Be Good

Scripture: Proverbs 11.17; 3.27; Luke 15.1-10

In 1908 Ernest Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition to reach the South Pole in Antarctica. It was a journey of unspeakable hardship and inhuman endurance. His team, bone-weary and famished, had to turn back less than one hundred miles from their destination. In his diary Shackleton tells of the moment their food was almost gone, down to a few scraps of hardtack – a bland, dried biscuit. Shackleton distributed it evenly among the men. Some ate it there and then, licking the crumbs off their fingers like starved dogs. Others stored it in their bags for a time when their hunger became madness.

That night, Shackleton awoke to a sound. He opened his eyes and lying still, watched. In the ragged circle of firelight he saw a sight that made his heart sink: his most trusted man opening the sack of the fellow next to him and taking out his food bag.

And then Shackleton saw a sight that made his heart leap: his most trusted man placing his own hardtack into the other man’s bag. He wasn’t stealing bread. He was sacrificing his own. That is goodness.

That kind of goodness doesn’t pop out of just anywhere. That superior deed comes from a good person. What does the Proverbs say a good person is like?

“Those who are kind reward themselves, but the cruel do themselves harm.” Proverbs 11.17

The Living Bible translation reads, “Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.”

Who hasn’t experienced a sense of accomplishment when doing a kindness for someone? Maybe you mowed their lawn, shoveled their walk, or helped them move. You feel good about yourself. You feel right for once. You can feel yourself getting bigger.

The opposite happens when we are mean to others. When we are mean, we feel mean. We feel petty, small. You feel small because your spirit is shriveling.

The value of the Proverbs is that they describe Life As It Usually Works. If you listen to the Proverbs your life will work pretty well. They are like the Ten Commandments in this regard. Follow the wisdom of the Commandments and the Proverbs and you will avoid great evil and do some good. You won’t be problem free. But you won’t be bad off either.

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.” Proverbs 3.27
Here you find an economy of practical goodness. You find boundaries and decriptions on how to act. Our wisdom-poor culture could learn something from this.

The vision of Proverbs, however, is still, for all it practical goodness limited and incomplete. It is incomplete because it is meant to be received in the context of God’s covenant with his people, the fullness of which is found in Jesus Christ, the mediator of a new covenant.

What does that mean for goodness as described by the Proverbs? Proverbs says that it is better for your life to do good than evil.

Jesus says it is not enough to do good; we must be good.

Remember the other week when I said many of the big words of the Faith have lost some of their power in today’s culture through abuse and willful misinterpretation? Goodness is another one of those words that has been lost in translation.

“Goodness has grown dull,” writes Mark Buchanon. Bill Clinton, during the height of the sex scandal involving the intern was judged by a nationwide poll to be “a good leader but not a good man.” What they meant was Clinton was skillful but deceitful; he was a man of ability, just not integrity. Which is bizarre.

Is it possible to be a good leader and not a good man? The Bible says no. Scripture mentions many competent leaders – speech makers, statesmen, military commanders, economists – but denounces and dismisses them all because they lacked goodness.

Our definition of goodness has become slippery and vague, but even if it were clear as a bell and precise as a scale, we face another problem – we look for the good in all the wrong places.

We want to look good.
We want to feel good.
We even want to do good.
God requires we be good.

In the Kingdom of Jesus, the Beloved Son, doing good is not enough. Anybody can do good once in awhile, even an evil person. Hitler’s favorite camera pose was with furry animals and little children. Idi Amin used to cry when he heard sad stories. Stalin was good to his daughters. Even the wicked know how to do good. They just lack the capacity to be good. They lacked tears for their many victims.

The Apostle Peter describes goodness as a characteristic of our being.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” 2Peter 1.3

The Greek word Peter chooses for “goodness” is arête. It is translated as “virtue” and it means “essential, intrinsic goodness.” It has to do primarily with something we are before it is anything we do, or think, or feel. Arete is the character of God within us, living and active.

This is how we explain the paradox Faith. Faith without works is dead, we know. But it is precisely because we place our faith in the goodness of God that faith is alive and produces works. This goodness that is God becomes alive in us through faith. Our good deeds proceed from who we have become in Christ.

There were other words Peter could have used having to do with “goodness put into action”, but he chose arête, this intrinsic goodness that comes from God.

In the story of the Rich Young Ruler, a man runs up to Jesus and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus responds, not to the stated question, but to some implied motivation:
“Why do you call me good?”

Matthew records the encounter with a slightly different emphasis. “What good thing must I do to get eternal life?” the young man asks.

“Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replies, “There is only One who is good.” (Matthew 19.16-17) Jesus then gives the young man an impossible list of things to do and accomplish. He gives the man rules for behavior, a heap of them. The man walks away sad with defeat. He can’t do it all. Of course he can’t. Apart from God, no one does good, no not one. (Psalm 14.1)

Trying to do good without first being good is doomed to futility.

We must participate in the divine life, as Peter counsels, so we can imitate the good God.

In Luke 15 we read that the Pharisees are letting Jesus have it for eating with known sinners. The Pharisees are all about doing good; feeling good, and above all, looking good. But Jesus turns their vanity mirror sideways.

“Which of you, if you had a hundred sheep and lost one wouldn’t go look for that one sheep?”

See, of first importance is not the pecking order of the lost sheep. (Is he the best or worst sheep, or somewhere in the middle ?) What is of first importance is the character of the Shepherd. Clearly, God, who is the Good Shepherd is very interested in finding his lost children, good and bad. Because God is Good. This is the glory of God, his goodness.

It can be our glory too.

“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God.” 3 John 1.11

We are no longer limited to doing good to only those who “deserve it”. Nor are we limited by our own power. We are vessels of the goodness of God Himself. Goodness for us is no longer an accident or an exception or an event that follows strict criteria, it is the natural outpouring of the love of God through us. It happens all the time.

Fred Mitchell was the former chairman of the China Inland Mission. At his funeral the man who delivered the eulogy said this: “You never caught Fred Mitchell off his guard because he never needed to be on it.”

That’s goodness.