Is Kindness Out Of Date? 11/7/43

Scripture: II Kings 6: 8-23

Some of the laws of Scouting, both in the Girl Scout movement and in the Boy Scout organization, have to do with kindness. A Boy Scout is kind; a Girl Scout is “kind to animals” specifically; she is also kind to people, because kindness is the basis of true courtesy. And courtesy is one of the Girl Scout’s laws.

One of the earliest jobs of Bible memory work is begun when some child in a church school beginner’s department is taught to lisp “Be ye kind one to another.” [Ephesians 4: 32].

Kindness is, to all reared in the Christian faith, or in the Hebrew tradition, basic in our ethics. When totalitarian ideologies sneer at kindness as weakness, they simply underestimate the power of an ethic they do not grasp. For kindness is still a mightier constructive force than the sword.

Where the white man is hated in the Orient, it is because of the acts and attitudes of some white men who are not kind to the people with whom they work or deal. Where the white man is loved and respected, it is because of the kindness of some teacher, or missionary doctor, or considerate merchant, or understanding friend.

The Old Testament story of the prophet, Elisha, is one of the exceptionally interesting stories of the Bible. The story of Elisha’s time is a story of war days. Israel had plenty of trouble with enemies. For a long time the armies of Syria had invaded Israel’s country, sometimes quite successfully. But of late, Syria had not been so successful as before. When the Syrians made a move, they found that it seemed to have been anticipated, and the Israelites were on guard.

The king of Syria called his advisors together and accused some of his men of harboring a spy whom he supposed had notified Israel of his plans. His advisors had a different answer. They told him it was the “man of God” - Elisha of the Israelites who foretold their movements.

So the Syrian king ordered his men to capture Elisha. Having found out where Elisha lived, a detachment of soldiers surrounded his village during the night. There they were in the morning. Now the story of this little plot has a “happy ending” from Elisha’s point of view. Not every such story has. When Martin Niemoeller was surrounded by Nazi hatred, he went to concentration camp. When Kagawa was surrounded by the squalor of Kobe’s slums, he got trachoma and lost most of his sight. When the Master of us all was surrounded in the garden of Gethsemane, he was taken by the mob and falsely tried, condemned, and put to death.

But this story of Elisha happens to be a bit different. Elisha calmed his terror-struck servants with assurance that the Lord himself had them surrounded with his own chariots. They were enough to overwhelm the Syrians. Then came the salvation! The enemy seemed struck with blindness. The prophet himself, whom they had orders to take, led them to another place. And the place to which he led them was Samaria, the stronghold of the Israelites. Of course they were now virtually prisoners.

The king of Israel gloated over such good fortune. In elation, he asked the prophet, “My father, shall I smite them? Shall I smite them?” It was a splendid chance for revenge. He could order every one of them put to the sword and even their bodies held in derision. So he asked the venerated prophet for permission.

But the prophet replied, significantly, “Thou shalt not smite them. Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” The king was probably disappointed. He knew what to do from a shrewd military standpoint. Probably he felt that the prophet was quite unrealistic. The king would have been barbarous, cruel and ruthless. He would have taught these Syrians a lesson never to be forgotten - the same kind of “lessons” so effectively and gratuitously taught by some present day militaristic leaders. Feeding them! Letting them go back home! Sentimental nonsense of a weak and decadent democracy! Can’t you hear the chorus of derision from ancient times to this very decade?

But in the case of the old Israelite king, the prophet’s words represented to him the very word of God. He had no notion of defying the holy. So he ordered the Syrian men to be fed and given water, and sent them back home. And the story of that particular incident ends, “So the bands of Syria came no more into the land of Israel.”

There is a familiar ring to the whole story. The human emotions involved sound like a torrent of emotions now loosed on the world. Remember that it is a story of a thousand years before Christ - three thousand years before our time.

Remember also the words of Jesus Christ on the same subject: “Ye have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you that ye resist not him that is evil; but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also. ....” [Matthew 5: 38. “Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy, but I say unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you; [Matthew 5: 43,44]; bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” [Luke 6: 28].

Years after Jesus said things like that, Paul wrote, as recorded in the New Testament, “Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God; for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will repay, saith the Lord. But if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” [Romans 12: 19-21].

Surely this Old Testament story of Elisha and these New Testament sayings of Jesus and a great disciple of his have pertinence for out time.

Of course they are not easy to take in the midst of conflict’s heated passions. All the more reason to meditate upon them for a few moments here - perhaps they may help to keep us balanced and sane.

