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

I think I indicated recently I’m a big Dr Who fan and I’m going to start with part of a speech from the show. “I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that. Just kind.”

“Just kind”. It’s such a small word, isn’t it. Sometimes we think it’s a bit of an insipid, half-hearted word. If we get someone a present and they say, “That was kind of you” we sometimes think there should be a ‘very’ in there. And here’s Paul in what some people have held up to be his great summing up of his teachings in the letter to the Ephesians simply saying, “be kind”. OK, there’s a lot of other stuff as well but it doesn’t seem much of an inspiring call-to-faith, does it? “Be kind”. Actually this verse is one of the most brilliantly challenging in all of Paul’s writings.

On the subject of which, I ought to point out that for centuries there has been a substantial body of scholars who don’t think this letter was written by Paul and that it wasn’t written to the church at Ephesus. If it wasn’t Paul, though, who wrote it, it was someone who knew Paul’s ideas like the back of his hand. So when I talk about what Paul is saying, be aware that’s short hand for “the person who wrote this letter, who may have been Paul”.

So. “Kind”. Let me tell you what kindness means to me. About twenty-five years ago I was driving back late from Edinburgh after a union meeting in my wife’s car. Somewhere east of Biggar I fell asleep for a moment or two and drove off the road into a field. I got out of the wrecked car and up to the road. A motorist stopped and drove me to Biggar police station. The police took me to get checked up at the hospital then drove me to Abingdon services where a Free Church Minister took me off their hands and drove me to my door. My wife immediately ran a bath because it was clear that the field had been home to sheep. All those people had driven me around and brought me home smelling of sheep manure. Why? Because it was kind.

That’s what kindness is. It’s wonderful and it’s brilliant because it reaches out to people and lets them know that they matter. It reaches out to people when they’re down or frightened or lonely and offers them a hand. It binds us together as human beings and makes the world a brighter, warmer happier place and there isn’t enough of it around for us to belittle it. In a world where a politician can’t express his reservations about women wearing veils without saying they look like letterboxes we could do with a bit more kindness.

Kindness is founded on compassion - tenderheartedness, if you like. It’s the outworking of the question, “How would I feel if that happened to me?” Because we all need to be shown that we matter sometimes. We all know what it’s like to feel down or frightened or lonely and we know what it means to us when someone offers a hand. We all have that sense that we are bound together as human beings because we can and do understand what people are going through. That’s what compassion is and there’s not enough of it around. In a world where we are taught to harden our hearts to those in need; to see those in need as scroungers and wasters, we could do with a bit more compassion.

Compassion feeds forgiveness. The thing is, we all mess up in life sometimes. We all feel guilty sometimes because we’ve said stuff and done things that we know are wrong and we’ve hurt people - sometimes people we love. We all know what that guilt feels like. We all know what a difference it makes when folk we’ve let down or hurt let it go and put us back on good terms with them. It heals relationships. It mends fences and builds bridges between people and there’s not so much of it around that we can belittle it. In a world where hatreds are passed down from generation to generation we need all the forgiveness we can get.

“Forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you” says Paul. There’s the kicker. Forgiveness is a quality of God. It is the quality of God that lies absolutely at the heart of the Gospel; that whatever we have done in our lives - all the times we have been less than the people we are meant to be, that God wants us to be - all of it is forgiven and our relationship with God is restored just as our relationships with each other are restored when we forgive each other.

And is the forgiveness of God founded on compassion? Absolutely! Paul says that we are forgiven through ‘God in Christ’. God came into the world in Christ. He came into the world in the life of a human being. He knows exactly what out temptations are. He knows exactly what our weaknesses are. He knows exactly why we tend to lash out when we’re hurting or angry. He knows exactly what it is to be human. That’s compassion right there. Coming into the world for us. Sharing our experiences and feeling not just for us, but with us.

You realise I’m working backward now? Kindness, compassion, forgiveness, forgiveness compassion and now? Kindness. If it was, indeed, Paul who wrote this letter then there was a Hebrew word lurking here behind the Greek: ‘Chesedh”. We translate it as lovingkindness and it is, in the Old Testament, one of the most celebrated qualities of God. You’ll find it all over the place in the Psalms and elsewhere.

This verse isn’t just a list of pleasant things to be - it’s a description of the qualities of God. That’s why this verse is so explosive. It’s a rallying call for the Ephesians to reflect the qualities of God himself. What Paul is saying is, “Look! If you live like this, if you treat each other this way, then you reflect the love of God. You show the world what the love of God is like. You do your bit to make the world you live in a bit more like the world God wants it to be”

And that’s still true today. That is still what we are for. To be kind when the world is harsh. To be compassionate when the world is hard-hearted. To be forgiving when the world cries for revenge. That is our calling and our blessing and our joy. To remind those around us who we really are and what we are meant to be as human beings. To remind those around us, through simple acts and word s of kindness, generosity and forgiveness of all that is best in humanity. Sure, it’s not always easy. There are times when we’re too tired to be kind, too caught up in the distractions of life to be compassionate, too hurt to be forgiving.

But we can, at least, try. We can hang on to God’s promise that he is always with us through the Holy Spirit and that he will shine in us. And that, ultimately, is what the Christian faith is about. When you go from here don’t feel you have to worry whether Paul actually wrote this, or whether you fully understand what I’ve said, or what Paul is saying, or what Jesus is saying. Just be kind.

Lord, in all our days help us to be kind. Help us to be compassionate. Help us to be forgiving. For you have forgiven us so much and you are all compassion. May your kindness be revealed in us

Preached at Gretna Old parish church