Doing Good

Well, here we are more than halfway through the first month of 2022 right around January 18th. And the last few weeks we've talked about how we deal with conflict and fear and the words that we use. This week we're going to talk about doing good. It's chapter 13 in the book known finding deep friendships in a shallow world. And this is how we started. Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. Henry James. Talk only goes so far, doesn't it? What we want is action. The apostle James echoed this sentiment in his letter to folks in the first century church when he said faith by itself if it is not accompanied by action is dead. It's all well and good to pray for people say affirming things you say. But what are you doing for them? What's the concrete out working of your thoughts and prayers? At some point to affirm as to act. One of the great things I love about Jesus is just that he's a doer. He came. He died. He rose again. He unlocked doors. He's coming back. And as my friend Bob golf says so succinctly, love does in the gospels. Jesus does again and again and again. His patience with Simon Peter, this disciple who had a flunked the latest personality inventory. It was a great encouragement. Let's set the scene. Jesus will die within 24 hours and is asked his closest disciples to pray with him in the garden of a gussemini for an hour the evening before. They fall asleep three times. Then the temple guards come for Jesus. Peter jumps to his feet, grabs a short sword, takes a swing at the closest sky. Peter tries to defend God. Perhaps it's the sleep in his eyes or I just woke up disorientation, but his aim is not so great. It cuts off the guy's ear instead of his head. One can almost hear Jesus' murmur, oh boy, under his breath. Then he acts. He does something to undo what Peter has done with his good heart and bad aim. I see Jesus reaching down picking up the ear. Perhaps he cups it in the palm of his hand and presses it to the bloody hole on the side of the young man's face. Holding the servant's head in both hands, he looks into his eyes and says, sorry, now you're good. Then Jesus releases him to wholeness. What an affirming act toward the servant and toward Peter. The last thing Peter needs is an attempted murder charge lodged against him by the high priest people. Can you imagine the young man hauling Peter before the judge saying, this big guy tried to kill me. It's pure luck that I still have my head let alone my ear. The judge says, so what did he do? Well, he cut my ear off. Really? Which one? Well, this one, he says, as he touches his right ear lobe, looks perfectly fine to me. Says, judge, case dismissed for lack of evidence. End of story. That, of course, is what Jesus does. He destroys the evidence. Try to prove in court Peter's action without the severed ear. No evidence. Try to say the carpenter from Nazareth is still dead without having a body at hand. No evidence. The end of time when the accuser says, I know, Fothe, he's got a list of sins as big as all outdoors. Father will look at the list and say, I see nothing here. This has paid in full stamped on it in the blood of my son. Evidence destroyed. Now that's taking an action on your behalf. Friends take action. They find ways to invest in you. They cheer when good things happen. They weep when you're in pain. They figure out what you need and find a way to get it. In December of 1964, I was scrambling to finish a master's thesis at Wheaton Graduate School. Newly married, we lived on Ruth's salary as a secretary, $50 a week. My focus was Latin American, hardly any books in Madrid and on my particular subject. What I needed was a primary resource, that is a personal interview. At that time, every three years since 1946, the University Christian Fellowship at Hosted a Conference held the week between Christmas and New Years on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana. It was an inspirational missions-oriented event for university students. More than 200 mission groups and denominations would send representatives. The week was called simply the Urbana Conference. One day, my advisor, Dr. Lois Labar, asked me if I was going to the Urbana Conference. I said, I'd love to Dr. Lois, but it cost $50 for the week, and besides, I'd never go without Ruth. At that, she stood and walked into the next room. Back in two minutes, she reached from my hand, opening it, she laid five, crisp, new $20 bills in my palm. Then she said, take Ruth and go to Urbana. That action toward us, those five new $20 bills, changed the trajectory of our entire lives. Two years later, we would move to Urbana to lead a congregation and experience 12 of the best years we've ever known. In the Crucible, he wasn't a large man, but he had a large reach. Bill Aromone had been a power in the charitable world in the 20 years before we met. His creativity had taken United Way from a $400 million charity in 1970 to a $4 billion enterprise by 1992. That was the year that he was indicted and ultimately went to jail for six years and eight months. When we met in 1993, he was in the middle of his court case. Day after day, he would go to federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia to stand trial on the charges against him. During those months, he was surrounded by some new friends who understood the power of presence in time of need. A number where high profile, like Congressman Tony Hall, others like Fred Hyne walked faithfully behind the scenes to encourage Bill and his