Do All The Good You Can

A friend of ours made the comment, “That God, from the very formation of the church, showed incredible wisdom. God created us all with special gifts and talents, so we would learn to rely on one another.” God created us, so we would need to live in community, celebrating our relationships with each other, so we could meaningfully bring a deeper sense of life to the community. We were and are created as a gift for each other.

Read I Corinthians 12:1-7

Paul tells us, we have all received gifts, so we can add to the common good of life. But Jesus takes these wonderful thoughts and teachings and often makes them so hard. Let’s hear what Jesus says about how we are to live this goodness in our lives.

Read Luke 6:27, 32-36

SERMON:
God and Gabriel were looking down upon earth watching people live out their lives when all of a sudden they saw a man do a totally unsolicited, unselfish act. They may have seen someone who witnessed that a brother was hungry and just went into a restaurant and bought him a meal. They may have seen someone who recognized a child who needed a mentor and became a Big Brother. They may have seen someone who understood another’s deep need for a friend or some extra support and they set aside their lives to simply be fully present for them. It may have been anyone of a number of intentional acts of kindness where a person denied themselves, who set aside their own life to serve another. But when God and Gabriel saw the act and the genuine altruistic nature of it, God turned to Gabriel and said, “For this moment alone, all of creation was worth it.” We, as United Methodists, believe that we have free will, the ability to make our own choices and follow our own paths. I believe God has allowed us this freedom as it is an honoring of our own personhood, but also the recognition that we have a chance to live out of the depth of our own characters, living true expressions of love and compassion, not coerced, for love is never an expression of coercion, but is something freely and willingly given from the heart. But the choices are ours.

The writer of Deuteronomy has God say it this way, “I set before you life and death, blessing and curses, choose life.” So we have the power to shape our lives, to set goals and choose who will be Lord and to whom we give authority to guide and lead us. The other thing we know about power is, the greater our ability to do good is also seen in the corollary of also having a greater capacity to do evil. So, in our freedom we know for every Mother Theresa there is the possibility of an Adolf Hitler and an Idi Amin. For every wonderful expression of someone helping an orphan in Ethiopia who had no place in their lives to seek hope, for every mentally ill person we assist in our own country to get them off the streets and give them a meal, for every Stephen Minister, for every meal served at Granite Creek Park, there is the alternative of creating a Darfur or a holocaust.

So, as we look at the Simple Rules of Wesley, we can see why the one we did last week is really important. What was the first rule? (Do no harm.) That’s right. We need to do our best in making sure our choices do not bring about a deeper hurt to the ones around us. The second rule is “Do all the good you can.” So in our choices, we not only make sure we do not add to the brokenness of the lives around us, but we now commit ourselves and our choices to making sure we bring “shalom” a deeper sense of healing, and goodness to life. Of course we hope that this is true. I believe we all want to believe and know that the world was and is a little kinder and more loving place because our lives added to the goodness of the lives of those we share our lives with. For Wesley, it is a part of living our lives Spiritually. One part of our spiritual walk is to practice Acts of Piety, disciplines that help us know and understand the will of God more fully in our lives. These Acts of Piety include such things as worship, Bible Study, prayer, and communion. But, Wesley says these acts are what lead us to our Acts of Mercy. These acts are the ways we reach out to the poor, the powerless, the disenfranchised in our society.

So what does it mean to live and do good? Goodness seems to be more defined by the character we bring to the living of our lives which then influences the day in, day out decisions we make. A character shaped by our journey with God. It is to live a life of integrity that asks us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, or as one theologian said it, “to see our souls in another person’s life.” Jesus reinforces this understanding of goodness as an integrity of our characters influencing all we do in his teaching from Luke. He tells us to not only do good to those we like and who we honor and respect, but we need to be good to our enemies as well. Thanks a lot. Biblically, enemies are seen as people we do not agree with or do not see eye to eye with, as well as the way we might understand enemies as Al Qaida. Yet, even this can be hard, as I know I find it at least difficult to be good to those who may dishonor me or show a lack of respect for my personhood just because we may disagree on something. I sometimes like that eye for an eye stuff when someone has been a little nasty to me. I want revenge or at least a chance to respond in kind. But as some wise and deep thinking theologian said, “If we all practice the eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth mentality, then we will all be walking around blind and eating jello.” What is our goal for goodness, but to be able to bring a deeper sense of healing and oneness to the family of God. To help bring the wholeness of God’s reign to the world we live in now.

This is why I believe Paul reminds us in the passage from I Corinthians that we use our giftedness to bring about the common good. It is another understanding about what influences our choices. As church consultant Dan Dick says, “Seldom do our personal desires and wants outweigh the need of the common good.” Choosing good may mean we set aside our self-centered needs for the communal needs of those around us. If we do not do this, we live life in a competition with everyone else seeing who can get the most toys. As Christians, we seek to make choices that have the impact of bringing the greatest good to the most people in the family of God.

We can also see how hard this can be to do when we see that sometimes our choices may touch some of our deepest fears in our lives. I remember talking with a man who made the comment, “I am totally against welfare. If we do anything we should only do enough to help people survive.” Trying to be engaging, I replied, “Well I am glad that we see a movement toward job training and getting people into productive positions. I like the idea of helping people discover that they are capable and have the ability to choose to add to the good around them in their lives.” To which he says, “I’m against that too.” Then I said, “How can you be against both?” Then the real crux of the issue came out. “I believe there are only so many jobs to go around, so if you train someone and give them a job, all you do is take it away from someone else. And that someone else might be me.” The author of I John tells us there is no fear in love, for perfect love casts out fear.” Our fears can disarm us from doing good, especially if we believe the good and goodness is a limited commodity.

I believe that the integrity of our souls cries out to do good, for we are created in the image of God. There may be places in our lives where we have covered over that image, but God is always with us, trying to help us become who we really are, who God created us to be, both personally and as the church. God has promised to be with us always seeking to help us grow and realize the depth of our character. That seeks to help us overcome any fears or barriers that prevent us from choosing good.

What I believe is true, is the best way to not break the first simple rule of “Do no Harm” is to always be focused on the second rule, “Do good.” Stay focused on how we add to the quality of each other’s lives as the family of God. It is why Wesley gave us this teaching:

“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can.
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you can.”

We know that God is good. We know that God promises to never leave us. In fact we hear that nothing, absolutely nothing can ever separate us from the love of God through Christ Jesus. It is this promise we now prepare to celebrate as enter into this sacred time of Holy Communion.

Sermon delived by Rev. George Cushman on September 7, 2008.