When discussing something else, Jesus once observed, “This is a hard saying, who can bear it?” He might also have said the same thing about the treatment of enemies. Here is one of the most difficult of his commandments. We have deep rooted impulses that run counter to it. It seems that part of the defense mechanism of our nervous systems is to hit back. We don’t have to train ourselves to strike when struck. But we do have to discipline ourselves to obey the command of Christ. The right way is the hard way, in this case. The broad, easy way is the way that leads to destruction. Lasting life is found over the hard way of self restraint and control. Christ counsels against revenge.

Two days after Lee’s surrender at Appomatox, President Lincoln was discussing reconstruction with his cabinet. It proved later to be the day of his own assassination. And the great president, who had so doggedly prosecuted the war to its successful conclusion, now spoke to his cabinet in these words: “I hope there will be no persecutions, no bloody work after the war is over. No one need expect me to take any part in hanging or killing those men, even the worst of them. ------- Enough lives have been sacrificed. We must extinguish our resentments if we expect harmony and reunion.”

Some of the seasoned and experienced men of our own time are now saying to us: “We can have peace or we can have revenge, but we cannot have both.”

Probably some may think, “it is very easy to say that, sir, but if you were in Warsaw or Stalingrad or Greece or Nanking or London or Manila you would feel differently.” Yes, I fear I might. It is quite probable that if I were among the hundreds of thousands whose homes were being bombed and whose loved ones were being done to death or worse, I should shake my fist at the plane-filled sky and seize any sort of weapon that came handy. I’m human, too, just as most of us are.

Yet we don’t live for one moment alone. Life’s crises may call for supreme concentration on some moments. But we live for eternity. We must try to stay balanced.

A taxi driver from London was asked what he thought should be done to the Germans after the war. He probably has much more reason than we to cry for revenge. In answer to that question, he replied: “Treat ‘em like brothers - but take away their guns.”

A well known Chinese leader, and one of the great souls of the earth, Mr. T. Z. Koo, said a while ago that his home had been destroyed several times. But he went on to say, “Jesus’ command that I love my enemies specifically requires that I love the Japanese. This for me is no easy task, yet it is a must if I am to continue to take Jesus seriously.”

It is hard to obey some of God’s law - but that law is universal and timeless.

- And it is the only successful way. Fighting will not bring in a better order. The sword is no weapon for building up good will - it never was. Even as an instrument of justice it is primitive, elemental, and very dangerous in the hands of mortal man as judge.

But kindness does overcome an enemy. China is now our ally. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese are our friends. (Pray God that we may be their friends!) But it has not always been so. The Boxer rebellion was an attempt to get rid of all foreigners and foreign influence from China. (Japan is attempting the same thing now on a much greater scale.) After the Boxer rebellion had been put down, all nations concerned exacted a considerable indemnity from China for the destruction of life and property. But unlike other nations, our country immediately returned it, and requested that it be used by China for the education of her youth. That one act has been of incalculable worth in cementing the friendship of our two nations.

“Love never faileth.” [I Corinthians 13: 8]. Love is not silly - it is intelligent, it may be stern; but when it is genuine, it works.

One more thing about this matter of kindness; it is an attribute given of God and expected by him of men. Vengeance belongs to the all wise purposes of God.

Let us be sensible about this matter too. This does not mean that we may sit idly by and let evil force run rampant. It is hard to believe that Jesus, had he been on the Jericho road at the time, would have idly watched while thugs beat up an unknown traveler - even had he known that a good Samaritan would later pass that way. But vengeance is not ours, nor Christ’s, but God’s alone - and his ways do bring it about with terrible force. Witness the ruthless destruction of Abyssinia a few years ago. Today witness Naples, and Sicily and Rome mined for a similar fate! Whether it comes a decade later, or 300 years later, divine justice appears.

Our present duty is to subdue those who are insanely striving to conquer the whole world for terrible ends. But we need not preach hatred. Soldiers like Robert E. Lee, George Washington, Chiang Kai-Shek and others have shown that it is possible to be superb soldier, and still not hate nor taste of revenge.

Those who knew the old Europe know better than any the awful toll of hatred among whole peoples. It is time that something else was tried, and (surely) that American people rely on intelligent kindliness when a victory has given it a chance to function again.

Overcome all enemies, at home and abroad, of the flesh or of the spirit, with kindness. Leave vengeance to God.

-------

Dates and places delivered:

Wisconsin Rapids, November 7, 1943