Why do good? (Luke 9:23) A sermon

By Kim Thoday

The writer Mark Twain understood human nature. Perhaps one of his greatest characters, Huck Finn says, “Bein’ good is a whole lot of trouble, but bein’ bad ain’t no trouble at all.” Ironically, I would want to add that both being good and being bad will often lead to trouble. If that is the case, then why do some people decide to do good at great cost or risk to themselves. Why do good?

One such person who eventually decided to stand up for good was Pastor Martin Niemöller, a World War I U-boat commander who eventually became a pacifist. He spoke out against Hitler and the Nazis, while many of his contemporary colleagues collaborated or remained neutral. Here was a decorated German war veteran placing himself in the position of traitor. In 1933, Niemöller organised the Pastor’s Emergency League to protect Lutheran pastors from the Nazis. And by 1934 he had become one of the principle leaders at the Barmen Synod, from which the Confessing Church began. Niemöller and his colleagues were severely persecuted and punished by Hitler for their trouble. From the time Niemöller went public with his anti-Nazi campaign (1933-1937) he managed to escape harm perhaps largely due to influential friends and most likely also because of his celebrated war record. However, he was eventually arrested for treason. At Hitler’s behest he was incarcerated at the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps until the end of the War. Furthermore, towards the Allied victory, he came very close to being executed. Despite Niemöller’s radical decision to act for goodness and justice in the face of such daunting evil, nevertheless, he understood the basic human struggle that we all face and he certainly faced, that struggle within every human heart, between doing what is right and doing what is expedient. In 1945, he summarized the existential dilemma of human being in this way:

“In Germany the Nazis first came for the Communists and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me – by that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.”

What gave the impulse to a young promising girl from California to go to Palestine to become a human shield for refugees in Gaza? Rachel Corrie in many ways was like most other women of her age and culture. A comment in a letter sent back home from Palestine shows this: “… This has to stop. I think it is a good idea for us all to drop everything and devote our lives to making this stop. I don’t think it’s an extremist thing to do anymore. I still really want to dance around to Pat Benatar and have boyfriends and make comics for my coworkers. But I also want this to stop.” Here is an ordinary American girl whose conscience has somehow been raised to a new level that makes her willing to place her life at risk for the sake of justice and humanity. Here is an ordinary woman radicalized into becoming an extra-ordinary woman of faith that the world can be changed.

Not long before she died Rachel wrote a letter to her mother. Here is part of that letter: “I spent a lot of time writing about the disappointment of discovering, somewhat first-hand, the degree of evil of which we are still capable. I should at least mention that I am also discovering a degree of strength and of basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances – which I also haven’t seen before. I think the word is dignity. I wish you could meet these people.” Like Niemöller, even in the face of the overwhelming machinery of evil, Rachel’s outward journey lead her to understand the inward struggle that we all need to confront, that struggle within every human heart, between doing what is right and doing what is expedient. Indeed Rachel’s life would be taken by one of the two basic human potentialities.

On a Sunday in March of 2003 Rachel Corrie was killed. She was with other people committed to non-violent protest and she died while attempting to prevent a bulldozer from demolishing a family home in a refugee camp in Gaza. Her body was crushed by the bulldozer, but her spirit of courage and faith lives on. Her faith and courage, life and death, is an eternal demonstration that the world does not have to be the way it is.

Why do some ordinary people do good things, even great things, in the face of certain opposition and risk to life? Why did a significant minority of ordinary people risk their businesses, lives and families to rescue Jews from almost certain death in Nazi Germany? (conservative estimates say 50,000; more likely it was several hundred thousand – the Righteous Gentiles as they are described in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial at Jerusalem). Why did some decide for a radical goodness, while others, the majority, most of whom would have called them selves Christian, remained neutral or tacitly supportive or consciously supportive of the Nazi anti-Semitism. Why could some transcend the Nazi propaganda machine and others not? It is in this context of a collective evil, that a decision for good becomes a decision for radical goodness; a radical goodness in the face of radical evil (an evil that consciously constructs its worldview upon perennial fears, fantasies and frustrations).

Jesus called the decision to do good in the face of the cosmic battle between good and evil, a decision to take the narrow way, the hard and rocky road, to follow on the path few care to take. M Scott Peck, the popular psychologist and Christian apologist wrote his first best-seller with a title using the same insight: “The Road Less Travelled.” It was such a designation that was chosen by the earliest Jesus movement’s of the first century, well before the identity ‘Christian’ was coined. Those early Jewish post-Resurrection communities of faith saw themselves as followers of the Way. And during Jesus’ ministry he called people to simply follow. He called them to follow a new path, a path that few would take, a narrow road where together they would learn to do battle with selfishness and truly find themselves in radical love of neighbour and enemy. Jesus called into being a community; a community that would cultivate, over time, a deep spiritual preparedness to act with radical goodness. His ministry was about the cultivation of counter cultural acts of goodness, justice and mercy in ordinary, everyday life – that constantly prepared himself and his community of followers for the great spiritual battles between radical good and radical evil.

It is interesting to note that by and large the so-called Righteous Gentiles, ordinary people who chose to risk everything to save Jews, came from homes and communities where principles of justice, goodness and humanity were fostered. In other words the decision to become a rescuer of Jews, a human-shield, a traitor, was likely not a compulsive one, but rather, a compelled one. I would maintain that we are compelled to do good, especially radical good, when a clear belief system and cultural ethos has prepared us. A compulsive act of goodness is likely to be short-lived; soon in retreat for its lack of preparation. A compelled act of goodness is part of the very fibre of who we have become. And incidentally, so too, I think, is the nature of radical evil. Radical evil is a conscious decision for evil that has about it the same process of communal fostering and formation. This evil becomes personified. This I think is what the theologian Emil Fackenheim means when he talks about the radical evil of Hitler. He argues that Hitler was consciously evil. Radical goodness is an all encompassing commitment to goodness. Radical evil is an all encompassing commitment to evil.

As Christians, we have been called out by God to be people devoted and committed to good. Salvation history is a story of Call. Out from the countless apathetic throng we are called. Like Moses called out from shepherding sheep, so we have been called. Like Amos called out from tending herds, so we have been called. Like Peter, Andrew, James and John called out from their fishing, so we have been called. Like Lydia, called out from her fine cloth business, so we have been called. We have been called by God to follow on a journey of radical goodness that will often lead to trouble; the trouble of risk and self-sacrifice. In a time before Christ, Xenophon met the great philosopher Socrates. After a rather pedestrian conversation Socrates asked him, “Do you know where men are made good and virtuous?” “No,” said the young Xenophon. “Come” said Socrates, “follow me and learn.” The call of Christ is to follow him on the Way; to follow him into a communal experience of deep spiritual preparedness to act with radical goodness; to become communities of faith that are counter cultural, learning to be prepared for the great spiritual battles between radical good and radical evil. For they will surely come.

Then Jesus told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat – I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how.” (Luke 9:23, The Message).

Blessings in Jesus’ name,

Kim Thoday, Hewett Community Church of Christ, South Australia http://www.hewett.org.au