family. In his time of greatest humiliation, Bill had found a friend and a redeemer in Jesus, and a cluster of new friends who acted like him. When I first met Bill, I felt awkward about broaching the subject. He wasn't awkward and slightest. He brought it up with this thought deck. I may very well be convicted and have to spend time in prison. What folks need to understand is that I was in a personal prison before this. And now I'm free. I'm freer than I've ever been in my life. He came to cherish the handful of brothers who would show up consistently one or two at a time at the courthouse. He never got past that kindness. He never got over it. He never wanted to. And when he went to prison, one or more of those friends phoned or rode him every week for the entire six years. That's a kind act. That's an affirmation. When he was released from prison, Bill spent the rest of his life advocating for people who could not advocate for themselves. He worked on justice issues, not the least of which was a huge one on the other side of the globe, the country of Sudan and the tragedy of Darfur. With people dying by the tens of thousands, Bill, with other key people made 11 trips to that devastated land, sketch the outlines of a peace plan in a hotel lobby and live to see a peace agreement signed in May of 2006. Affirmation has a long shelf life. The University vote. In researching this book, I call my friend Pete, you're led at the University of Virginia to ask a favor. UVA, founded by Thomas Jefferson, speaks its own language. The campus is the grounds. You're not a freshman or a senior, but rather a first year or a fourth year. It's a historic place. Pete and his wife, Amy, lead Chi Alpha, one of the largest student groups on campus. These are bright young people with hot hearts and cool heads. More than 600 of them at this writing are involved in small groups each week. They gather for a large group meeting each week called Monday Night Live. My request was for as many of the students who wish to finish this sentence. A friend is a person who. I was delighted when 162 of them responded with candid and insightful thoughts. 43 of their respondents were very specific about a friend being someone who stays with you in the bad times. These said things like, loves you no matter what or stands by you in the bad times, smiles with you in the good times and tells you when you're wrong and is brutally honest when one is going down the wrong path, loving when one's hardest in pain and always present when no one else is. Too often when things get difficult, people around us leave. It's too painful or too awkward or just too much. There may be no clearer test for a real friendship than the down times. Look at your own life. Think of those times when you felt worthless or stupid or alone. Now, think of the people if you can who just stayed with you. They believed in you when you didn't believe in yourself. That single action gets imprinted on the soul. If you believe in me when I don't believe in myself, it's like Jesus giving me a new name or healing in here when I'm dumb enough to grab a sword under stress. A few things impact me more deeply than a friend taking an affirming action toward me in my worst moment. Do you remember a moment like that? Who comes to mind? What happened? How did that become a life marker? Were you on the giving or receiving it? How does that moment reflect the person you are? Hanging out with his friends the night before he died, Jesus distilled his dream for them. My command is this. Love each other as I loved you. How would he love them? At every turn he had affirmed them by actions that accepted where they were, but he wouldn't let them stay there. He took action to show them what they had been created for. He raised their sights to look at the eternal. He had spent three years with them. He had been present and presence is not passive. It is active. Anyone who has known grief knows the difference the presence of a friend makes. Our sister and brother-in-law mourned deeply the loss of one of their granddaughters a few years ago. She was an infant twin who died of sudden infant death syndrome, SIDS. As he would expect, scores of people reached out and offered help. Some came with words, some came with presence. Our brother-in-law Terry made a keen observation. You know Dick, he said, when you experience mind-numbing grief, hardly anything someone says can make it better. But a lot of things they say can make it worse. Words can rarely touch a deep grief. Presence might, actions will. When Jesus said to his guys, come pray with me in the garden for an hour. He was working through the front end of the greatest grief anyone would ever know. He wouldn't have their understanding, but at least he'd have their presence. A softly snoring presence may on occasion be better than no presence at all. That's it for today. Those two words are great encouragement, I think. Do good. Let do good or be a positive phrase. Not a bad phrase. As often times people like to use it. But I'm just so grateful for the people who have been present in my life when I've been going through pain. And I just pray that you guys listening will be in a space where in the days ahead when somebody hits the wall or somebody does something that takes them to a difficult place, that you might find it in your heart and in your thinking to go and be present. That's it for now. God bless, we'll catch you next week. This is Dick Foth with stories to make sense of it all saying bye for now.