Some Thoughts On Kindness From Our Senior Minister

Kindness is a wonderful disposition. It shows a wide heart. It affirms people. It presupposes the best in people. It does not mistrust. It builds people up. It manifests a positive, life-affirming attitude to the other.

Indeed, kindness echoes God's nature. The Scriptures speak of the riches of God's kindness (Rom 2:4). God made these riches known and accessible in Jesus Christ. In faith and baptism, through the ministry of God's Spirit, God's kindness flows over into our lives:  

… when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:4-7)

It is interesting that in this text the coming of God's kindness into our lives is linked both to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and to baptism. In baptism we celebrate our faith in Christ, and as such we are "renewed" and "reborn" by the power of the Spirit.

The kindness, which God has displayed in Jesus Christ, comes to be part of the spiritual life of the friends of Jesus. Kindness is listed among the characteristics that mark the Christian life. When the apostle Paul introduces himself and his fellow workers to the Christians in Corinth, he says that it is not easy to follow Jesus in a hostile world. He speaks of "afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labours, sleepless nights, hunger," but in spite of all that, they also manifest those attitudes that showed to whom they belong: "patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech" (2 Cor 6:4-7).

Also in letters to other churches the apostle and his followers list kindness as belonging to "the fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22, Col 3:12).

Kindness therefore echoes the presence of God in our lives. Just as God generously shares his life with us, so we echo God's being by sharing our lives with others. And since God is not merely our personal saviour or our tribal deity, but is in fact the "creator of heaven and earth", therefore we would expect that the inner disposition of kindness is related to the outer work of healing God's creation. And that is indeed the case.

The prophet Micah summarises the Biblical message when in reply to the question "With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high?" he says: "do justice, … love kindness, and … walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:5-8).  We may therefore say that the inner disposition of kindness becomes effective in the outside world through our commitment for justice. Justice then becomes the structure of kindness, just as kindness is the inner wellspring that drives our commitment to justice. Kindness protects justice from becoming an ideology. "Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life" (Proverbs 21:21).

And it is good to know that not only our present life, but also our future is under the protection of God's kindness. Our future is not marked by darkness or nothingness but by the kindness of a good God.

… God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:4-7)

Thorwald Lorenzen

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