Do All the Good You Can
February 6, 2011
Do all the good you can
To all the people you can
Whenever you can
Whenever you can
Wherever you can
For as long as you can.
-John Wesley
Sometimes it really is that simple. Wesley had the gift occasionally to say things plainly. This is an excellent example. Do all the good you can. If we were wondering what to do, here it is. Do all the good you can.
Apparently, where we pick up the story in Isaiah, the congregation there is wondering what they have to do to get a blessing. They are actually complaining that their fasting on the Sabbath is having no affect. They are doing what they are supposed to do (according to them) and the payoff has been slow in coming. (Fasting was used as a form of prayer to petition God.) They had come to believe that the point of worship and prayer was to get their needs met. So far as they could see they were doing their part but the goods were not being delivered and thus the complaints. Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice? (Isa. 58.3) is their common lament. What is wrong with this picture? I am reminded of the word of Plotinus, the first of the so-called Neo-Platonists who wrote: If a man seeks the good life for any reason outside of itself, it is not the good life that he seeks. It seems that, perhaps, once again the wrong question is being asked. We are trying so hard to get it right. Why does God not bless us? Why, if we are doing as we are told, are we not reaping the benefit? Why do we continue to suffer and fail? What is wrong?
The response to this is revealing. While the people have gone through the motions of what they are supposed to be doing in fact they are not doing anything they are supposed to be doing. The very people who are praying are abusing each other and probably even using their religion to do it. Look you serve your own interest on your fast day . . .you fast only to quarrel and fight . . .(Isa. 58.3-4) I know. It sounds preposterous. How could people use their religion to hurt people? This is not what God wants. Come on! And the message is clear. This is the fast that God wants: don’t give me your phony prayers or your empty rituals unless you give yourselves to others. You cannot love God and hate your neighbor. (This is how prophets go on.) Do not talk the talk unless you walk the walk. (see vs. 6-7) Make your words and your customs consistent with your deeds. (It is amazing when one begins to do what one prays for how real those prayers become.) If you claim to be the people of the good God, then do all the good you can. Do all the good you can. Why not? What other reason is there to be God’s people. What better reason is there to be at all?
In his letter to the Corinthians Paul warns that the message of God is not just the words spoken, however brilliant or wise, but the demonstration of spirit and power. (1 Cor. 2.4) In other words, it is not enough to talk of God’s goodness if that goodness is not expressed by the real presence of God in us. And how does the real presence come to reside in us? It is first of all a gift but the gift comes to life in us when we begin to open our lives to others, when we commit ourselves to contributing to the welfare of all, when we remove our self-interest from the center of our existence and join the interest of all with God at the center drawing us all closer. As we all move toward God we also move closer to each other.
When we receive the gift of the presence of Christ at the Lord’s table, it abides in us when we live it out in our actions, actions that reflect the self-giving love of the One whose presence we seek and receive. We cannot hold on to God’s gift and keep it for our self. It lives in the giving of it. So it is that we receive by giving and the more we give, the more we receive. And so it goes. We do not come to this holy table just to receive God’s gift for ourselves but so that we will take the gift to the world and give it away. We come to the table to receive the life and grace we will need to serve others, to do all the good we can; not just to do what we are supposed to do, just like we have always done it, but because we really believe that Christ is present here and that Christ is good and that we are called to be good and do good in his name and we want to do good because we love Christ and what love can do. When Christ abides in us we do good not as an obligation or to receive our reward, in Christ doing good is like breathing. It is our life. It is who we are. In other words something real is happening here and it is not finished until what we receive is given away in service to others .We are gathered in and fed in order to be sent forth and do all the good we can.
Ah, but what is good? Is that not one of the philosophers favorite questions? Is what is good only subjective? I remember so well when I was a young pastor I was blessed to serve the Community Church of Madrid, Spain as pastor and part of my job was also to serve as chaplain and teacher of ethics at the King’s College, a British prep school for the international community. My first class of very young people had the notion that each person decides what is good for themselves and in fact there was really not any need for a class on ethics. I agreed with them and then announced that I was going to give all of them failing grades. Of course there was a great uproar and they began to cry that wasn’t fair or right and certainly not a good thing and I merely pointed out to them that they had just told me that we could each decide what is good so I decided that what is good for me is that they should all fail my course in ethics. Then the conversation could finally begin. Maybe what is good is a little more involved that just what any one of us thinks is good for us.
As the people of the Holy Spirit we actually have a very good description of how we can know what is good. In the letter to the early church in Galatians the fruits of the Holy Spirit are listed: they are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We can know that what we are doing is good if the fruits of the Spirit are present.
Another way to know what is good is the examples we find in the life around us and in the stories that inform us. On the cover of your bulletin today there is the artist’s rendition of the day Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends came to help Owl when his house was knocked down in the storm. If you look closely you will find that Eeyore is not there. That is because he is out looking for a new house for Owl. The story describes the goodness of the community helping Owl in all the usual ways to recover as we can see in the picture but then it goes deeper. In Eeyore’s wish to help and do good he does find a new house for Owl. Unfortunately it is Piglet’s house.
“I have been told─the news has worked through to my corner of the Forest─the damp bit down on the right which nobody wants─that a certain Person is looking for a house. I have found one for them.”
And so they all go to see what Eeyore has found.
Just the house for Owl. Don’t you think so, little Piglet?”
“Yes, it’s just the house for Owl,” he said grandly. “And I hope he’ll be very happy in it.” And then he gulped twice, because he had been very happy in it himself.
“What do you think Christopher Robin?” asked Eeyore, a little anxiously, feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Christopher Robin had a question to ask first and he was wondering how to ask it.
“Well, he said at last, “it’s a very nice house, and if your own house is blown down you must go somewhere else, mustn’t you Piglet? What would you do if your house was blown down?
Before Piglet could think, Pooh answered for him.
“He’d come and live with me,” said Pooh, “wouldn’t you, Piglet?”
Piglet squeezed his paw.
“Thank you Pooh,” he said, “I should love to.”
Some of you Pooh scholars will know that, ironically, a similar thing had happened to Eeyore earlier when Pooh and Piglet built him a house but unknowingly tore down his old house to do it. Sometimes when we try to do good we cause unplanned harm but goodness just goes on giving. It is the generosity of it that makes the healing possible and it is generosity of spirit and much love and gentleness that will heal us and our world, too. By the grace of God may we do all the good we can to all the people we can whenever we can wherever we can for as long as we can. Thanks be to God.
