Jesus teaches us to be kind in every moment, to every person

Published: June 26, 2021

By Lou Ann Gieringer
Campus Minister, Mount St. Mary Academy

I was rushing to work when I saw a young man trying to back a 1970-ish Lincoln Continental or Cadillac out of his driveway. The car was long. It moved slowly. It took a lot of space, especially because he was trying to back out of a driveway that was situated at the beginning of a roundabout. I was moving in the opposite direction toward the roundabout.

Before I got into the roundabout, I stopped. He smiled a huge smile, backed all the way out onto the street and gave me an enthusiastic wave from the rolled down window. I couldn’t help but smile and wave back.

I felt happy for a moment because I was part of his happiness at that moment. I felt empathy because in the past I had been in similar situations. I felt connected to this young man. I really had not done anything spectacular, but I felt good.

“Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:32)

Be kind. Wow, that is so simple; why can’t we do it? Or rather, why don’t we do it? It seems that every time I watch the news or look at Facebook or Instagram I see so much unkindness.

To be truthful, I see myself choosing to be unkind at times by saying something that could be seen as judging, self-focused or even mean. We tend to blame what we say and do on others. “If he/she hadn’t said that, done that, looked at me like that, etc., I wouldn’t have acted the way I did.” I don’t like myself very much when I am unkind. I immediately know that I am not living out God’s love at that moment.

Our COVID-19 lifestyle made it easier to blame others and try to justify it. When we isolated for so long, our sense of community was put on hold. We heard things via television, radio or social media, and we took that information as total truth or total fiction. We made judgements without knowing all the facts. We put ourselves into "Us" and "Them" groups. We did this on countless topics, frivolous as well as life-changing.

The Gospels tell us that when Jesus was on earth, he encountered people who saw him as an unsettling person. Many religious people did not want to be around him. Jesus was someone sharing new and different ideas. He accepted and befriended people who were different, people who others didn’t trust. He wasn’t afraid to ask questions to get to know people that others ignored. He was kind.

As Christians, we say that we want to be followers of Christ. Do we? Do we want to know more about others? Do we want to understand what is happening around us before we make decisions based only on what we hear? Do we want to be kind even when we disagree with someone?

Now that we are moving forward from our isolation, it is the perfect time to start using our hearts and minds to follow the teachings our God has given us. It is time for us to educate ourselves about topics we don’t understand or topics that make us uncomfortable or judgmental.

Remember the Golden Rule? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

Lou Ann Gieringer is campus minister at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock. She has a master’s degree in pastoral theology from Loyola University in New Orleans. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic June 26, 2021. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.