On Kindness
Matthew 1:18-25
I read this story from 2010 in Patheos.
There is a legend about the Loretto Chapel, built in 1873, on the Old Santa Fe Trail. It begins like this:
When the Chapel was built, the architect forgot to include a way for the nuns to reach the choir loft. The sisters weighed their options, but all were equally undesirable. They could build a conventional staircase, but that would take up too much room. They could rebuild the balcony, but that would be far too expensive. They could climb a dangerous ladder up and down, but that would be an accident waiting to happen.
The sisters’ predicament reminds us of Joseph’s dilemma, swept into a situation in which your only choices seem to be negative ones. He could divorce Mary publicly or divorce her quietly, but either way, in Joseph’s mind, he still has to divorce her. She’s pregnant, and not by him; there’s no way out that saves his dignity and her reputation. There is no possible resolution that could lead to full redemption, only painful, but necessary, choices. it never occurs to him that Mary’s unbelievable story may be God’s truth. It never occurs to him that if he embraced Mary’s words as truth, the situation would be transformed.
No way out - - only negative options. What do we do when we face a situation in which our only choices appear to be negative?
The author who wrote about the Loretto Chapel imagines that Joseph had a talk with himself that might be something like this:
“I cannot believe that she has done this to me. I have been sitting here all day. I have been praying. I have even cried. For one fleeting moment, I even considered the possibility that she was telling the truth, but it is more than I can swallow. What man would fall for a story like this? It would serve her right to be publicly shamed. Why not? Nobody in town would blame me. But I am not a vengeful man. I am a man strong within myself, not concerned with others’ opinion of me. I have nothing to gain by humiliating her. I believe I will divorce her and save her the public humiliation of accusing her of adultery. It will be a quiet matter, the sooner we get it over with the better. I always try to think the best of people. How I wish I could of Mary! And of God. I confess I feel somewhat betrayed by God as well as by Mary. They say that you should never let the sun go down on your anger, but the sun is setting, and I am filled with pain. I will go to bed with my pain, and hope for sleep. Tomorrow, I will send a message to Mary letting her know of my decision.”
(Show the picture of the painting by Rembrandt, Joseph.)
On this night, an angel hovered near, whispering a message from God into Joseph’s sleeping ear. “Here”, whispered the angel, “is the key that unlocks your dilemma. Believe her unbelievable story. Marry her, and become the father of God’s child. He will need, not just any father, but a father like you, capable of nurturing him, and giving him a name, ‘Immanuel - - God with us.’”
Now, back to the legend of the sisters of Loretto Chapel. According to the legend, one night, while the sisters were together, a bearded stranger appeared at the door of the convent asking for work. A toolbox was strapped to his burro and he told the sisters he was a carpenter. When they told him their problem, he offered to build a spiral staircase. His spiral staircase was an engineering marvel, containing thirty-three steps and two complete turns of 360 degrees with no central support. The carpenter used wooden pegs instead of nails, and his only tools were a saw, a T-square, and a hammer. As soon as the staircase was finished, dissipating the cloud of despair and worry from the sisters’ minds, the unknown craftsman disappeared without asking to be paid. And, according to the legend, many believe that the carpenter was St. Joseph. Well, even though I grew up as a Roman Catholic, I am not very enthusiastic about saints (except for some inspiring women of courage like Edith Stein!). The point I would like to highlight about the Loretto Chapel story is that kindness, which is the theme of our third Advent Sunday, is a lot like that unconventional staircase, the “despair-defying staircase.” Just as the nuns did not get much personal information from the bearded stranger carpenter, many other ordinary saints in our lives prefer to keep a low profile, going quietly about their business. We all know someone who offers true kindness, someone who gives us a demonstration of how to build a staircase that lifts us out of impossible situations. There are people who help us to expand our imagination to dream and live courageously, especially when we are in difficult situations and the only options before us seem negative ones. “Quietly dismissing” Mary is never a kindness. Only when Joseph’s decision is based on the shared courage to defy despair with his partner, Mary, does it become the truly supportive staircase of kindness, built for the future of all.
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| Loretto Chapel Staircase, Santa Fe, New Mexico |
There must be four characteristics (and more, I am sure) which go with the expression of kindness: the sacrifice of time, the sacrifice of judgement, the sacrifice of social status quo, the sacrifice of fear. When kindness is accompanied with the genuine significance of personal sacrifice, based on strength and courage, it transforms despair into hope, strong enough to build a “despair-defying staircase” for the people we are helping, in the community where we find each other as partners.
First, the sacrifice of time. To share kindness, we must give away or share something from ourselves. Sacrifice, when it is voluntarily offered, not forced or imposed by others, is a beautiful practice, even a spiritual journey, that allows the blessing energy to flow through us. For sharing kindness, sacrificing (giving away/sharing) time is the first thing. If you don’t share time, how could anything good even happen? I believe the foundation of genuine kindness is time, shared out of humility, because we see the others we are helping or sharing kindness with as being equal, as our partners, who are capable of teaching us, not just the recipient of our benevolence.
Second, the sacrifice of judgement. Think about when you truly feel grateful when another person attempts to help you. We are often most grateful when we are offered non-judgemental empathy. Attentive listening. Just empathic listening, without the other trying to impose their judgement, opinion, advice, will… Our pains are heard as they are and our struggling selves are accepted. We must sacrifice our ability to judge others in order to show true kindness.
The third component that makes kindness genuinely supportive comes from sacrificing status quo. A few weeks ago, a Residential School Survivor told me that the most painful thing to reflect back on was that his liberation, his own awareness of the impact of colonization on himself, was slow. His liberation was slow, because racism and oppression are often carried out using the language of love. Even at residential schools, many of the staff believed that they were doing the right thing as they destroyed his people. Believing in the superiority of White culture, they lacked the capacity to see that Indigenous traditions and families and knowledge keepers have their own intrinsic, important value. Kindness as the despair-defying staircase means that it must defy the status quo at its heart. Kindness is sharing respect and humility, out of deeper understanding on our interdependence with one another.
The last thing I would like to mention, the sacrifice of fear, is also a very important aspect of kindness. See Joseph in agony, in today’s story. He is a carpenter, a lower class, in his time, but he is a man respected in his community, a decent citizen. Not much, but compared to Mary, he has incomparable power. He has choices. He’s thinking, “Oh, I am filled with pain. I will go to bed with my pain, and hope for sleep. Tomorrow, I will send a message to Mary letting her know of my decision.” The flip side of his sense of self-protection is his fear. What happens if he loses all that makes him secure? The flip side of his power is the fear of shame — the fear of the feeling of weakness, the feeling of grief, pain and sorrow, and the realization that he himself is vulnerable to society’s rejection, judgement and even shunning. His power, small as it is, could be taken away, his status stripped, were he to be seen as a fool, a cuckolded husband. Instead, what makes Joseph’s act of kindness a true one to commend, comes from the fact that he sacrifices his fear of weakness in order to build a staircase to walk up to the future of God’s dream, with Mary, and with the child, when he has only wooden pegs, (instead of nails), a saw, a T-square, and a hammer in his toolbox, trusting that in God’s toolbox, told in his dream, the family would become strong, a structure for blessings, the good news, to flow to the world. Joseph moves from fear to courage. In the Advent season, we are urged to do the same. Accompanied by the necessary sacrifices of time, judgement, status quo and fear, kindness is never a sign of weakness and naiveté but the demonstration of personal courage and strength and faith that transforms today.
Ha Na Park
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