Hajja Salesjana April-June 2022

I was waiting in line with my sons for a roller coaster when the T-shirt caught my eye: Kindness is free — so sprinkle that stuff everywhere. I’m sympathetic to the message at one level. To many, the world feels meaner in recent years, and perhaps especially so since the last election cycle, COVID-19, and civil unrest. Yes, genuine human kindness, in the most basic of senses, has often been sorely lacking. More kindness would indeed be nice, and perhaps shine in new ways in times when we’re coming to expect meanness and outrage everywhere. But as admirable as the instincts behind the message are, the initial claim is badly mistaken. No, real kindness — the kind we really long for and need — is not free. And perhaps it would help us all to come to terms with that up front. Real kindness is costly. This Harsh World Deep down, we know that we live in a mean world — too mean to keep the meanness constantly at the forefront of our minds. Yet at times — more frequent for some than others — the meanness, the evil afoot in this world, accosts us. Even as bright as some days appear, there is a “present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12), still under the sway of “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). Pretender though he is, and numbered his days, his “domain of darkness” (Colossians 1:13) is real, and “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53) treacherous. And not only has the world out there gone mad, but far too often the sway of the world, and the indwelling sin in us all, brings that meanness in here , into the people who profess to be Christ’s. Tragically, the very people who are to make Jesus known by their love for each other (John 13:35) can be harsh, quarrelsome, impatient, shrill, nasty. It’s only human to respond in kind. But Christ requires of his church what is more than human: respond in kindness. Virtue in a Vacuum? In part, internal conflict in the Ephesian church prompted Paul’s second letter to Timothy. At the letter’s heart, the aging apostle gives his protégé this arresting charge: The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone , able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by Photo by Aaron Burden - www.unsplash.com Kindness in a World Gone Mad by David Mathis Executive Editor, desiringGod.org 6 April - Ġunju 2022 hajja