Forever Kindness
Sometimes I suffer because I’m too proud to ask for help. I submit to you this story as Exhibit A: -Heather Ford image (soil)
In May of 2020, like so many, I was expanding my vegetable garden.
And to do so, I needed big bags of soil. I nearly scoffed at the checkout clerk when he asked if I would like help. Of course not. I’m relatively young and able-bodied. I’ve got this. But when I got to the bags of soil in the parking lot, which were soaking wet with rain, I found I could hardly budge them. Still too proud to ask for help, I started grabbing one corner and pulling, making tiny grudging progress despite my grunts and groaning muscles. I nearly jumped out of my skin when a car pulled up right beside me and a person younger and stronger than me asked if they could help. Still too proud, I wanted to say no, but I was pretty sure they had seen how pathetically mismatched I was to the task. So, I finally swallowed my pride and said, “That would be great!”
Before I knew it two more younger, stronger people had jumped out of the car and loaded up my several big, heavy bags of garden soil. Then they jumped right back in their car and pulled away with a wave, barely stopping to acknowledge my profuse gratitude.
Much as I want to always be the Good Samaritan, sometimes I can’t help but end up the person in the ditch. And I have to admit, it’s not my favorite place to be. It’s vulnerable and sometimes vulnerable in much more profound ways than being stuck in a parking lot with bags that are too heavy for me.
Is there a reason Jesus doesn’t name the person in the ditch or give him very many descriptors besides where he was headed? Is it so the lawyer–and us would-be lawyers listening in–would be able to picture ourselves in the vulnerable spot? And if so, what does that have to do with eternal life?
That’s the question after all that kicks off this whole famous section of Luke.
In the NRSV the lawyer’s question is phrased, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Many interpreters are dubious about the questioner’s intentions but being a question-loving person, I want to assume genuine curiosity and a love of learning, if coming from a shrewdly analytical source.
After all, the lawyer and Jesus agree on the basics of the Levitical code: to love God and to love our neighbor as yourself. The lawyer pushes it further then and wants the specifics about neighbors. What’s the ruling there? Who is it Jesus thinks we ought to love like neighbors? What are the limits?
Well, the limits are seen in a whole new light, are they not, when it’s you in the ditch, looking for the kindness? Well played, Jesus.
But this time reading the story, I imagine myself on the outer circle of this conversation, hanging on to the question that started this whole piece. What does the story have to do with “inheriting eternal life”?
In Downtown Elgin, on the side of a building occupied by Side Street Studio Arts there is a huge mural that says, “Activate Daily Kindness.” -image
According to a Side Street Facebook Post, the mural is the work of Sara Peak Convery, a Chicago-based artist who enjoys working in a variety of media. Says Convery, “The use of words in art has powerful implications for encouragement and guidance.” She also shares that her “vision for her work and the world has enlarged and she embraces the possibility of expanding her work into the realm of public art.”
Since its installation in June, I have passed by this mural with frequency and it rarely fails to capture my attention. Daily kindness seems doable. It also seems like a practice–something that can become a habit, the kind of thing I do without much thought, day after day, forever and ever.
The word activating is also encouraging to me. It makes me imagine kindness like water in a pipe, as though all I have to do is activate the spigot and let it flow.
That’s my favorite image for understanding eternal life, too. It’s like a stream of water that goes before us and after us and that we are somehow standing in right now, too. Sometimes, like fish, we forget the water is even there. It’s just a part of us. But sometimes we are overcome with the realization that we are part of eternity even as each moment passes into the next. Sometimes we experience individual shining moments that I can only explain as a taste of forever–a taste of the everlasting love that I have come from and that I trust I will return to and that despite all the trouble and trial of this world is yet a part of drawing breath here on planet Earth.
Jesus illustrates that ancient instruction to love God and love our neighbor with this story about love in action. A story is something we experience. It’s not always clear what it means but it gives us some clues as to what the shape of the thing is we’re trying to describe. What does it feel like? What are its height and depth? A story is not playing instructions to a game. It’s not a math equation with one right answer. And it seems to me, neither is experiencing eternal life. It’s nothing we win. It’s nothing we earn. It’s nothing we solve. No. But I think it is something we can practice experiencing whenever we let ourselves be vulnerable enough to give and to receive acts of loving kindness.
Ya know, the one weird thing I realized this week–after I had already chosen this scripture to conclude our series on kindness–is that this scripture doesn’t include the word kindness. Mercy and compassion are there and they’re close. But neither Jesus nor the lawyer talk about kindness per se. They talk about love and the Greek word translated as love in English is agape. That’s the big love, the one we can cultivate for neighbors, for enemies, and even for our imperfect selves. It seems to me a wide, gracious, merciful love. It’s a love that is big enough to go around, to offer reciprocally, to teach us how to give it with grace, and to teach us how to receive it with grace every time we experience that agape love acted out in ways we may even call kind. -Craig Whitehead image (car in rain)
One Sunday morning, I was driving to church from my home on Elgin’s east side. It was raining and as I pulled up to the stoplight at 31, I saw Star, a friend of many of us from Soup Kettle and other community gatherings. He was getting wet and looking a little lost. I thought, maybe Star is coming to Highland Avenue for worship. He does come, after all, from time to time. So, I rolled down the window and told him he could get in. It turned out of course that he wasn’t trying to go to Highland Avenue that morning but instead, he was headed to St. Hugh’s Episcopal Church, quite a bit farther west down the road.
I had been running on time but now I was going to be late for the mic check, and I hate being late. It was inconvenient but it wasn’t dangerous or really very hard. And it made me happy. So, I gave Star a ride all the way to St. Hugh. He, as usual, was an absolute delight to spend a few minutes with. Indeed, I wished it was a much longer car ride to hear more of his life story. -Markus Spiske image (kids from behind)
And what I remember most was how gracious he was. He was grateful but also not embarrassed out of some sense of pride. I got the feeling we were family and if I ever needed his help and he could give it, he would be there in a heartbeat.
It wasn’t anything nearly as sacrificial or generous as what the Samaritan did in Jesus’ story. But that feeling of connection is precious to me. It makes me want to experience it again and again. It makes me want to practice giving and receiving kindness. It makes me want to lean into that gift of eternal life which we all may inherit,
where we are awash in that agape love and find it easy to be
forever kind.
May it be so. Amen.
