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Today is the fifth in our series on the nine fruit of the Spirit Paul identifies in the fifth chapter of his letter to the churches in Galatia. After encouraging Christians to no longer live by the sinful nature, but rather "live by the Spirit," Paul mentions what that looks like—Galatians 5:22, 23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Today’s fruit is kindness. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all were just more kind to each other? Kindness seems to be on short supply these days. There are even slogans people have come up with to encourage us toward kindness: "Pay It Forward" and "Do random acts of kindness." "Pay It Forward," is a novel that became a movie that has become a national movement. There is now a "Pay It Forward Foundation." The plot of the book/movie is basically about junior high students being encouraged by their teacher, played by Kevin Spacey, to change the world through direct action. That inspires one student, played by Haley Joel Osment, to come up with a "pay it forward" plan of action. He will do an act of kindness for a complete stranger and encourage that person to "pay it forward," to, in turn, do an act of kindness for someone else and so forth until the initial act of kindness has multiplied a hundredfold, a thousand fold and so on. There is a bumper sticker that encourages us to "Do random acts of kindness." That also has become a bit of a cottage industry as there is now a website one can go to for ideas of random acts of kindness—things like "leave a roll of quarters at a Laundromat," or "pay for the latte of the person behind you." I did read about a Starbucks where someone in the drive-thru did that, gave extra money to pay for the order of the car behind them, and that started a chain reaction of something like 24 cars in a row paying for the person behind them. They didn’t release the name of the person who stopped the chain, but his picture and car license number now has been posted at Starbucks across the country! Anyway, at the "random acts of kindness" website one can also order business size cards that informs the person receiving the act of kindness that they’ve been "raock’ed," an act motivated by the love of Jesus Christ and the other side of the card gives your church’s name and other information, including your worship times. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly our acts of kindness ought to be motivated by a love for Jesus Christ empowered by the "fruit of the Spirit" growing in us. But doing such acts blatantly as a promotion of one’s church seems to diffuse the point a bit, doesn’t it? Perhaps such acts could no longer be called "random." Paul’s point is that the disciple walking closely with Christ will find her or himself doing such things naturally. One fruit cultivated in a relationship with Jesus Christ will be kindness, a fruit that seems to be particularly lacking in our society today. We are a society rooted in self-centeredness and that does not lend itself well to acts of kindness. How dare that person cut me off on my drive into work! Or, the example from last week’s children’s message, how dare that first-time traveler without her I.D. be ahead of me in the check-in line! We are a society whose highest goal is individual rights, as opposed to rights for individuals. The first statement is a self proclamation—"my" rights. The second is an "other" proclamation—concern for the rights of others. In the demand for my rights, kindness often gets lost in the shuffle. Yet, an attitude of kindness—and related action taken from such an attitude—is foundational to Christian faith. Certainly it is rooted in the sum of the commandments: "Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself." Love God we still understand, even in our self-centered society…if we believe in God in the first place. God is the creator. God is bigger than me, bigger than any individual. God deserves our love. We can always be better at expressing our love for God, but at least we don’t have a basic philosophical struggle with the concept of loving God. Loving neighbor is another thing altogether. As long as they behave, we can generally show kindness to our neighbor. But Christ calls us to love even our enemies. Our first thought ought to be for others. How will my actions affect others? Jesus himself said that he came "not to be served, but to serve others." We as followers of this Jesus can seek to do nothing less. And the result ought to be kindness. How can we become more kind? By seeking it from God. The fact that one fruit of the Spirit is kindness implies God is its source. More than that, the God we worship and serve is Himself kind. Even in the Old Testament, where most of our struggles with the nature of God occur, God is described over and over again as kind. Unfortunately, the word gets lost often in most English translations where God is described as "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love." The word that gets translated "love" there is not the regular word for love. Rather, it is the word used for merciful, or elsewhere used to describe someone’s kindness toward another. It would be more accurate to describe God as abounding in kindness, or perhaps, loving kindness. In any case, God is kind—even in the picture of God from the Old Testament. There are several references in the New Testament to the kindness of God. Jesus himself sets the standard high for our emulating this kind God when he calls us in Luke’s gospel to love our enemies, adding, "Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons and daughters of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked," (Luke 6:35b; underline mine). The ultimate expression of God’s kindness, of course, is the gift of Jesus Christ to us. Paul, in his letter to Titus, writes, "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy," (Titus 3:3-5a, underline mine). In Ephesians, Paul states it this way, "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus," (Ephesians 2:6, 7; underline mine). Be very clear about it. God is kind. And as worshipers of this God, we ought to be kind as well. We ought to "Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you," (Ephesians 4:31, 32; underline mine). Practicing random acts of kindness may help you develop a more kind nature. You may find it so much fun that it becomes somewhat contagious. But in order to develop a truly kind heart, where kindness becomes the very core of your being, you must seek it from God. I’ve been encouraging you throughout this series that the fruit of the Spirit must be sought from the Creator and not from creation. Simply doing random acts of kindness, while nice and pleasant, is not enough. Doing that alone is seeking the fruit of the Spirit from creation—the acts of kindness themselves and their results. We will act kind when we feel like it. But when we don’t feel like it—when a woman in front of us at the airline counter is struggling with the details of her first airplane trip, when we’re in the 15 item limit checkout at the grocery store and the person in front of us has 16 items in their basket, or when we just don’t feel like it—the old nature will well up and we end up saying and doing some most unkind things. To change your nature, to be more Christlike in your character and your conduct, you must seek the fruit of the Spirit, including kindness, from Jesus Christ himself. In this season of Lent, a season of heightened focus on matters of faith, I encourage you to pray regularly, asking God to fill you with kindness. Reflect on the Scriptures mentioned today—or others that call us to acts of kindness—and ask God to make you more like that. Become a practitioner of random acts of kindness—not because it seemed like a good thing to do that day and you were in a good mood, but because that is your nature and you know of no other way to be.
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