To Be Good vs. To Do Good

To Be Good vs. To Do Good

 

Luke 18:18-27

 

A few days ago, Pastor Lorraine said to Bob, “You are the best!” and I heard it. I complained about that because she had also said the same thing to me before, “David, you are the best!” How can there be two bests? Despite my complaint, however, Pastor Lorraine did not cancel her saying. So now, Bob is the best, and I am the second best. We are generous in praising others by calling them “Good” or even “The Best.” Not just calling others in that way, we also want to be called “a good person.” Especially for us Christians, this is actually not a small matter. Being a good person is the foundation of our happiness, our self-esteem, our peace, our relationships with others, and even our hope of heaven. If we are not good, this foundation collapses and we feel miserable. So we struggle to be good and to be called good. I cannot be satisfied with being the second best. I must be the best.

 

In the text that we read today, however, Jesus our Lord does not look concerned much about “being a good person.” A certain ruler came to Jesus and asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We do not know what kind of ruler he was. Based on his young age (Matthews 19:20) and great wealth (Luke 18:23), people guess that he was probably an influential lay leader rather than a synagogue ruler or a religious leader. Anyway, he brought to Jesus this important question that had been bothering him many years. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Instead of answering to his urgent question, however, Jesus first pointed out this: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.” Jesus rejected the title “good teacher.” Going further, Jesus declared, “No one is good except God alone!” Jesus just reminded the young ruler of God’s commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.’ Jesus is saying, “You know these commandments, don’t you? Go and do them!”

 

According to Jesus’ teaching to the young ruler, there is no one who is good except God alone. Even Jesus himself rejected the title “good teacher.” As a matter of course, the young ruler, who was famous for his goodness in his town, was not good at all. Jesus was saying to him, “Oh, there is no one who is good. Just do this and that good things.” Nobody is good. We just do good things. This is why I put the title “To Be Good vs. To Do Good.” Jesus’ word is not much understandable. When we do something good, people call us “You are good.” Then we feel nice, and even work harder. Then, we grow better, and become a really good person. And finally, we go to heaven. This is what we understand about a good life and Christian life. But Jesus’ word is quite frustrating. “No one is good except God alone!” He is almost saying, “Don’t even think about being good.” If we cannot be good, what is the meaning of all our good works? Even Jesus, such a good one, rejected being called “good teacher.” Why?

 

 

 

To explain this, I often use this metaphor: the sun, sunlight, and things we do with sunlight. There is the sun in the sky, and the sun sends us sunlight. Then, we can do many useful things with the sunlight. A little girl is reading her picture book under the sunlight. The rays of the sun hit the book and are reflected onto the girl’s eyes so that the girl can see and enjoy the funny pictures. Not only this, we grow plants under the sunlight. Without light, no plant can grow. In fact, sunlight is their food to grow. An old lady is drying red pepper in a shiny day so that she can use it during the winter. A young woman is enjoying suntan under the sun. We can also generate electric power using solar panels like this. Even the natural water circulation system takes place only because the sun sends the light to the land and the sea. In these ways, when the sun is shining in the sky, many good things happen on earth. But there is one thing that we cannot do. It is making sunlight. We cannot make sunlight. It comes only from the sun. We do many good things with the light. But we cannot be the light itself, not to mention, the sun. We should work hard from sunrise to sunset not to waste away the gift from the sun. That is why we have the Daylight Saving Time. But we should not try to make sunlight or to be the sun. It is impossible. We are neither the sun nor the sunlight. We just work with and enjoy sunlight from heaven. This is the same in terms of “being good and doing good.” God is the sun, and he sends us his goodness like the glowing sun. Then, using the merciful graces that Our Father shows us, we do many good things on earth and reflect his dazzling goodness to the world. God is good and he shines by himself like the sun. We are not good because we are neither the sun nor the sunlight. Nobody can contribute to the brightness of the sun. In the same way, nobody can contribute to the goodness of God. We all just enjoy the goodness from heaven.

 

Still we struggle to be good, and this struggle brings us many troubles. First of all, we have to suffer under the unbearably heavy burden of sins. People want to be good, but looking at themselves, they find that they are not good. They are depressed by what they have done and what they have said, and struggle to get out of guilt feeling only to be driven into a deeper despair. If a person’s struggle to be good is viewed from a different angle, he is saying that Jesus did not do anything for him. Jesus already took away our sins and removed the guilt from us. So now, we are clean and good (righteous) not by our works but by what Jesus did for us. If we struggle to be good by ourself, we are denying Jesus’ grace and trying to do something that we are not able to do at all. Furthermore, if one struggles to be good, he/she is easily separated from Jesus and trapped by Satan. Satan always comes to us and encourages us, saying, “Oh dear friend! You can be better than this. Why do you disappoint your master in this way?” Then, manipulated by Satan, we leave the merciful grace of Jesus and go back to the merciless slavery under the law. Our struggle to be good also leads us to hypocrisy. Even when people realize that it is impossible to be good, they do not give up. They begin to struggle to “look good.” According to my calculation, people waste 98.25% of their resources in making themselves look good. They spend their time, energy, money, and their heart in looking good. In other words, they are spending their life for nothing. There are many other side effects of our struggle to be good. But there is the worst thing I want to mention. Our struggle to be good can be, in fact, our attempt to steal the glory of God, which is the worst and unforgivable sin even with the sacrifice of Jesus.

