Do-Gooders, Part 4: Animated by the Holy Spirit

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     In our last letter, I left you in suspense – not a cliffhanger exactly, but an unfinished train of thought. I had said that, in doing good works, there is an essential element, the Go/or/No-Go of every good work. Are you ready for the reveal?

    On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (John 7:37-39).

     How many good reasons are there for doing good? Hard to say, but we know there are many. How many bad reasons are there for doing good? Again, hard to say, but experience tells me that there are about as many bad reasons as good ones. We could begin to sort through them, checking our motives, comparing our works with others. We could try to gauge the effectiveness of our efforts. Here’s a better method: to be animated by God the Holy Spirit. That’s what Jesus was getting at. These are the rivers of living waters he spoke of.

     Every Christian has the Holy Spirit living within – some way, somewhere, somehow. Just a nibble of Scripture evidence comes from 1Corinthians 12:13…

    For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

    From the same chapter comes the clearly defined reason for every spiritual gift…

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (verse 7).

     Hey, Christian, the indwelling Holy Spirit is the life in Christ in you…  the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:26-27). To be animated by the Holy Spirit is to act on the life of Christ in you.

     Not to say that non-Christians can’t do good; indeed, it happens every day. But I see a lot of frustration, especially in the public sector: there’s never enough money/time/people/programs to meet the needs. And among Christians who are not animated by the Holy Spirit as much as they could be, I see the same frustration for all the same reasons. The difference, of course, is that Christians have the ability to act on the life of Christ within them.

     I used to think Christians had to be poked and prodded into doing good works. After much poking/prodding, I see more clearly now: make a few opportunities (and eliminate a few distractions), and the regenerated souls of my brothers and sisters will rise to the occasion. It might not be in coordinated, quantifiable ways, but it’ll happen. Probably the best strategy for me, at this stage-and-age of life, is to recommend reliance and trust in those rivers of living waters. Consulting with Holy Spirit will sort the motives for us, and will lead us to the one mission-critical question in the consideration of any potential good work:

     Is there a future in it?

     Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:7-9).

     One phrase from that passage gets more air time than most of the others: let us not grow weary of doing good. I can tell you for a fact: doing good, without considering whether there’s a future in it, is wearying. It will leave the do-gooder, even the Christian do-gooder, bone tired and gut-level frustrated. (But) the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

     I won’t claim to have sorted out all the future-less works from the future-full. I’ve gone into some good works believing there was a future in it, only to find out, um, not so much. Conversely, I’ve been surprised at the far-reaching effects of others. I’m counting on getting a thorough debrief in heaven. Meanwhile, here’s what I, and every Christian, can do: a quiet, reasoned conversation with God the Holy Spirit – the life of Christ in us, the hotline to the one who sits at the right hand of the throne of God – will lead us to the one essential question, which is, again, “Is there a future in this good work I’m considering?” If that question is too daunting, I can recommend a few others that lend evidence:

·         Will God be glorified?

·         Is human dignity being built up?

·         Is the person I serve being invited into the life of Christ?

·         Will the person being helped, in turn, be put in a position to help others?

     In the mind of God, there is a To-Do list for each of his children – For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10). We may safely assume that every item on the list is good and worthwhile. The happy news is that, through the counsel of the Holy Spirit, we can begin to understand what’s on the list… and what’s not.

     Let’s wrap up the Do-Gooders series of letters with a prayer:

“Lord, increase our faith. We want to trust, more, in the leading of your Holy Spirit. We want to do good and not grow weary. Bring glory to yourself and blessing to others. May your kingdom come, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

  Grace and Peace (and plenty to share),

 John

 

Do-Gooders, Part 3: Command and Encourage

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

     The Christian church is being remade. At this moment, there is a reshaping of Christian life and service that closely resembles the original shaping of the First Century church. Lately, I’ve been privileged to gain a fresh perspective on the church’s role in the world – in particular, along the lines of social justice – and I’m eager to share it with you in this third installment of the “Do-Gooders” series of letters titled “Command and Encourage.”

     A few of you know that, in addition to being a pastor at Cobblestone, I’m also an elected official in a local government body. If you didn’t know, my feelings are not hurt. It’s very, very local. Low-key, as we say. But local as the position is, it has given me a lens to see the similarities and differences in church and government when it comes to supporting people who can’t quite support themselves. As a starting point, I’ll use a short quote from Jesus to begin laying out what’s the same and what’s not.

