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Phil Blackwell

“For Goodness’ Sake”
Matthew 25:31-45

In China they have instituted a group called the “China Kindness and Filial Piety Special Committee.” Why? Because of the shame over the horror viewed worldwide last month of a 2-year-old lying in the road, bleeding, after being hit by a car . . .and 18 passersby ignoring her. Yueyue died because no one stopped to help her. The shame of it all.

If it were an isolated incident people might shake their heads at the aberration and carry on, but there have been several incidents reported in China the same kind of disregard. A public opinion scholar from a university in Beijing observed, “We in China are very close to our parents and our families, but there is no trust in strangers.” A poll ranking forty nations on their “pro-social behavior,” (giving to charity, volunteering time, and helping strangers), China ranks second from the bottom. At the top? The United States and Ireland tied (Barbara Demick, The Los Angeles Times, 11/4/11).

Apparently, there is no sense of being a Good Samaritan in China. Why not? Well, I can imagine some people saying, “It is because they have no story of the Good Samaritan in their culture, in their sacred texts. If they were Christians like we are, then they would be kinder to each other.” Perhaps, but then the only country ranked worse than China on the pro-social behavior scale is Greece, a culturally Christian country for 2000 years. So, the answer is not that easy, that self-congratulatory on our part.

What is it that leads to such disregard for another human being? A lack of imagination, says Donald Winnicott, quoted in a little book entitled On Kindness, by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor. “A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of another person.” That is what it means to live the good life, to be a good person. It was Rousseau 250 years ago who claimed that it is caring for others that makes us fully human. Caritas, charity, not as a handing out of spare change, but as an acting out of “love your neighbor as yourself” that binds us together as a society.

Of course, not everyone believes that. Even before Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes was dismissing Christian goodness as an absurdity, insisting that it is a war out there, one-on-one combat to survive. It is aggressive individualism that makes self-interest the rule of the day.

These were not were not new arguments when the Europeans contended over them in the 17th and 18th centuries. The two sides were portrayed in graphic imagery by Jesus in the parable that is ours for today . . . the sheep and the goats. Here are the sheep who are good for goodness’ sake, not aware of how it would impact their salvation, and the goats who would have been good if only they had known what was in it for them. Being good as a desire to help others versus being good as a strategy for saving yourself.

I always have loved this story. It is the third of three Last Judgment parables in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew . . . the bridesmaids waiting with their lamps burning, or not, if the foolish ones did not bring enough oil . . . the use of the talents, and the damnation of the one who was too afraid to use it . . . and now, the sheep and the goats. This one makes the case that our salvation does not depend on us holding to the correct theology, it is not earned by perfect attendance in Sunday School over all these years, it is not the result of how clever an argument we can make at the Pearly Gates about why we deserve to enter. It simply comes as a complete surprise to those who have been good for goodness’ sake.

The judge is Jesus, sitting in all of his glory in the judgment seat. Jesus the Pantocrator, high and lifted up in all of his glory. Look up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and see Jesus separating the sheep from the goats; look at Graham Sutherland’s majestic tapestry of the risen Christ behind the altar of Coventry Cathedral. And before him parades who? The “nations,” “ethne,” nations, not individuals. Not a disciple on one hand and a naysayer on the others. This is a corporate judgment, an evaluation of corporations, of communities.

And the sheep, the favored ones? What did they do together as a flock to win the Risen Christ’s approval? Very simple. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

And the favored ones wonder aloud, “When did we do all of that for you? We have never seen you before.”

“Oh, yes you have. Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” They were good because . . . just because. That is what it means to love your neighbor. What they had not understood was the hidden truth that as they loved their neighbor they also were loving God in very real ways.

And then Jesus the judge turns to the condemned ones and says, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, thirsty and you never thought to offer me a sip, a stranger and you ignored me; I was threadbare and you turned your back on me, sick and you passed by on the other side, in prison and you said, ‘He deserves it; let him rot!’”

And they cry out, “That’s not fair! You did not look then like you look now. You were all scruffy and dirty and pathetic and embarrassing. Why did you not tell us that you were the king? If we had known, we would have met your every need.” They would have been good if they had sensed what was in it for them.

No, King Jesus says that we are to be good for goodness’ sake. It is its own reward.

I have just finished a book a friend gave me a few months ago, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved, written by Frans de Waal, Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. It is not that he studies the mannerisms of others in his office; he watches apes very carefully. And in this book he argues that we can see the basic formation of moral behavior in the ape community that ultimately emerges in human society. I am sure that his argument is much more complex than that, but it seems that he is saying that goodness, kindness, charity is inherent in the human condition.

He pushes back against Richard Dawkins and his Selfish Gene approach that there is no such thing as good for goodness’ sake; it is all a calculation to get what we want, what de Waal refers to as the Veneer Theory. Just below the thin veneer of a good person we will find a conniving egoist trying to decide what is the best tactic to gain power and advantage. This is sort of Lord of the Flies put under the microscope.

Well, there are people in this congregation who can do a better job of parsing the two positions than I, but if Jesus were at the table he probably would disagree with both. No, good acts are not built into the human condition, not DNA-triggered; they are the results of decisions we make. But we are able to make decisions that are not entirely determined by our own self-interest. We can decide to be selfless. “There is no greater love than this, that one lay down one’s life for his friends.” Each one of us has a choice to make when we are confronted by human need, says Jesus through this parable. Do we have the imagination to see ourselves in the thoughts and feelings and hopes and fears of the other? Do we have the eyes of faith to see Jesus in the least of these?

But let us not lose track of that other truth we identified. This is not just about each of us individually, but also about all of us taken together. There is great pressure in our culture to privatize religion, to take it out of the public discourse. Religious belief is something that you hold for yourself and keep to yourself. So we ask of political candidates, “Are you a religious person?” “Yes, I am, but that is a private matter. I will not let me beliefs influence my decisions.”

What? What kind of belief system is that which does not inform how one will live life? That is no belief at all. No, when we are talking about enough food to eat, and clean water to drink, and adequate clothes to keep warm, and a health care system that works, and a penal system that is humane, we are talking about matters that are at the heart of what we believe. And so, too, when we talk about war, education, immigration, violence, and abuse.

When we hold a public discussion of what strengthens or weakens our society, we are revealing what we value most as a people. And for those of us who claim a religious reference point for our social values, we must find our voice to speak clearly, intelligently, compassionately, and generously.

The goal of a good life is that we all flourish together. It is not that I have a good life for me and it is too bad for you. This is a story of corporate judgment; we are all in this together, and we better find a way to move toward justice and mercy together.

Our salvation depends on it. Who says so? The judge says so. Amen.

Philip L. Blackwell
The Chicago Temple
November 20, 2011