Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s Metro Christian Centre, Bury & Whitefield service (dated 29th May 2022), continuing our new series ONE ANOTHER. You can also catch up with this via MCC’s YouTube channel.
HEROES
I have found that my heroes have changed through the years because the traits I have admired have changed the older I have gotten. Maybe it’s the same for you?
When I was a kid, it was superheroes. I admired their power, maybe because, as a kid, you do feel pretty powerless. When I was a teenager, it was rock guitarists like Ritchie Sambora (Bon Jovi) and Slash (Guns N’ Roses): I admired their talent and fame, and would often, with my tennis racquet in hand, air guitar along to their music. In my twenties, when I started to read more, it was clever people; people who always had an intelligent answer.
There are all sorts of traits that we admire, I guess: status, power, physique, influence, integrity, achievements and experience. The older I get, though, the more I agree with the sentiments of the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who said, ‘When I was young I admired cleverness. Now that I am old, I find I admire kindness more.’[i]
As we continue our series, ONE ANOTHER, exploring the nature of this Jesus-like life that is to be expressed among us, we are going to look at being kind to one another.
Kindness is a non-negotiable if we claim to follow Jesus. In Galatians 5:22-23, Paul discusses how kindness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s life in us. In the letter, 2 Peter 1:7, we are compelled to add kindness to godliness.
The famous John Wesley, when commenting on 2 Peter 1:7, made the point that if kindness is the flavour of this godliness, then there’s no excuse for bad tempered, stern, or moody religion. So called ‘”sour godliness”’, Wesley said, ‘is of the devil.’[ii]
We could look at a number of passages this morning, but we are going to read from Ephesians 4.
As Paul has already mentioned in this letter, unity in the church is essential. When believers come together and see themselves as one church, God’s wisdom and power are displayed (Eph. 3:10). According to Paul, the life of ‘one another’ is a temple of God (Eph. 2:21). Instead of boxing God’s love within their own tribal boundaries, Paul prayed that the believers in Ephesus would each understand the length, width, height, and depth of God’s love (Eph. 3:18), and asked that they bind themselves together with peace, seeing as they are one body, and that there is one Lord, one baptism, and one God (Eph. 4:3-5). In Eph. 4:11-16, Paul uses this image of a body, as he does in Romans 12, and speaks about differing gifts; how they are for the benefit of the body, of one another, and not for building personality cults and podiums. Then Paul (v17-24) goes on to talk about the renewal of our thoughts and attitudes (again, like he did in Romans 12), because, as people who know Christ, they are not to be hard hearted like the culture around them.
We are going to join Paul at verse 25.
READ: EPHESIANS 4:25—5:2 (NLT)
‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of malicious behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Follow God’s example… because you are his children. Live a life filled with love for others, following the example of Christ.’ (Eph. 4:31—5:2a, NLT)
HUGS AND HORMONES
What begins with H, ends in G, and has U in the middle of it? A Hug.
It’s a question I hear a lot at home. Our eldest son loves a hug. Who can blame him? I’m forty-two and I still enjoy a good hug.
There’s a reason for this.
According to the scientists who study our brain chemistry, something happens in us when we hug: it produces the hormone, Oxytocin. Oxytocin is the hormone that makes us feel positively connected to one another; it makes us feel that we can trust each other.
This doesn’t mean that we all need to be huggers. Don’t panic!
Oxytocin is also released during sex, breastfeeding and childbirth (especially labour pains).
That hasn’t really stopped the panic, has it? But, in the context of family bonds, you can understand how that works.
However, there is another human activity that releases oxytocin: Kindness. Caring for one another; being sensitive toward one another; showing respect and dignity to one another; doing good for one another. Helping, listening and showing hospitality to one another creates literal chemical bonds between us.
Of course, when Paul wrote Ephesians in the first century, he didn’t know about oxytocin and hormones. He’s not talking about those things. That said, Paul, like most people in the ancient world, didn’t require a knowledge of hormones to point out the blatantly obvious about human communities.
Paul has been around long enough to know that the hallmarks of trusting and connected communities are not bitterness, rage, malicious behaviour or words that rip one another to pieces. Healthy, growing, nurturing communities—which is what Paul encourages us to be as Christ’s body (Eph. 4:16)—are kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving places.
If we are truly seeking to be one of another then unkindness can have no place in the body of Christ.
REASONS TO BE CHEER-FULL
We could give loads of great and correct reasons for this, of course.
For example, and I think I am right in saying this, no one wants to be part of an unkind community, where people feel anxious or afraid of abuse.
Secondly, it’s important to be kind because we have no idea what things people are carrying, what fights they are currently enduring, or what tensions and bruises lay below the surface and outside of external appearances. We need to handle each other with gentle care.
As someone who struggles with anxiety and depression, I can tell you first hand, that it doesn’t take much to fracture me.
We don’t always get this right, of course, which is why we need forgiveness, too.
