There Is Beauty in Being Kind
A few sermons ago I mentioned an experience I had in a grocery store. I had been listening to a podcast that was funny but cynical. After an hour or so of listening I left to pick up some food for dinner. That was when I realized that I had adopted the podcast host’s cynical outlook. As I looked around at my fellow shoppers, I could hear myself assigning bad motives to people for cutting in front of me, or avoiding eye contact, or dressing a certain way. These subtle critiques were nothing more than background noise in my head, and yet they drained all the joy and color out of the world.
I have been thinking about this experience for weeks now—particularly in light of how my perspective on people impacts my experience of the world. If I think people are basically bad, the world becomes a dangerous place and I need to be on my guard against the inevitable violations that impinge upon me everywhere I go. If, on the other hand, I believe that people are basically good, the world becomes much safer and my guard drops. I am freer to love and be loved. I become more able to listen and learn about the breadth and depth of human experience. What I believe about people has a direct impact on how I live my life—how often I laugh, how deeply I bond with others, and, ultimately, the genuine kindness I am able to extend.
Some would say that believing that people are basically good is naive. After all, many of us have loads of experience that suggests the opposite. It is true that people cause a great deal of destruction in the world. There is loads of evidence that suggests that human nature leans toward self-interest and that fear motivates people more than love. Some might even say that believing that people are basically good is a particularly immature form of denial, emerging out of a desire to live in a fantasy world.
On this topic, the Apostle Paul said this:
We are fools for the sake of Christ…When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly (1 Corinthians 4:10, 12-13).
To hold firmly to love in a world where fearful people cause harm is to be a holy fool. I had forgotten that message on that day in the grocery store. I fell back on the instinct of worldly wisdom and cunning. The price is always high. The discipline of love is hard—harder than anything I have ever attempted. But the payoff is Christ’s vision, which reveals an indestructible beauty that transforms all it touches.
Wishing you a summer full of beauty,
Pastor Jen
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