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 The church members wanted to update the outdated facility but had thought it was impossible.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.

On the Grid

Sitting with my wife in a doctor’s waiting area, I watched a muted, but captioned television program. It featured a young couple struggling both to start a new business and build a home in a remote corner of Montana where they and their eighteen-month-old daughter would live. The wife-mother-business partner said they dreamed of living “off the grid” with “no cellphones or computers.” We were called to see the doctor as the couple rushed to finish the roof of their home before the first snows came.

This story of a couple wanting to live miles from any neighbors, live without the cellphone coverage most of us prize, live off the grid, reminded me of another story in the news.  In Texas, a truck driven by a man texting on his cellphone had crashed into a church bus killing thirteen senior citizens.  Here was a man who could not disengage from the grid long enough to drive safely from one place to another. 

Living off the grid once meant being disconnected from any public utility, perhaps using wind power to supply electricity and even water.  The would-be off-gridders in Montana sought freedom not only from physical connections but from the more ubiquitous, invisible connections linking us to a demanding world.

A quarter-century ago our family bought our first computer.  It wasn’t especially powerful and had little memory, yet the hardware—CPU, monitor, keyboard, and printer—covered the entire desk.  Our first access to the Internet was through a dial-up service; for those of you who have only known broadband and Wi-Fi, that meant we had to limit our online time because no one could call us if we were using it—a concern for a pastor, a crisis for two teenagers.  Now, we don’t even have a landline and I carry a much more powerful computer in my pocket.  This computer places me on the grid; its apps allow me to search for answers to arcane questions, help me keep track of appointments, and inform me if a rogue dictator bombs a neighboring country or a celebrity couple files for divorce after a few months of marriage.

Buying our first cellphones was a major step.  We thought it was a smart way for our sons to call us if they had problems while they were out with their friends.  The phones let us stay in touch if either they or we were mobile.  We never imagined how much smarter these devices would become.

I hesitated to give the number out.  I knew the deacons and most people in the congregation would be circumspect in calling.  I knew some would call night or day, even if I were on vacation, with such messages as, “Pastor, I knew you’d want to know someone left a light on in the ladies’ restroom.”   Eventually, I relented and let the number be published in the church directory; there were a few “lights-left-on” calls but I felt better knowing members could reach me if they couldn’t reach a deacon or wanted to talk about something they didn’t want to share with a deacon.  Sure, there have been occasions when I would have happily tossed the phone into a full baptistery but overall the benefits of owning a cellphone have outweighed the disadvantages.

Oh, I can understand the desire to escape from our connected world.  Once, I had to worry about street-corner con artists trying to sell me a genuine “Rodex” watch for $50.00; now, because of the new connectedness, I have to worry about con artists in Nigeria, Taiwan, Peru, and elsewhere trying to steal my identity.  Yet, because of that new connectedness, I can ask a former professor with a question, review the ingredients for an online recipe without leaving the grocery, and watch my grandson who lives a thousand miles away play his air guitar in real time.

Sometimes, even the critics fail to see how much they depend upon the technology linked to the grid.

I heard two sermons at the church I now attend, sermons preached about three weeks apart, sermons on different topics, sermons from different speakers.  Each speaker took a moment to chasten us listeners for our use of “the screen.”  By this, the speakers meant their listeners’ continually looking at TVs, cellphones, tablets, and computers.  As they spoke, their salient points—including their comments about the screen—were being flashed onto the four screens around the auditorium.  After the messages, those screens carried an invitation to look for more teachings at the church’s website, an act which necessarily involves looking at a screen. 

      The speakers were not being hypocrites.  They just momentarily forgot how much “the screen,” like “the grid,” is engrained in modern life.

Remember, the story of the Montana couple wanting to live off the grid was being told on cable television—an entity sustained by the grid.  And, of course, I am writing this essay as I stare at a screen

The screen being inescapable does not mean it should dominate all our moments.  The truck driver’s texting made him a hazard on the road.  I’ve spent some time in that part of Texas and I know a driver can find a place to stop if a text must be sent.  True, it might not be a Wal-Mart parking lot; it might be a service station or just a wide berm.  But it would be a place to stop.  I’m sure he wasn’t the only driver texting that day; most escaped harming themselves or others—all put themselves and others in harm’s way.  Surely, those texts could wait.

