Kindness to Our God

In the midst of the war in Ukraine and the millions made refugees, I find myself approaching the Easter season reading scripture in reflection on our suffering God. Is there any gift we lowly humans can give our God to ease God’s suffering? Do we have any idea what God values most from us when God is suffering? We know that God commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love our neighbor as our self (Mk. 12:30-31). Love itself, though, is a only a feeling, intense though it may be. And our love for God is in reality love from afar, which we express in prayer and hopefully in our relations with others. It is essentially passive or indirect. Is there anything actionable that we can do for God?

Perhaps we might find a clue in scripture as Jesus approached his tortuous death in Jerusalem. It seems to me that what Jesus valued most in those few days before the Passover was an act of kindness toward himself from his friends and disciples. He knew he would receive betrayal, denial and abandonment, but before that he needed company. He asked Peter and Zebedee’s sons to stay with him at Gethsemane while he prayed and to keep watch because he was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mt. 26:37-38). A simple act of kindness. Keep watch, stay awake, be near me as I suffer. But they failed, falling asleep.

The one act of kindness to Jesus reported in the Gospels occurred in the little town of Bethany about two miles northeast of Jerusalem where Jesus stopped to stay with Martha and her young sister Mary early that week. Mary must have sensed in Jesus a mood of dark determination to enter Jerusalem and meet his fate. While he was at the dinner table, she came to him with a very expensive jar of perfume, broke it and anointed him with its contents (Mk. 14:3; Mt.26:7; Jn.12:3).¹ There was criticism among those at the table for such a wasteful use of valuable perfume. But Jesus told them to leave her alone, for she had done him a service. “She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial” (Mk.14:8; Mt. 26:12). This was a pure act of kindness to a dear friend and teacher. It was not the same as the kindness of the harlot who came to a Pharisee dinner and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, desperate for his mercy (Lk.7:36-49). In this case, Jesus is clearly troubled and Mary is doing what she could to ease his pain with her simple act of generous kindness. Jesus then delivers the punch line, “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her” (Mk.14:9; Mt.26:13). One simple, generous act of kindness to our God is so valuable it will be remembered and told forever.

When I was a Boy Scout we had a slogan, “Do a good turn daily.” Every day each of us can do a generous act of kindness for someone in need, because every day each of us comes across a person in need of kindness. Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child welcomes me” (Mt. 18:5). When we do a good turn, I think we ease God’s suffering. And who knows, one simple anonymous act may be remembered and told forever.

1. Both Matthew and Mark report an anointing by an anonymous woman at the home of Simon the Leper in Bethany two days before Passover. John reports in his gospel a dinner at the home of Lazarus with his sisters Martha and Mary six days before the Passover. John reports a washing of the feet and the others report and anointing on the head.