Sermon for Sunday, November 17, 2024 || Proper 28B || Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25
Every night at dinner at my house, my family shares a simple ritual before we say grace. We go around the table and say where we saw kindness that day. When Leah and I take our turns, our kindness is often that the other person made dinner. Many times, mine also come from people at this church whose kindness ripples out in a multitude of ways. Every kindness we share at dinner stems from a small, simple act, and each alone doesn’t seem like it amounts to much. But when we collect the kindnesses together, we add them, like stitches, to a great tapestry of goodness and love.
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That’s what I want to talk about today: goodness and love. A verse from our second reading has stuck with me this week. The Letter to the Hebrews says this: “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
This verse jumped out at me because of the strange verb in the first bit: “Provoke one another to love and good deeds.” I really like this verb – provoke – because it is deliciously odd in this context. It literally means “to incite.” We usually think of “inciting violence,” but Hebrews tells us to “incite love and good deeds.” The original Greek word is one of those words that has traveled space and time unhindered right into English. The word is “Paroxysmos,”* where we get the word “paroxysm.” Besides being a great Scrabble word, a paroxysm is a sudden attack, a flare-up, an outburst. What an amazing way of describing what we are about as followers of Jesus! We incite goodness. We have outbursts of love.
A paroxysm is something that cannot be contained. It bubbles up like a geyser and explodes from us. A fit of giggles that you can’t stop is a paroxysm. A spasm of grief hitting you off guard is a paroxysm. So what does a paroxysm of love and good deeds look like?
The parable of the Good Samaritan is the prime biblical example. The Samaritan sees the injured man on the side of the road and moves to help him. He cultivates what Dr. King called “dangerous unselfishness” in his response to the man who has been beaten by bandits. Instead of fearing for himself or thinking himself too busy and important, the Samaritan sees the man, decides to help him, and follows through. This is love and goodness in action.
The paroxysm of love and good deeds starts with awareness. Like the Samaritan, we remain vigilant for opportunities to spread goodness and share love. We keep our eyes and our hearts open. We craft enough freedom into our schedules to be able to respond when needs arise.
Awareness turns to action. We allow the Holy Spirit to stir us up, churning the waters of our goodness within so they burst, geyser-like, from us in actions of kindness towards others. Our unselfishness overrides our self-importance, and we realize that an event that seems like an inconvenience might just be an opportunity to serve someone in love.
After action, we reflect. We look back over the encounter and discover how God led us to that exact place at that exact moment, in which we could use our gifts to accomplish a good deed. Reflection after the fact increases our awareness, making us more likely to act the next time. And so the paroxysm of love and goodness becomes more regular. It turns from paroxysm into practice.
We live in a world with so much incitement to violence. The only way to counter this sad reality is with incitement to love and goodness. Imagine what this world would look like if, instead of outbreaks of war or disease or famine, there were outbreaks of good deeds. You might think this is wishful thinking, but you can’t make something happen in reality if you can’t imagine it first. If it is wishful thinking, then it’s Jesus’ wish. Jesus incited good deeds throughout his ministry. Jesus was a living paroxysm of love and goodness. Jesus gave his life instead of inciting violence. He gave his life in solidarity with those who were downtrodden in his society. He gave his life, the ultimate provocation towards goodness and reconciliation. And three days later, in history’s greatest eruption of love, he rose again so death would never again have the last word.
During the season of Lent, we strip down our services, removing many of our words of praise, words like “Alleluia.” But when a funeral happens during Lent, the Resurrection promise of the funeral service overwhelms the season of Lent, and we share an Easter liturgy. Those funerals are little pockets of Easter in the midst of Lent. They are paroxysms of Easter joy, where, even “at the grave, we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.”
Like funeral services during Lent, we are little pockets of Easter living in a Good Friday world. We are Easter people, sharing paroxysms of love and good deeds with everyone we meet. The more we share such love and goodness, the more our deeds will ripple out to change the world. We begin here. We begin locally, with our neighbor, within our community. Then we expand out, deepening relationships far and wide, like with the people of St. Luc’s School in Haiti. The little pockets of Easter grow and grow until they swallow up violence and domination and death for good. That’s what it means to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
A few years ago, I was driving home from a soccer game when I got a flat tire. I pulled over, jacked up my Subaru, and removed the lugnuts. I was ready to put on the spare, but I couldn’t for the life of me get the flat tire off the car. I tugged on it. I kicked it. But it was no use. The sun was going down when a car pulled up next to me. Two guys jumped out like they were on a pit crew at a NASCAR race. Turns out, they owned a mechanics shop around the corner. One of them kicked the tire WAY harder than I had, and it popped off. The other spun the spare into place, pulled a lugnut drill out of the backseat of his car, and replaced the five lugnuts in 34 seconds flat. Then they wished me well and drove off.
I got home that night and you can bet I had a good story for my kindness at dinner. That good deed from those two random auto mechanics has stuck with me. That was a little pocket of Easter in my life – a demonstration of what the world looks like when we take the time to take care of one another. This week, I invite you to incite some goodness and love in your life. Be aware of opportunities to do a good deed. Then act on the Holy Spirit spurring you to goodness. Then reflect on how you ended up in that place to be able to act. You are little pockets of Easter living in a Good Friday world.
Remember, as the old blessing goes: “Life is short, and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk the way with us. So be quick to love and make haste to be kind.”
Photo by Sebastian Huxley on Unsplash.
* παροξυσμός
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