Thirdly, we could stress that kindness gets the best out of people. Personally, I respond better to correction from kind people.
I don’t mean people who are kind for ten seconds only to lay into you. I mean people who have been kind over the long haul.
When I was at school, I had two P.E teachers: Mr. P and Mr B. I was rubbish at P.E., but I would listen to everything Mr P said. I listened to his correction because he understood me, he cared, he listened, he empathised, he came to my level and he celebrated whenever I gave it a go (even when I failed fantastically).
Mr B, on the other hand, had a different technique. He was more of a dictator and a bully. Needless to say, I never improved at anything in his lessons. The only things that increased during his lessons were my anxiety and lack of self-confidence.
It’s been the same in my Christian walk. I have never improved when someone has spoken to me unkindly, or caricatured me, or assaulted me verbally. The reason why is simple, if their ideas of improvement and godliness means unkindly treating and viewing others like they treat and view others, then I’m not interested.
Fourthly, in relational to this, we could say that kindness is important because we have all seen the damage unkindness has inflicted. Unkindness has spawned some ugly consequences.
I’m certain we all, in some way, carry unseen bruises with backstories.
It’s a common theme in movies and musicals, today, to take us into the backstory of some of our famous onscreen villains, giving us a glimpse of what made them that way. For example, The Wizard of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West gets her backstory told in the musical, Wicked. Maleficent, the evil queen in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, gets her story told in a great film that bears her name. Others include The Joker (from Batman), the Grinch, Syndrome (from Pixar’s Incredibles), and Magneto from the X-Men comics.
Often, the backstories have the same themes: Someone treated them with cruelty, apathy, rejection, malice, prejudice: all forms of unkindness. It does not excuse what they did, but it does help us realise that unkindness can have a harmful amplifying effect. It also makes us wonder, ‘if this or that hadn’t happened to them, would what happened next have been different?’’
If you watched Eurovision this year, it was even suggested that Little Red Riding Hood’s story would have been different if only someone would have given that wolf a banana![iii]
I joke, but seriously: In the real world, we know, almost intrinsically, that unkindness has never generated anything good. Unkindness is incapable of creating repentance, and it is unable to soften a hardened heart.
On the other hand, kindness can and does create beautiful things. I’m not promising instant results, but kindness works.
If we had the time to retell the story of Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo’s wonderful Les Misérables, we would have a good media reference there. However, we don’t need a media reference. We already know the truth that kindness has transformed the world. If we call ourselves followers of Jesus, it is because kindness has won us over.
CHESED
Paul doesn’t explicitly state any of these reasons for why we should be kind to one another, even though he could have done so and could have even pulled out some scriptural examples for each.
However, the transformative power of kindness is certainly implied in what Paul says in Ephesians 4:32—5:2. Actually, Paul has already made that point earlier in his letter: in Eph. 2:4-7, he tells us that God, in his great love for us, has rescued us and can now point to us a examples of the incredible wealth of Divine kindness.
Paul’s reason for why we should be kind is simple: God is kind. If you want to be like God, then be kind.
Jesus said the same thing, by the way, in Luke 6:27-36 and Matthew 5:43-48.
And it’s not a New Testament thing, either. The Old Testament frequently talks about God as acting towards us, to use the Hebrew word, in chesed. It is sometimes translated mercy, but, like capturing a waterfall in a cup, that word fails to capture the fullness of chesed.
In 1535, when the Hebrew bible was first translated into English, one of the translators, Myles Coverdale, realised that there was no English word that fully captured the meaning of this Hebrew word chesed. So, he coined a new English word, lovingkindness.[iv]
God’s lovingkindness is a big theme. In the Jewish Talmud, an ancient Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Bible, one ancient Jewish sage noted that the Torah itself (the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) begins and ends with Divine acts of lovingkindness. It begins with God clothing the naked in the garden (Gen. 3:21), and it ends with God caring for the dead in the act of burying Moses (Deut. 34:6).[v]
These two Torah ‘bookends’ capture the essence of what God’s lovingkindness looks like throughout the Old Testament: it humanises us. It treats us with dignity and bestows dignity on us. It involves sensitivity, empathy, respect and compassion. It takes a personal interest and involvement. Lovingkindness is about the giving of oneself fully, with love, for the benefit, care and wellbeing of another.
God is chesed. Furthermore, the scriptures make clear that to know God is to show lovingkindness.
The Hebrew word we translate as godly or godliness, for example, does not come from the Hebrew for God. The word we translate as godly is the Hebrew word chasid, which comes from chesed.
In other words, in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, to be ‘godly’ means to be an embodiment of God’s lovingkindness.
One of the most famous texts to express this strong connection between knowing and showing God is Hosea 6:6: ‘I want you to show chesed, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me, [God], more than I want burnt offerings.‘ A text that Jesus underscores in Matt. 9:13; 12:7.
‘I want you to show lovingkindness… I want you to know me.’
