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Sunday, April 19, 2015

Do Good Anyway

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 19, 2015.  The Bible verses used are Mark 3:1-12, 20-26.


            We’re in the second week of a sermon series called the Paradoxical Commandments.  It’s a series of ten statements put together by Dr. Kent M. Keith in 1968 to try to encourage his friends to do good even when it does not seem to change anything and even when it does not seem to be appreciated.  I’ve put the whole list in the back of the church, and we’ll put it in next month’s newsletter, too.  Here’s our statement for this week.  “If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.  Do good anyway.”
            Have you ever had that happen to you?  Have you ever been in a situation where you were just trying to help, just trying to do what’s right, just trying to do what’s best for everybody, and not only is it not appreciated, but somebody claims you’re just in it for yourself?
            It stinks, right?  I mean, when we’re in a situation like that, the chances are we did not really even want to be in the situation in the first place.  We’re doing something because, well, something needed to be done and somebody needed to do it, so we said we we’d help.  And we’re not really sure what to do, but we’re trying to make the situation fair for everyone and do whatever will make things work out for the best.  And so we do something, and everybody gets mad about it.  And they accuse of us of having favored somebody, or of just wanting to get our own way, or of just being in it for our own personal glory.  It’s not a very good feeling.
            Well, it may make you feel better to know that it happened to Jesus, too.  That was our Bible reading for today.
            The passages we read tell about times Jesus healed people.  A lot of us know that healing was a big part of Jesus’ ministry on earth.  Jesus had the power to heal people.  He could do it with a touch or even with just a word.  It was an incredible power Jesus had.
            And yet, I cannot think of a single time in the gospels where Jesus went out looking for chances to use his healing power.  In pretty much every case, it was somebody coming up to Jesus and asking to be healed.
            And when we read the gospels, we get the impression that using his healing power was not an easy thing for Jesus to do.  It took something out of him.  We read of times when, after healing a group of people, Jesus needed to go off by himself for a while and rest.  We read of a time when a woman touched Jesus and was healed and he immediately felt the power going out of him.  We really don’t understand just how Jesus’ healing power worked—after all, that’s why we call them miracles, because we don’t understand how they worked—but it was not a magical effortless thing for Jesus to do.  It took energy.  It took exertion.  It was not easy on Jesus for him to heal people.
            So in our story for today, it’s the Sabbath, and Jesus goes to the synagogue.  As far as we know, he just went there to worship God like everybody else.  There’s nothing in the story that says he went there to heal anybody or to do anything special.  He was just there because it was the Sabbath and Jewish people were supposed to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath.
            But there’s this guy there with a shriveled hand.  We don’t know anything about him than that.  Had he heard that Jesus would be there?  Was he hoping to be healed?  Or did he go to this synagogue every Sabbath and he just got lucky that Jesus came there, too?
            We don’t know.  In fact, it’s even possible that the Pharisees found out Jesus was going to be there and deliberately brought this man there, just to see what Jesus would do.  After all, we’re told that they were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus and they were all watching him closely to see if Jesus was going to break the Jewish law and heal this guy on the Sabbath.  Maybe this was a set-up, a trap by the Pharisees.  We don’t know.
            So here’s Jesus, just wanting to worship God on the Sabbath.  He’s not looking for any trouble.  He’s not trying to start an argument.  He’s not even looking to heal anybody.  He has no great desire to violate the Sabbath law.  But here’s this guy with the shriveled hand.  And Jesus knows he needs to do the right thing.  He needs to help this man, whether it’s the Sabbath or not.  So he does.
            We don’t know what the reaction of the crowd was.  But we know what the reaction of the Jewish authorities was.  The Pharisees were furious.  They met with the Herodians, the people on the side of King Herod, to figure out how to kill Jesus.  The teachers of the law were furious, too.  They accused Jesus of being possessed by Satan.
            All because he had healed a man on the Sabbath.  All because he had tried to do the right thing.  He had not done anything to help himself.  He had not done anything out of any desire for personal glory.  And yet he was accused of all these things.
            We’re not told how Jesus felt about this.  But how would you feel?  How do you feel, when something like this happens to you?  How do you feel, when you’ve tried to do the right thing, when you’ve tried to do something nice for somebody with no thought of even getting thanked for it, and then people get mad at you and accuse you of all sorts of stuff?
            Are you ever tempted to just chuck it?  Are you ever tempted to just say the heck with it and quit?  I’ll bet you are sometimes.  It is really discouraging when we do our best to do something good for someone and not only do we not get thanked for it, but instead we get criticized and called names just for trying to do the right thing.
            I wonder if Jesus was ever tempted to just chuck it.  I wonder if Jesus was ever tempted to just say the heck with it and quit.  We’re not told that he was, but I would not be surprised.  Things like what happened to him in our reading for today had to be so frustrating for him.  To have these self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the law be so absorbed in their little rules and telling him “God said you should not do that” when Jesus knew better than anyone what God wanted him to do.  To have these little teachers of the law accuse him of being possessed by Satan when Jesus was so far above and beyond anything they could ever be that there’s not even a comparison to be made.  It had to be so tempting for Jesus to say, “You know, if you guys don’t appreciate what I do, then forget it.  I’ll just go live by myself in the desert and I’ll let you do all the healing from now on.  Let me know how it works out.”
            But of course, Jesus did not do that.  Jesus lived out Dr. Keith’s paradoxical commandment.  Jesus did good, and people accused him of having selfish ulterior motives.  And Jesus went on doing good anyway.
            How’d he do it?  Well, for one thing, Jesus stayed close to God.  Those times where Jesus went off by himself and rested, those were times Jesus spent with God.  He was praying.  Jesus knew that when he was tired, when he was frustrated, when he was falsely accused of things, he needed to get as close to God the Father as he possibly could.  And so, Jesus would go off by himself and pray, not just once in a while but fairly often.
            And then, Jesus would come back.  And Jesus would go back to doing good, doing the right thing, doing what he was supposed to do.  Jesus did that because it was what needed to be done.  He did that because he was the right thing to do.  Jesus knew, when he healed people, that there were going to be some people who would not like it.  He especially knew when he healed people on the Sabbath that there were going to be some people who would not like it.  He knew he was going to get accused of all sorts of things if he did it.  But he knew it was the right thing to do.  He knew it was what God wanted him to do.  So he did it anyway.
            You and I, if we look around, see all kinds of things that need to be done.  But sometimes, we know that if we do those things, there will be people who won’t like it.  And sometimes we know that we may get accused of all sorts of things if we do it.  But we still know those things are the right things to do.  And we still know that they’re what God wants us to do.
            So, when we get discouraged, when we get tired, when we get frustrated, when we know people may accuse us of things, let’s do what Jesus did.  Let’s go off by ourselves and rest and pray.  Let’s get as close to God the Father as we can.  Then let’s come back.  And then let’s get back to doing the right thing.  Let’s get back to doing what needs to be done.
            If we do good, people will accuse us of selfish ulterior motives.  Do good anyway.  That’s what Jesus did.  And it’s what Jesus wants us to do, too.

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