Tag: Embody the Gospel

Why Trying To Be A Good Person Is Bad For You

I’ve always tried to be a good person. I’m a pleaser, so often my attempts to do good are driven by my desire to make others happy. I certainly try to be a good person as a way to love God and love my family and friends.  I like trying to be a good person.

But if I’m honest, trying to be good can sometimes be bad for me and my community. How?

In my effort to be a good person, and to appear as a good person, guess what typically happens? Yes, that’s correct: lots and lots of denial, rationalizing, defensiveness, and well intentioned but maybe naive help.

My desire to be good can undermine my acceptance of the not-good within me or coming from me.

In one of the stories that Mark tells about Jesus, the religious lawyers confronted him about why his disciples ate with unwashed hands. Jesus, it seemed to them, was okay with lawbreaking. He, however, turned their questions around on them, accusing them of hypocrisy.

It’s ironic, since the Pharisees and religious lawyers were so committed to being good people and devout followers of Israel’s God. So how was it that in their attempts to be good they were bad?

In the teachings of Moses God makes it clear that people are to honor their parents, especially in their old age – and this includes caring for them financially and being a blessing to them (instead of being a negligent or abusive curse).

But the Pharisees had found a way to designate their finances and time to God as a way to both look pious and avoid the expense and difficulty of caring for their aging parents. They found a way to avoid keeping  commands of God by coming up with a way to be devoted to God.

In this case, their attempts to be good people was bad for their parents.

Jesus then goes on to make a bigger point about unclean hands and being good people. He was accused of defiling his body by eating with unwashed hands. But Jesus points out that it’s not what goes in that defiles the body, but what comes out. Don’t worry about the food that goes in to the stomach, pay attention to what comes out of your heart.

This is provocative stuff. Jesus describes twelve inter-connected evils that are already in our heart: immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, pride, and folly.

My first instinct, and probably yours too is to scan the list and see which ones apply. As an act of humility we might pick a few we all struggle with. But this is where our addiction to being good corrupts our judgment. Jesus is saying that all of these evil thoughts are in our hearts.

And if we’re always looking for ways we’re not guilty of them, we’ll be blind to the ways we are guilty. And if we’re never convicted, there’s nothing to confess and repent.

Everyone agrees Jesus was a good man. So how was it that Jesus was crucified for being seditious (a law-breaker and a political threat) and for blasphemy (slandering against God). He was put to death by men and women who thought of themselves as good people seeking to be devout followers of God.

The irony? In trying to be good and devout people they killed God.

Hypocrisy is undermined by humility. It takes humility to confess the evil thoughts within our heart. It takes humility to hear from others how we have wronged them, even though we thought we were doing the right thing.

Being good can become a vague assertion that can prevents us from being honest and humble about the bad that is really in us. And that’s bad for us.

Who then can be good? Only God is good. The rest of us, well, maybe we should give up on trying to be good and work to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

This is, ironically, what Jesus strives for us to become and do.

How To Change Minds and Hearts

Maybe you’ve been called “stubborn” before? Me too. I’d like to call it “unpersuaded by inferior information” or “my way is still superior to you’re suggestion.” I’ve also been called arrogant, prideful, stuck in my ways, unwilling to listen, and self-absorbed. It’s all true, unfortunately. I know that I regularly need to repent.

When we read about Jesus in the gospel, we read about Jesus preaching “that people should repent.” This is what he sent the Twelve disciples to go do in the dusty villages of Israel. What do you imagine that was like?

Were they holding signs on street-corners shouting doom at people? Were they in the synagogues pounding the pulpit? Were they hounding neighbors at their doorway, demanding they repent? No.

In the gospel, Mark writes that the disciples “went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.” That’s the story we can have in our mind and hearts when we consider what it means to repent.

To repent is to be healed. To repent is to have darkness driven out of your soul. To repent is to be anointed with grace.

What’s it take to change someone’s mind and heart? It’s wise to reflect on what it takes for YOU to repent, to have your mind and heart changed.

Whether it is an organizational management directive to make a change in the office or company, or it’s a breakdown in the home – even when you are right and they are clearly wrong – how does change and repentance work together?

In the Hebrew of the Old Testament the word “repent” is often translated “return.” To repent of your sins was to return to God and the loved ones you had wronged. “Return” implies reconciliation, making right, as much as possible, what was wronged; turning around to be with the ones you love instead of having your back to them in anger and pride.

