The World According to Opa

On the surface, kindness doesn’t seem like a controversial subject. Kindness seems safe, does it not? Kindness, after all, is what Jesus preached – love your neighbor as yourself… do unto others as you would have them do unto to you. It’s the Golden Rule, right? Yet, if we are honest, we have to admit that kindness, not unlike stewardship, if properly and consistently lived, can lead to controversy, internal controversy that upsets our status quo.

Have you driven your car recently, approaching a homeless person panhandling from the median at a busy intersection? Did you silently wish for the traffic to keep moving along so that you wouldn’t have to stop… stop and give the homeless person an opportunity to walk past you with his sign: “Out of Work, Hungry, Please Help?” Time now for some honesty. Yes, I have.

I struggle with controversy internally at these times. I feel a Christian compulsion to roll down my window and offer a few coins or a dollar bill from the stash that I keep in the center console of my car, the dollar bills that I keep for panhandlers whose signs say that they are veterans. I have a soft place in my heart for veterans. But then, how do I know that they are really veterans? And how do I know that my giving won’t just encourage more begging? Time for more honesty. I don’t know.

Perhaps you too struggle internally with the controversy of kindness at times like these.

You know, we can’t be kind in small things like this without connecting ourselves to big things, big things like homelessness, civil rights, economic justice, gun violence, refugees and human trafficking. Have you thought of kindness in big ways like these as well as in small ways? Have you decided to believe what you don’t truly know about these things to justify your status quo — your biases, your political orientation and your daily decisions, as contrary as they might be to the Holy Scriptures?

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” ~ Colossians 3:12