Do good, Now!!
michael young
The Goodness of God, now.
From the 9th chapter in Luke, the Message version, “can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”
Kairos (Ancient Greek: καιρός) is an Ancient Greek word meaning the right, critical, or opportune moment. The ancient Greeks had two words for time: chronos (χρόνος) and kairos. The former refers to chronological or sequential time, while the latter signifies a proper or opportune time for action.
Richard Rohr tells us, “The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better”.
Our newsfeeds are filled with all the bad that is going on. Our public and political arena are being infested with anger on the verge of hateful violence. It seems we are no longer debating or discussing. Instead, we are hating each other, and that hateful rhetoric is infecting our collective psyche.
Jesus told them then and tells us now, do the good of God now. Not later!! right now! The need to do good and put grace, compassion and love into the world is not a 5-year plan with a committee of 10 gathered to decide what is the best approach. Jesus helps us realize, now! Right now! Today! Wipe away all excuses and get on the justice road with Jesus.
Kairos time is time beyond hours in a day. Kairos time is a collective call of the clarion to the action of doing good with every moment of our lives. Instead of listening to the noise of the day we may listen to the yearning of our hearts to be loved and know that we are Divinely loved beyond measure, beyond our human ability to earn it. We are simply loved by God: unearned, unconditional. When we feel that in our hearts and know that nothing can take that away, as Paul says, not even death, then we live within the goodness of God’s love in all of creation. We can then witness that to the rest of the world because we know the goodness of God in our hearts.
Richard Rohr is helping me understand the opposite of bad is to put good into the world. The opposite of bad is not to lament and allow the seeds of anger to grow in my own heart. The opposite of bad is to realize the innate goodness of God, the Divine that I carry within.
This is the practice of better in our daily lives and Richard helps us acknowledge to criticize the bad is not to let the bad infest our hearts with anger. But to criticize the bad is to simply be about the ministry of doing good in our time and place in history.
The Kairos moment is upon us. There is no time to put off the daily task of putting good into the world. By putting good into the world, we are allowing the goodness of God to sink deeper into our spirits, souls, and hearts, both communally and personally.
There is no better time to do something good than right now!
There is no better time to criticize the presence of bad by doing good!