 

We should give up our ambition to be good, to look good, and to be called good. We just do our best in doing good day and night by obeying our Father’s commandments. In Luke 17:7-10, Jesus said to his disciples, “Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servant; we have only done our duty.’” This is Jesus’ teaching to us: when we have done everything, we should say, ‘I am an unworthy servant. I have only done my duty.’ We do all good things, but this does not make us good. We are still unworthy. This sounds unfair. But this is truly good news. This is our freedom, our strength, and the door open to true peace, joy, and happiness. Do our best in doing good, but never seek being good or being called good even in a dream.

 

When he heard Jesus’ word, the young ruler said confidently, “All these I have kept since I was a boy.” He was a good person. He might expect Jesus to say, “Well done! Then you will go to heaven.” But Jesus did not say so. Jesus said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Hearing this, the man became very sad. It was because he was a man of great wealth. He wanted to inherit treasure in heaven, but he did not want to give up his treasure on earth. He wanted both, but Jesus said “No!” This sounds harsh. Even Jesus’ disciples were alarmed and questioned, “Who then can be saved?” This almost discloses their hidden intention. They gave up everything to follow Jesus. But in their deep heart, they were waiting for some day when they would regain what they had given up and even much more. They followed Jesus, but that was not the end. They were following Jesus, but their heart was following and expecting something else.

 

In the book called The Cloud of Unknowing, the unknown author said, “It is not what you are or what you have been that God sees with his all-merciful eyes but what you desire to be.” This is true. We are not what we are or what we have been. We are what we want to be. The young ruler wanted to inherit eternal life, but he did not want to be like Jesus. The disciples followed poor and humble Jesus but they wanted to be a rich man some day. So although they appeared to be dedicated Christians, they were not. They followed Jesus, but what they wanted to be in their heart was not Jesus. They followed Jesus, but they were looking forward something else.

 

 

 

There is a short novel titled “The Great Stone Face” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. People believe that Hawthorne wrote this story based on the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire. The Great Stone Face is actually a giant rock that, when viewed from a distance, looked like a man’s face, not just a man but a very noble man. In the novel, the Great Stone Face is described like this: “All the features were noble, and the ｅxpression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraces all mankind in its affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look at it.” People living in the valley below the rock mountain believed the old prophecy that some day they would see a man with exactly such a face as that. And Ernest, a little boy and the main character of the story, heard the old prophecy about the Great Stone Face from his mother. When he was told about the Great Face Stone, the boy was excited and, clapping his hands above his head, he cried, “O mother, dear mother! I do hope that I shall live to see him!” And the boy lived as he said. He lived to see him, the Great Stone Face. As he grew old, a number of seemingly great people appeared in the town. one was a rich man named Mr. Gathergold. Another was a brave soldier and commander nicknamed Old Blood-and-Thunder. Another came after many years, who was an eminent politician known by the name of Old Stony Phiz. These famous figures resembled the Great Face Stone in some way but after all, they were found fakes. They were not the Great Stone Face and even they were worse than ordinary people. They all disappointed Ernest. Now Ernest himself became an old man, and he still looked at the Great Stone Face with the hope to see a man like the stone face. Then one day at the hour of sunset, Ernest stood before a group of villagers to give a discourse. His words had power because they were from his thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with the life that he had always lived. Ernest, an unschooled simple-hearted hardworking countryman, learned all these just by looking at the Great Stone Face. At some moment while he was speaking, one of the assembled people shouted, “Behold! Behold! Earnest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!”

 

Ernest lived to see a man like the Great Face Stone. And finally, he came to look like the Great Stone Face. He followed the Great Stone Face and he found the man in himself. In the same way, we Christians do not “follow Jesus to live.” We “live to follow Jesus.” We live or even die to follow Jesus. Following Jesus is not a means to get what we desire. Following Jesus is what we desire. We follow Jesus only to be like Jesus, to find ourselves in Jesus, and to find Jesus in us.

 

Jesus was so humble that he rejected to be called “good teacher.” Even after he did many good things to sinners, the poor, the sick, and the demon-possessed, Jesus went to Golgotha to take up the cross and died like a criminal. Although he was worthy to be praised, he lived, worked, and died like an unworthy servant. He is our teacher, and we are his followers. How much should we be humble, and how much should we be careful against being called good, and how much should we obey God in doing good? May the Lord teach us every day only for our resemblance of Jesus!