Be Kind

This last Sunday I was asked to preach and I struggled for a while with what to preach on. It's always difficult when you are filling in and everyone else knows you are filling in. You don't want to overlap too much with the current sermon series, but you also don't want your topic to be so unrelated to what's been going on that it has no impact. 

I found inspiration simply from scrolling on Facebook. People, and it seems especially Christians, are mean. 

Now of course not all Christians are rude and combative, but there are a shocking number who are. We argue in Facebook comments, send hateful messages, and generally act just like the world. This extends beyond the realm of social media and into our day-to-day interactions with so many. The Sunday lunch crowd at restaurants is infamously the worst tipping and most disrespectful, and these are mostly Christians who have just come from church.

We need to be kind. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, but it is one we often neglect or at least misapply. We tend to be kind to those who are kind to us, but not to those who aren't. We latch onto examples of Jesus facing down the Pharisees or Paul being stern in his letters to justify our own lack of kindness. However, we forget that the people who were being rebuked in those situations were the religious, aka US. 

Be kind to one another. Be pleasant to be around. This only helps the cause of Christ. We are not called to be offensive to the world ourselves. It is the message of Jesus that offends. We are to be kind.