgive others as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.”

Men and women who say, “I just can’t forgive that person,” should be so grateful that God never looked at their offences and said, “I can’t forgive.”

Instead, we should be like David who celebrated God’s character with these words.

Bless the LORD, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

Bless the LORD, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits,

who forgives all your iniquity. . .

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy . . . .

Forgiveness is part of God’s character; it should be part of our character as well.

Think again of that command: “Imitate God.”  None of us can claim to have attained that ideal.  None of us can claim to have ticked that off our to-do list.  It is a lifetime goal.  More important, none of us can hope to approach that goal without the Spirit working in our lives.

I haven’t finished my story because I don’t know yet what happened to Don and Eric.  Don made a big mistake.  Perhaps he allowed pride to entice him to act without the counsel of other church members.  In any case, he is growing because of the kindness, compassion, and forgiveness he has received.  In every church there is someone like Don, someone who messed up.  In almost every church there is someone like Eric, someone ready to condemn and write-off those who fail.  But, by God’s grace, in almost every church there is someone like Barbara, those who see themselves as beneficiaries of grace and are ready to show that grace to others.

Now expand your imagination just a bit more—a lot more—and picture my so refining this story that Hollywood decides to make a movie out of it.  Never mind who would play Don.  I want to know whose role you’re best qualified to play, Eric’s or Barbara’s.