Doing Good for the Common Good
In last week’s sermon, I mentioned that followers of Jesus seek to do “whatever is good for the common good.” As people who have had the good work of Christ radically transform us, we aim to be people who demonstrate good works in word and witness to everyone around us so that they may experience Christ’s saving love. This means demonstrating good to those who are disciples of Jesus and those who are not. As salt and light people (Matthew 5:13-16), we don’t see discrimination in whom we seek to love.
That may be why I’m taken aback by all the negative outbursts within the Christian community of last week’s He Gets Us Super Bowl commercial. I’m not going to add fuel to the fire on whether it was money well spent or the best contextualization, but it got me thinking: does the church do good for the common good? Does the church love in profound, uncomfortable ways? Do we see the good work of what Jesus has done to rescue us from every area of sin as the fuel that leads us to see his good work transform others in our community?
These questions seem even more germane as we step into the season of Lent. The next several weeks are a time for the church to intentionally reflect and respond to the brokenness we see both in us and around us because of sin. Lent reminds us that we are mortals in dire need of someone to rescue and renew us, cleanse us from the filth of our hearts, and set us in the right direction of flourishing. Lent reminds us that only Jesus can do that great work for us and in us.
As God’s holy people, we are committed to opposing sin in all its forms, both inside and outside the church. We are devoted to loving and serving those inside and outside the church. We are to “hunger and thirst for righteousness” or “hunger and thirst for love and justice” (Matthew 5:6) both inside and outside the church.
And this isn’t easy. Loving people is hard. Doing good works for the common good in a world marinating in sin is challenging. Doing all of this for people who are not like us or for those we don’t like is even more difficult. But as Paul reminds Titus,
1Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone…14Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives. (Titus 3:1-2;14 NIV)
Christians are called to be a good works people because of the good work of salvation that Jesus has done for them and in them. These good works involve love saturated with mercy. Mercy toward those who have sinned. Mercy toward the unjust. Mercy to disciples who do not live and love like Jesus.
I’m digging into a few devotionals for the season of Lent, one of which is from Walter Brueggemann. In his mediation from Isaiah 55, he writes:
The imperative is around four verbs, “seek, call, forsake, return,” good Lenten verbs. But this is not about generic repentance for generic sin. I believe, rather, the sin (in Isaiah 55:6-7) addressed concerns for Jews too eager to become Babylonians, too easy to compromise Jewish identity, Jewish faith, Jewish discipline – in order to get along in a Babylonian empire that had faith in other gods with other disciplines. The imperatives are summons to come back to an original identity, an elemental discipline, a primal faith.
I suggest, moreover, that these are just about the right imperative for Lent among us Christians. For I believe the crisis in the U.S. church has almost nothing to do with being liberal or conservative; it has everything to do with giving up on the faith and discipline of our Christian baptism and settling for a common, generic U.S. identity that is part patriotism, part consumerism, part violence, and part affluence.
Lent is a time to consider again our easy, conventional compromises and see again about discipline, obedience and glad identity.
Christians find their identity in Jesus, who has done the good work of saving them from the tragic effects of sin. By extension, the Church is a kingdom-of-God people who know they are part of the family of God and strive to reflect what God is like as they live and love like Jesus in acts of mercy and love, justice and goodness, faith, and obedience. We cannot settle for any other identity.
Let me leave us with one question: How can we practice good (love and mercy, justice and forgiveness) towards those we struggle to love?
In this season of Lent, let us strive to do “whatever is good for the common good” so that others will come to find and follow Jesus.
I love you, FBC, and I’m praying for each of us in this discipleship journey as we strive to live and love like Jesus together.
–Pastor Wade
