Misguided Effort? 8

… Do it enough and you will start to wonder.


Helping people is a good thing. Do it and hang out with people who do and you will learn something about yourself. One of the things you may learn is that, even in helping the other, self interest is there in the background. We are good on our terms. We will do good, when it coincides or at least doesn’t clash with self-interest. We shouldn’t resist this observation; we are after all talking about behavior on the good side of the good-evil continuum – perhaps even the highest human good. To expect more may be to expect too much.

Several years back, when my daughter was in our church youth group, she related an interaction she had with H., the daughter of one of the other adult volunteers in the youth program. On a school ski trip, riding up the chair lift, H. stated to my daughter something to the effect: “I do not think it is possible to live the way the adults are telling us we need to live.” Were we setting the bar for them higher than we were setting or able to attain for ourselves? From that point on, I was determined not to “lay trips” on the youth. It wasn’t fair, and, perhaps, it was worse than unfair.

I am willing to assume that most all of our behavior, ultimately, is self-serving at some level; at least that is my own experience and what seems to be the case as I look around. If that is granted, then helping the other as a close second to self is the highest form of human good. Again, we don’t need to resist this notion. All one has to do to see the nobility in it is to contrast it with the behaviors as you move away from the good side of the good-evil continuum. So, let’s spur each other to do good works. Let’s marvel at the good we see others doing, even when the motives are worn on their sleeves. This may be as good as it gets. I would be content to be on a journey to that place and rest there.

But then Jesus bungs up the program. He seems to both be happy for such ordinary, human goodness, and invite us to a more exceptional type.

Crap. I think I know how H. felt.