In the Greek of the New Testament the word “repent” can mean “change.” When Jesus and his disciples “preach that people should repent” it’s not a command that is shouted, but an invitation to change that is embodied through healing, anointing, and casting out of dark fears.

Jesus was sent by God to personally return Israel’s rebellious heart and mind back to the Lord. He came to bring healing and hope to God’s stubborn people so that they would be reconciled to the Christ, the king of Israel.

Christ Jesus put his whole self into his message of repentance – and it wasn’t about him, it was about the change God wanted for them – renewal of their purpose in life as God’s royal people to be a blessing for all.

And that’s what we can have in mind when we strive for a renewed hope and purpose together for the flourishing of our whole community, in the way of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If you are in a workplace or situation at home where you think someone needs to change their mind and heart on something very important to you, consider what Jesus can teach us about it as a way of embodying the gospel:

  • pray about it with a friend then together go to the person you think needs to change, as the Spirit of Christ prompts.
  • go simply to that person – don’t go with a barrage of facts for why you are right and they are wrong; go with a prayerful attitude and a listening spirit.
  • go in peace – go to foster renewal, be willing to see their perspective, desire reconciliation.
  • rely on hospitality – meet over coffee or lunch, view them as a beloved brother or sister, find a way to need them, don’t be the one with all the power.
  • reveal your character when present with them, don’t pretend that you have it all together, but do embody the values you want them to accept (hope, faith, love, etc.)
  • renew the many interconnected relationships – have an eye on how these changes in their hearts and minds will add to the flourishing of all, not just your convenience or convictions.

What Can You Do When They Believe In You?

Belief is powerful. When you believe in someone, when you have faith in them, what is it that you are doing? You are affirming their credibility and integrity. You are empowering their capacity for doing more good. You are infusing their identity with joy.

When you entrust someone with your belief, loyalty and allegiance, you are opening up new possibilities for flourishing in the world you inhabit.

I served on the Student Senate my sophomore year at Huntington University. Since I was a Bible & Religion major, I volunteered for the Spirituality Committee, which was tasked with helping improve our mandatory chapel experience for students. (At our small Christian college you had to go X amount each semester). We wanted to make it more engaging and student-led. Our subcommittee helped draft an idea that with modifications was approved.

When it came time to appoint a leader for the new student-led chapel on Wednesday nights, I was asked to lead it. To which I emphatically said, “No!”

This seemed like too big of a leadership challenge for me, and I really was afraid of all the work that it would require to make it successful. I liked the idea, and I really liked the idea of somebody else making it happen.

I’ll be forever indebted to the campus chaplain Bill Fisher for encouraging me to apply for this leadership role. He  believed in me when I didn’t. It changed the course of my life. Bill had faith in me, which empowered me to see and do things that I hadn’t thought possible.

When you believe in people, you unleash new possibilities for the flourishing of souls and places and organizations. And when you don’t believe in people, when you don’t pour faithfulness and trust into them (because you don’t pay attention or don’t want to get involved) – well that’s when hope dies and possibilities wither.

This happened to Jesus. In a pivotal story of the gospel, Mark tells of Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth with all of his disciples. This should have been a homecoming of great honor for Jesus and the village. It started off well, with Jesus as a revered Teacher and famously powerful Prophet in the synagogue on the Sabbath reading from the Torah and giving brilliant commentary on it. “…many who heard him were amazed.”

But then something happened, maybe they got a little jealous, whatever it was, “they took offense at him.” They didn’t believe in Jesus anymore, they resented him; and this prevented him from doing any miracles there, he was only able to “lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith [in him].”

If Jesus is vulnerable to the power of belief, we obviously are too.

Think about what this means for your close family and friends? Sometimes they can be the hardest ones to believe in, because you know so much about them, maybe been hurt too much, it’s become too complicated. Something similar happened to Jesus when he went home after accomplishing great things for his nation. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”

But you know what? Jesus didn’t give up on his people, his family and friends, or his enemies. He didn’t quit believing in them, didn’t quit being faithful to them, even though they had quit believing in him. So what eventually happened?

We know that anxious Mary the mother of Jesus stayed at the foot of the cross during his execution, risking her own life to be there with her condemned son until the very end.

Unbelieving James the brother of Jesus would become the leading bishop of Jerusalem in the new church and became known as “old camel knees” because of all the time he spent in prayer, like his big brother Jesus used to do.

You want to heal and change the life of those you live or work with? Tell them you believe in them.

Imagine how your life would be empowered if more people looked you in the eye and said, “I believe in you.” Now go and do likewise.