Is It Still Good?

 

Is It Still Good?

July 24, 2022

 

The Scripture quotations contained here are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used with permission. All rights reserved.

 

It’s good to do good, right? It’s good to help people in need. It’s good to help friends who need help. It’s good to feed the hungry, house the homeless, cure the sick, comfort the afflicted, and otherwise to be of good service to others. Jesus tells us as much in the great Judgment of the Nations scene from Matthew 25. He says there that if you did good for “the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40b. We must understand here that all people are members of Jesus’ family, for all people are children of God. Yet both Jesus and St. Paul take being good even farther. Paul says, "if your enemies are hungry feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink." Romans 12:20 a,b. Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:43-44. Doing good both for those we love and those we find it difficult or impossible to love is clearly the Christian’s call.

Yet in words that come right after the words of Paul I just quoted, Paul says something that raises an important issue. The passage that contains those words reads more fully:

 

Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, if your are enemies are hungry feed them, if they are thirsty give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads. Romans 12:19-20 (emphasis added).

 

Paul was doing fine here until he got to “for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Really? We’re supposed to do good for our enemies because that will cause them immense pain? Even when we understand Paul’s words here as metaphor, as surely he intended them to be, he still has us doing good for someone else so that something good, or at least something we take as good, will happen for us. Really?

We don’t have to look to scripture with its heaping burning coals on people’s heads for examples of this kind of “good.” We see it our everyday lives. I once knew a woman who often helped her friends when they needed something. It looked like she was doing good. But she was doing it so that her friends would owe her. She did it so she could ask them for help when she needed something with the expectation that they would help her not because it is good to help others but because she was calling in a marker. Perhaps you know of examples of this sort of thing in your own lives. Unfortunately, it's not particularly uncommon.

So I ask: When we do good because we think doing it will somehow benefit us, is it still good? I’ll begin to try to answer that question by asking: Why did Jesus tell us to do good for those in need who are close to us and even for our enemies? Did he tell us to help those close to us do we’d build up points with them that we could call in later? Did he tell us to love our enemies and do good for them because somehow we would benefit by doing so? Of course not. Jesus asked us to do good simply because it is good. He told us to do good because God is infinitely good. We see his  giving that as our reason for doing good in the words that follow his telling us to love our enemies. He tells us to do it “so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” Mark 5:45a. In other words, do it to be like God, or at least to be like God as much like God as we mortals are capable of being. He told us to do good because when we do we are responding to God’s infinite love with mortal love of our own. God wants us to be good with no expectation of reward. Not for markers we can call in. Not so people will praise us and think highly of us. Not to assuage some guilt we feel for being the privileged ones who can help others but don’t (at the moment at least) need help ourselves. Certainly not to buy our way into heaven. Sure, we may get some personal benefit from helping others if only satisfaction in the knowledge that we have done a good thing. That, however, is never why we’re supposed to do good for others. God calls us to do good for others simply because doing good is good.

So when we do good in hopes of personal gain, is what we do still good? Well, yes and no. What we do to help others is still good because it helps others. Yet when we do good in hopes of personal gain our motive is problematic at best even if what we do is not. We’re doing good, but we aren’t being good. We are thinking more about ourselves than we are truly caring for the other. We are acting out of our ego, and our ego always looks out for itself first. God calls us beyond our ego. God calls us to a higher level of psychospiritual development. Yes, God created us as centered selves. Everything we do we do as centered selves. We can do nothing any other way. That limitation of ours needn’t mean, however, that everything we do, we do for ourselves. It is possible for us to transcend our egos and live out of our centered self for others. It is possible for us to do good just because it’s good. When we do, we’re doing the kind of pure, un-self-absorbed love to which God calls us.

It's not easy of course. Our egos are always there looking out for themselves. I suppose most people never transcend their egos and do good just because it’s good. Nonetheless, that is the level of development to which God calls us. I pray for you, and for myself, that someday we may actually reach that level of development. Then we’ll be able to do good just because it’s good. Then we will be doing the kind of good to which God truly calls us. May it be so.