Yet, temperance in its original meaning of “moderation” seems a forgotten virtue.  Asking someone to be self-restrained seems like advocating self-induced cruel and unusual punishment.  Some simply avoid the issue.

I know the mother in a family of five who never buys chips or cookies because one family member will eat them all in a single sitting.  Of course, the other family members are not really suffering from the absence of snacks in the pantry but somehow failing to help the ravenous member toward self-control foreshadows greater problems. 

Perhaps gluttony was included as one of the “Seven Deadly Sins” because it was the obvious visible expression of no self-control, no moderation.  When sixth-century Pope Gregory I created the “modern” list of the seven deadly sins, there were no fast food restaurants offering to super-size a serf’s fries; perhaps those who least had to worry about their next meal were most prone to intemperance. Nevertheless, in our age of extremes we must not forget gluttony was the deadly sin, not eating.

A few years ago I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of counsel in Paul’s letter to the Ephesian church and to Timothy, the apostle’s traveling companion who became the pastor of that church.  Paul told the church, “do not be drunk with wine,” a command that has often been used somewhat questionably to defend teetotalism.  To Timothy, who possibly suffered a digestive ailment, Paul said, “drink a little wine for your stomach’s sake.”  Taken together, it seems Paul would recommend thoughtful moderation in the use of wine.  In the end, I suspect Paul would say to those who choose to drink alcohol, “Don’t overdo it” and to those who choose to abstain, “Don’t judge.”

When it comes to matters like “the screen” or other grid-linked paraphernalia, what does moderation mean?  Somewhere between renouncing the grid and never allowing electronics to sleep.  But where is that middle ground?  Some might find it accidentally, some through deliberate resolve.

A friend told me he knew something was wrong when he realized how often during a typical day he exchanged work-related text messages with a co-worker in the next cubicle.  He resolved to do something about it.  He discovered standing up and stepping around the dividing wall to ask his questions garnered information more quickly and with less confusion than the old-fashioned method of texting.  Still, he does floor-to-floor and building-to-building texting but interacts face-to-face with co-workers who are a few yards away.

Chip and Joanna Gaines, known for hosting HGTV’s “Fixer Upper,” are admired for being committed to their family.  Interviewed on Entertainment Tonight, Joanna admitted, "I tell the kids that you are probably not going to get a cell phone. We want to teach our kids that life happens outside of these devices. It's just a simple thing to go outside and connect with nature, play with your friends and get dirty."[1]  Then, too, for the sake of their family the couple decided to have a television-free home.  That seems to resonate with some people; of course, those admirers only know the couple because of television. 

Giving the TV to Goodwill might be the way for some families to regain balance.  Most can find less dramatic ways.

Our daughter-in-law assures our grandson has “gross motor time” each day, an hour of so of running, climbing, and other outdoor activities.  The six-year-old still knows his way around an i-Pad but he also knows he can have fun without a screen in sight.

Some families have instituted pizza and board game nights.  Age-appropriate games can foster sharing, reasoning, and imagination—all without the grid.

If you’re spending time with your family, driving, or just reading, don’t respond to every text, even those reporting the crazy thing the Democrats, the Republicans, or your neighbors have done. 

I will say no more lest I stray into micromanaging your lives.

Even among evangelicals, “moderation” is an amorphous term.  A friend thinks having one beer a week borders on profligacy; moderation for my friend allows little wiggle room. Yet, my friends who can tell the difference between IPAs, stouts, and ciders—by taste—are genuinely concerned when others abuse alcohol.  Their idea of moderation would differ from that of my teetotaler friend but they still encourage moderation.

Fears about the tech world often prove to be unjustified.  Children who play video games still play with real friends in the park, still risk bruises riding skateboards, still look forward to birthday parties with real, not virtual, cake.  Young people who text throughout the day still write (relatively) lucid sentences for English class, though thanks to tweeting they may know more about Lady Gaga than Lady Macbeth. 

A local body shop uses billboards saying, “Tailgating is evidence of low intellect.”  At the very least.  If some who regularly text, search the web, and otherwise stare at a screen do so while hurtling down a highway at sixty-five miles an hour, perhaps their problem is not with technology but with hearts and minds infected with hubris, indifference, and thoughtlessness.

Getting off the grid won’t fix such hearts. 

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[1]  “Why Chip and Joanna Gaines Won't Give Their Children Cell Phones”

(www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/news/a40908/chip-joanna-gaines-cell-phones-kids.)  Accessed April 26, 2017.