Paul is also echoing something of Hosea in Ephesians 4 and 5, in a couple of ways. Like Hosea, he clearly makes the connection that to know God is to embody God’s lovingkindness. Further than this, Paul pulls together Hosea’s words about lovingkindness and sacrifice, by reminding his audience that Jesus’ lovingkindness was the perfect, sweet-smelling sacrifice (Eph. 5:2).
For Paul, the ultimate embodiment of God’s lovingkindness was Jesus. That God, with humility, became flesh and dwelt with us; that God suffered with us and for us; that God, in Jesus, gave the fullness of everything God is for our benefit and wellbeing. God was tender towards us. God did not come in bitterness, or malice, swinging his divine rights around in a grudge. God came to exhibit forgiveness, grace, care and mercy. Whilst we were dead in our sins, God’s lovingkindness humanised us and rescued us.
As pastor theologian, Chad Bird expresses it, ‘Chesed is truly untranslatable love. No-holds-barred mercy. Covenant faithfulness even if it costs God the lifeblood of his beloved Son. Chesed is the beating heart of God in cruciform display. The kind of love that chases us to the ends of the earth, picks us up, places us atop divine shoulders, and dances all the way home. There really is only one word that encompasses the totality of what chesed is—Christ himself. He is the chesed of the Father made flesh.’[vi]
It is this lovingkindness that has grasped hold of me and continues to transform me. It is what grabbed hold of Paul and transformed his life. It is what Paul wants his readers to remember and embody. As God has acted towards us in loving-kindness, we are called to act in loving-kindness, care and concern, toward each other.[vii]
Because, and here’s the rub, this lovingkindness can only be seen if and when we display it among one another. And if we cannot display it among one another, than the wider world has every right to remain hard hearted towards the idea of God (cf. Eph. 4:17-23).
People have every right to think that God is hard hearted, sour and bad tempered if that this how we, who claim to know God, behave.
PAUL’S PUN
We may want to separate these two things. Maybe we are tempted to say that we can still follow God’s example and remain unkind. But Paul will not allow this, just as Jesus won’t allow us to divorce loving God from loving our neighbour, just as the Old Testament won’t allow us to uproot chasid from chesed.
To get this inseparable nature into the heads of his Greek-speaking audience, Paul, at the end of chapter four, employs a pun, a little bit of Greek wordplay, using some words that sound the same.
Rhymes can help us remember important things that belong together. For example, in recent times we have had, ‘Hands. Face. Space.’ (not, ‘Hands. Face. Distance.)
Paul uses the same tactic.
The Greek word for kind that Paul chooses to use in Eph. 4:32 is Chrēstos. It’s not too dissimilar to the sound of the Greek word Christos, which we translate as Christ, and also used in verse 32. Playing on the sound of these words, Paul is effectively saying, ‘We should be chrēstos to one another, because God has been christos to us.’
To be Christ-like, is to be kind, because, as the theologian Tom Wright puts it, ‘[K]indness is one of the purest forms of the imitation of God.’[viii]
‘Whoever goes hunting for what is right and kind, finds life itself—glorious life!’
Proverbs 21:21 (The Message)
[i] As quoted by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/chayei-sarah/kindness-strangers/
[ii] ‘7. And to godliness brotherly kindness-No sullenness, sternness, moroseness: “sour godliness,” so called, is of the devil.’ Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, by John Wesley, https://amzn.eu/5P3Yc8j
[iii] If you want to know, click here to know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJjo8s3fKUM
[iv] Insight taken from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, where he writes, ‘In 1535 Myles Coverdale published the first-ever translation of the Hebrew Bible into English (the work had been begun by William Tyndale who paid for it with his life, burnt at the stake in 1536). It was when he came to the word chessed that he realised that there was no English word which captured its meaning. It was then that, to translate it, he coined a new word “loving-kindness”‘ (https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/chayei-sarah/kindness-strangers/)
[v] ‘Rabbi Samlai taught: “The Torah begins with an act of kindness and ends with an act of kindness. It begins with God clothing the naked – “The Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them,” (Gen. 3:21) – and it ends with Him caring for the dead: “And He [God] buried [Moses] in the Valley.” (Deut. 34:6).’ Talmud Bavli, Sotah 14a (as quoted by Sacks, Ibid).
[vi] Chad Bird, Unveiling Mercy: 365 Daily Devotions Based on Old Testament Hebrew, Untranslatable Love, p.186.
[vii] I often think about the story of Paul’s (Saul’s) conversion as recorded in Acts 9. Paul has this extraordinary experience of the resurrected Christ and is instructed to go to the house of Ananias on Straight Street. I often wonder, as a thought experiment, what would have happened if Ananias had not welcomed Paul, prayed for him and fed him? What would have happened if Ananias had acted unkindly to Paul?
[viii] Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, Ephesians 4:25—5.2, p. 54
TRISTAN SHERWIN 
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