Sermon Tone Analysis

on June 15, 2015 Dylan Roof entered the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston South Carolina and murdered nine people gathered there for a Bible study.

While hate crimes against the black community are nothing new, this event demonstrated a striking scene.

Instead of protests which result in destruction of property and looting, the families of the victims gathered in in the courtroom for Dylan Roof’s arraignment hearing and each issued statements of forgiveness.

Instead of responding with destruction and looting, they responded with love and mercy.

Dylan Roof was set to receive the death penalty in South Carolina for his crime.

Instead he received a sentence of life in prison without parole.

There was significant reaction to that shooting which occurred on June 15, 2015.

The black community in Charleston responded with words of mercy and forgiveness instead of words of vengeance and retribution.

South Carolina took notice.

Five days later on June 20, 2015 the South Carolina legislature voted to finally remove the Confederate battle flag from outside the South Carolina state courthouse.

It sparked a movement throughout the South to remove statues and other symbols from state property.

The voices of those who suffer under racial injustice were heard.

They were voices of mercy and forgiveness and healing.

And people responded to that message.

I wonder what those people gathered for Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church were reading that day.

I wonder if it might have been a passage like this from Luke 6.

Defining Kindness

kindness as it is presented here in the Bible is not the same as being nice

This week we are up to the spiritual fruit of kindness.

I am not sure what comes to mind for everyone here when you think about being kind.

I suppose there may be many answers in the room; and those answers may not all be the same.

So, one of our tasks here today is to narrow down what we mean by kindness when it is mentioned here in the Bible as a spiritual fruit.

Let me start by tossing out what kindness is not.

Kindness as it is presented here in the Bible is not the same as being nice.

Being a kind person—according to scripture—is not the same as being a nice person.

What do we mean by being nice?

Being cordial, agreeable, pleasant—those things count as being nice.

That’s not the same as being kind.

There seems to be plenty of instances in the gospels in which Jesus was not cordial or agreeable or pleasant with those around him.

But Jesus certainly is kind.

And by the way, before you go a step too far and start to think that tossing ‘niceness’ off the list is somehow permission to be rude or mean, come back in a few weeks when we talk about the spiritual fruit of gentleness.

For today, however, we will take a closer look at the unique biblical call for followers of Jesus to express kindness.

And it is not at all the same thing as being a nice person; kindness is something different.

O.T. hesed = loving kindness

In the Old Testament there are certain English translations of the Bible which use the word kindness often.

It is the word that is sometimes chosen as an expression for the Hebrew word hesed.

It refers to the type of love that God has—hesed often refers to God in the Old Testament.

Often English translations phrase it as ‘loving kindness.’

In context of Old Testament passages, this kindness is most often a combination of two very particular qualities of God’s love: mercy and compassion.

When we read about kindness here in the Bible, those two things are what should immediately come to mind: mercy and compassion.

Nothing else summarizes and exemplifies the spiritual fruit of kindness like the combination of mercy and compassion.

I would argue it is the reason why mercy and compassion are not listed separately and named in Galatians 5 as being fruit of the spirit.

Not because mercy and compassion somehow fall short of being spiritual fruit, but because both mercy and compassion are toed together in this one fruit of kindness.

Here is what I am saying, then; we cannot talk about the spiritual fruit of kindness unless we understand what is meant by mercy and compassion.

Mercy

Mercy — showing love by not giving someone the consequences they deserve

It may seem as though mercy and compassion are just two interchangeable words that both mean the same thing.

While mercy and compassion are similar, there is a distinguishable difference for us to call out.

Let’s start with mercy.

Mercy is the act of showing love by not giving someone what they deserve.

Let’s be clear.

Mercy is an act of love.

Withholding what is deserved is not always an act of love.

If you hire an employee and arrange to pay certain wages, and then withhold payment on payday; while that is an example of withholding something that is deserved, it is not mercy because it is not an act of love.

It’s just cheating.

But consider this: if somebody were to back into my car in the parking lot while pulling out and put a big dent in the side of my car, even if it was done carelessly and they are obviously at fault because they were not paying attention or being safe, I would have the right to file a report and have the other person pay for the damage to my car.

I was not at fault, and the other person deserves to pay the consequences for the accident.

But instead, I choose to let it go.

Even though the other person deserves to pay for the damage, I will not give them the consequences they deserve.

That’s mercy.

Whenever a guilty criminal who has been convicted of wrongdoing shows repentance and pleads before a judge, and the judge shows restraint and hands down a lesser punishment; that’s mercy.

Whenever punishment or negative consequences are deserved, but because of love those consequences are held back; that’s mercy.

we deserve the consequences for our sin and brokenness — God shows mercy instead

Mercy is what we have received from God.

In fact, Jesus says exactly that in today’s passage from Luke 6.

We are all people who sin and fall short of God’s perfect expectations for his created world.

We are all people who deserve the consequences for our sin and brokenness.

But God has chosen to not give us what we deserve.

God shows mercy instead.

We cannot understand the way mercy is intertwined with the spiritual fruit of kindness unless we first understand that we are people who have received mercy from God.

Compassion

compassion — showing love by giving someone blessings they do not deserve

Compassion is very similar to mercy, but approaches the expression of love from the other end.

If mercy is an expression of love in which we do NOT receive what is deserved, then compassion is an expression of love in which we do receive what is NOT deserved.

Mercy is withholding the consequences that are deserved.

Compassion is giving out the blessings that are not deserved, that have not been earned.

Compassion is what drives the expression of love which takes shape in our food pantry here at this church every week when it is open.

People come here to the food pantry because they are hungry and do not have the means at the moment to get the food they need.

They do not pay us for the food we give, they do not have to do work here or provide some benefit for us in exchange for receiving food.

They do not earn it.

We give food to the hungry as an act of compassion.

It is an expression of love which gives blessings that are not earned or deserved.

There are no strings attached.

There is no need for repayment.

There is not a favor owed.

we receive the benefits of God’s blessings even though there is nothing we can ever do to earn or deserve God’s favor

kindness comes in the combination of these two things together—mercy and compassion

And just like we see with mercy, compassion is also an expression of love that we have received from God.

We know what the spiritual fruit of kindness looks like because we are people who have experienced receiving compassion from God.

We receive the benefits of God’s blessings even though there is nothing we can ever do to earn or deserve God’s favor.

Let’s be clear; God does not owe us anything.

But God chooses to give his blessing to people who do not deserve it; that’s compassion.

Kindness comes in the combination of these two things together—mercy and compassion.

God does both of them.

God does not repay us according to our sins—we do not receive the punishment we deserve (mercy).

And God overflows his blessings by placing upon us the righteousness of Christ, even though there is nothing at all we do to earn it or deserve it (compassion).

splanchnon — inward pity | chrastotes — outward compassion | charis — grace

one is the thing being given and the other is the action of giving it

The Greek language of the New Testament uses two words in reference to compassion.

One word is splanchnon which is compassion as an inner feeling—perhaps best described as the feeling of pity.