Every generation needs more women and men, old and young to step forward to do good, to lead faithfully.
People look to leaders to set an example of what is good, to embody the good that needs to flourish in the family and community. When leaders shrug off the responsibility to live good lives, they poison the soil that nourishes communities.
Even in (especially in) Christian communities, there is a dire need for good to be lifted up as a calling for how people ought to live and lead.
In the New Testament letter to Titus, the apostle Paul writes to a new church in the Meditteranean island of Crete, urging their leaders and their members to focus on doing good to one another, and their neighbors.
Do you think any churches or Christian organizations today would need a letter like that written to them?
People are inherently imitators. We learn by mimicking others. We only know what we want by what others around us want. Hence a source of the rivalries and conflicts that tear friendships and neighbors apart.
Christians are those whom God has called to imitate Christ, to subvert the rivalries and conflicts through our mimicking the Lord, who shows us how to good in response to unfaithfulness, slander, violence, and arrogance.
In this very short letter, Paul concisely connects the works, words, and will of Christ Jesus and it’s consequences for our works, words and will. Here’s one powerful example:
“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.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.” [Titus 3.3-8]
It’s clear to Paul that in order for humanity to do good, we must have a stunning example of mercy, as well as an existential experience with this grace, and have this reality generate seeds of trust and hope in God, as revealed through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.
To those who have been reborn and renewed, they are given a responsibility to pass on this historical and existential reality to each successive generation, among each new tribe and nation in which it takes root. Emphasizing correct doctrine and contextualizing theology always has its place, but knowledge of God and the good only counts if it is lived.
The challenge: we are all imitators with malice and fear deeply embedded in our soul, and it is a constant battle to embrace and embody mercy, to see it in others and mimic Christ. Teachers of Christ must lead by example too.
Earlier in the letter Paul wrote this to Titus to pass on to the Cretan Christians:
For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. [Titus 2.11-14]
We see in Jesus Christ the example to follow, the one to trust, and from whom we receive the spirit and power to imitate.
It’s vital we remember that he sacrificially offers grace for all, that all might be able to join him in doing good.
This grace greets us when we are ungrateful and greedy, it confronts us and convicts, but also shows the way and empowers us to imitate it.
Don’t underestimate God’s grace.
Don’t underestimate our pride and envy either, but neither can eventually prevail against grace, for sin always has within it seeds for its own destruction, and God’s grace is a life-giving force that absorbs the unworthy and yet is gentle with the unwilling.
May you sense God’s call on your life to lead full of faith, to be part of his work to inspire and empower communities to eagerly do good, fueled and shaped by the Lord’s grace and mercy.
