“Be Kind Anyway”
June 29, 2014, based on Matt 10:40-42 and a passage from Kent Keith
“Be Kind Anyway” (Kent Keith, The Silent Revolution [1968], as edited by Mother Teresa)
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God.
It was never between you and them anyway.
The “be kind anyway” passage was mistakenly attributed to Mother Teresa by a
biographer, who found out that she had written it out and posted it in an orphanage for her
nuns to read. It then became widely assumed that Mother Teresa had written it, but it turns
out that she was quoting a small book by someone named Keith Kent, and leaving out two
of his ten “paradoxical commandments,” as he called them. I like her shortened version. I
think it is alright to give her partial credit, since her action (and the action of her
biographer) drew the attention of millions to this passage.
This is the product of a mature and experienced mind, a person who knows just how
frequently people can be “unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.” The Christian
response is to “forgive them anyway.” What if they’re even worse than unreasonable, but
ill-willed? What if they’re worse than illogical, but dishonest? I think we probably
“forgive them anyway,” but we may have to write them off, forget about them. They are
beyond our reach. Dishonesty puts a person beyond the reach of reasonable conversation.
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The next command says that suspicious people will often refuse to accept your
kindness as genuine, but to be kind anyway. One cannot withhold kindness until the
relationship has become perfectly healthy; be kind anyway.
What about success? Success will win you many shallow friends, and a few true
enemies. That certainly happened to Jesus. He had so many false friends after his initial
wave of healings, that they tried to make him king (John 6:15), but he turned them down,
and gave speeches that drove most of these shallow followers away. He said, “It is the
Spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. . . . Because of this many of his disciples turned
back and no longer went about with him” (John 6:63, 66). Bereft of his false friends, he
went on and succeeded anyway. Some of his true friends, like Peter, would lose courage
and even deny him for a while, but they came back, heartbroken, and he received them.
Now the next like in Kent’s teaching is something we all have probably experienced:
“If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you.” But, he says, “be honest and
frank anyway.” Of course, one needs to exercise some discretion, some caution, but this
particular teaching is not about caution. It is about straightforward integrity, and damn the
torpedoes—because people will shoot torpedoes at you if you are honest. This particular
teaching says be honest anyway, regardless of consequences. It is emphasizing to be
harmless as a dove; and this particular passage says nothing about being wise as a serpent.
In my life, I have learned to try to be wise. Being harmless makes you a big target. But
then, in our essential ministry (and this passage was aimed at ministers), we must be
vulnerable, we must put the emphasis on goodness, not on caution and self-protection.
A sad fact of life is that construction takes much longer than destruction. But, even
though someone can destroy your good work “overnight. Build anyway.” Do good,
regardless of opposition.
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“If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway.” And
that was the original title of this sermon, “be happy anyway.” But I decided to change it,
because our culture is obsessed with trying to grab happiness, which proves to be elusive
when it is pursued as an end in itself. “Be Kind Anyway” made a better title because it
emphasizes spiritual service. We are to do good, even though people may forget it
tomorrow, and it may never make the headlines. Do good anyway.
Again and again, our lesson is emphasizing doing good without expecting to get
credit for it, in fact, expecting to get slandered for it, sometimes. It’s a hard lesson, and
one that can serve as a warning for those who want to go into the ministry. Your path may
not be smooth; your goodness may not be appreciated; expect no kudos. In fact, do not
trust what appear to be kudos, for they might be cynically motivated.
So let’s pause for a moment on this subject of credit or appreciation, which could
also be called “reward.” That leads us to today’s gospel passage, which I’ll look at before
returning to the ending of Kent’s passage. Our gospel text is both stern and merciful. It is
addressed to apostles and evangelists, and says “whoever welcomes you welcomes me”
(Matt 10:40), and that’s a pleasant saying. “Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a
prophet will receive a prophet’s reward” (Matt 10:40). Well, that’s interesting, although
unclear. How is a prophet rewarded? Perhaps with a leadership role? I don’t know.
“Whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will
receive the reward of the righteous” (v. 42). There is reciprocity here. We see that God
values God’s messengers and will reward those who respect God’s messengers.
Finally, “Whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the
name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward” (v. 42). What a
wonderful and generous promise! It is fully consistent with Judaism, that one’s deeds, not
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one’s beliefs, are what determine one’s reward. This saying is consistent with the
teachings of Jesus throughout the Synoptic Gospels. Deeds reveal what one really
believes, not what one claims to believe, and by your deeds are you judged. “You will
know them by their fruits,” it says elsewhere in this gospel (Matt 7:16, 20), and in both
Matthew and Luke, Jesus says, “the tree is known by its fruit” (Matt 12:33; Luke 6:44).
The Gospel of John will also say that one’s deeds reveal one’s character, but it emphasizes
that one’s words and deeds are shaped by whether one recognizes the Messiah or not. So
there is stronger emphasis in John on the need to believe in Jesus. Still, First John points
out that one cannot claim to be in the light if he hates his brother; one who hates is still in
the darkness (1 John 1:9). Attitudes and deeds matter.
So our gospel passage says honest good deeds are rewarded, and good comes from
the heart. This is consistent with gospel passages that say “out of the abundance of the
heart the mouth speaks .The good person brings good things out of a good treasure . . . .
for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matt
12:34-37), and “Every good tree bears good fruit” (Matt 7:17).
Given that there is an eventual reward, we can return to the facts of life on this level,
which often involves carrying a cross. I can do no better than quote the ending of Kent’s
passage: “Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the world
the best you’ve got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God. It
was never between you and them anyway.”
This finds echoes in Matthew 6: “When you give alms, do not sound a trumpet
before you . . . . in order to be seen by others . . . . But pray to your Father who is in secret,
and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly.” (Matt 6:2, 5, 6). It was
always between you and God, anyway.