     “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them.” (Mark 14:7). There are basically two ways to act on this statement, and the church and government have each had both.  

     The earliest church took Jesus’ words to mean that all the poor were to be served all the time, no matter how many or how great the need. Not a bad interpretation, but also not a workable one. In Jerusalem, the home of the very first Christian church, the Apostles soon found themselves overrun by the needs. They made some adjustments. Christians sold their possessions and gave to the needy. But it still wasn’t enough, especially once the Judean famine took hold in the fourth decade of the First Century.

     Government has had a similar experience. In the fourth decade of the Twentieth Century, it decided to eliminate the possibility of any citizens being totally destitute, through a project called The New Deal. For a while the math worked. And then it didn’t. Particular needs gave rise to particular agencies. More needs, more agencies. Supported populations grew in relation to working populations. By default, the only foreseeable plan is to carry the project as public debt.

     As with most worthwhile undertakings based on pure motives, if it doesn’t work, the human reaction is to make a hard turn, driven by frustration, and slam into the opposite extreme. Meeting all the needs is seen as equivalent to holding the ocean back with a broom, so why even try? In the early church, Christians – now scattered throughout the known world after persecution broke out in Jerusalem – had developed a pattern of hoarding wealth. In James’ letter, which was probably the earliest to go out to the twelve tribes in the Dispersion (1:1), he sternly addressed and denounced the economic, social, and even spiritual barriers set up by the rich against the poor. In the eleventh chapter of First Corinthians, Paul blasted the idle rich for showing up early at the love feasts to drink too much wine and eat the best food. In government, officeholders are often elected on promises to slash entitlement programs. Efforts that would leave legitimately disadvantaged humans out in the cold are met with vocal approval by some members of the public, and the tacit approval of others.

     So where do we stand now, the church and government? In the same place, basically, torn between the two extremes. Among Christians and within government, it’s a tug-of-war with contenders of equal strength at the far ends of a very long rope. There’s some see-ing and some saw-ing, but no real progress.

     Unlike government, the church should know better. And we have. And then we forgot. The purpose of this letter, from this word forward (and likely into the next edition), is to recall the First Century mandate and regain the mission as Jesus intended it.

     Work is a basic human dignity, a basic pride in being made in God’s image, a basic trust that we are co-creators with him. Serving the needy – “do(ing) good for them,” as Jesus said – has to involve meeting the need for dignity. Without that, all the programs and agencies and food banks in the world will eventually fail. Unless the building up of human dignity is the basis for every relief effort, all the work of every Do-Gooder – Christian-faith-based or otherwise – will come to frustration. And the needy, rather than being helped, will ultimately be harmed.

     One of the Apostles, namely Paul, traveled a lot more than the others. He sought out the scattered Christians and helped them establish cohesive assemblies: churches. In at least three major cities – Ephesus, Corinth, and Thessalonica – he encountered believers who were taking advantage of the generosity of their brothers and sisters in Christ. The situation was unsustainable. It would take the full body of believers to build up those whose dignity was being degraded. Here is some of what he wrote to the Thessalonians:

    ⁶ Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. ⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, ⁸ nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. ⁹ It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. ¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ¹¹ For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. ¹² Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living (2Thessalonians 3:6-12).

     Was Paul just being hard-nosed? Was he simply miffed because he had to work while others weren’t? I don’t think so, and the evidence is in the fact that he not only commanded (verses 6, 10, 12), but also encouraged (verse 12). Encouragement is for the betterment the one receiving it. The best evidence of all is found in two phrases that bracket the paragraph: in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (verse 6) and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 12). Jesus, the Redeemer of mankind, has his arms around the idea of restoring human dignity.

     Government policies do a poor job of distinguishing between those who can’t support themselves and those who choose not to. I’ve seen enough policies (and been part of developing a few) to know how ineffective they are. To be fair, I’ve worked with some wonderful people who have the kindest of hearts and want nothing but good to come from our efforts. But in the big picture, the one essential element is missing. That element – the Go/or/No-Go of every good work – is the topic of the next letter in this series.

 Keep the faith.

 Grace and Peace (in every good work),

 John