J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Do Good Anyway”

From the Series "The Paradoxical Commandments"
Scripture: 2 Samuel 15:9-12

September 16, 2007

Now that football season has started the advertising industry has cranked out a whole new line of advertisements designed to lighten our wallets by a dollar or two.  If that sounds cynical, I have to plead guilty.  I can’t think of anything that has done more to feed our appetite for consumption more than that marketing crowd up Madison Avenue way.  But I also have to admit that sometimes they come up with commercials that send messages that while touting a particular product or service also contain a thought that everyone needs to hear.

I’m thinking of a commercial that was shown during a recent Super Bowl, which is where all the best commercials are debuted each year.  This was a commercial sponsored by a mortgage company, and the gist of the commercial was “Don’t judge too quickly.”  The commercial was set in a convenience store, where a customer is standing at the counter, talking away on his cell phone.  It’s obvious he’s trying to offer counsel to someone on the other end who’s considering a loan that comes with an outrageous rate of interest.  The customer listens to the party on the other end of the line and blurts out, “You’re getting robbed.”  But the clerks behind the counter aren’t privy to the context of the conversation.  They think the customer is holding up the store, whereupon one of the clerks starts squirting the customer with pepper spray while the other clerk is slugging him with a baseball bat and then zapping him with a cattle prod.

It’s a commentary on the distrust that pervades our society today.  Richard Capan, former publisher of The Miami Herald, expounds on this theme in his book, Finish Strong.  He says, “One of the reasons for the recent decline of the American spirit is a pervasive loss of trust.  Everywhere we look we find evidence that no one trust anyone anymore.”  He mentions security cameras in businesses, prenuptial agreements between spouses, banks delaying clearing checks, and hospitals refusing what they believe are non-paying customers.  He concludes by asking the question, “Are we all really that dishonest?”

No, but we are prone to acting out of self-interest, so that even when we make an effort to do something good, people look at us with raised eyebrows as if somehow we are doing that good thing not just for their benefit but also for ours – that somehow even our good intentions are self-motivated more than others-motivated.

The question becomes, “How do you respond when people accuse you of being selfish and having ulterior motives?”  “How do you stay motivated to do the right thing when others question your heart?”

That’s a question that King David had to ask himself that day he was fleeing Jerusalem and the threat to his throne that was being posed by his own son, Absalom.  Absalom was David’s son by Maacah, who was the daughter of the king of Geshur.  Absalom had become angry with his father when his sister Tamar was compromised by their half-brother Amnon, a heinous act about which David had done nothing.  One thing led to another, and before long, Absalom had conspired to take over his father’s throne by casting suspicions about him in the eyes of the people.  David had never breathed one unkind word about his predecessor Saul, but now his own son had dishonored him in the eyes of the people, and David not only had to flee from the throne, he had to flee from the city that had been called the City of David.

At this point in the story David has passed over the Mount of Olives into the land of Bahurim, and is accosted by a relative of Saul named Shimei.  Shimei had a bone to pick with David as well.  David had assumed the throne when Saul was killed in battle, and from Shimei’s perspective, David was to blame.  Shimei, more than likely, had found a high spot where he could stand safe from David’s entourage, and from that vantage point, he begins to hurl stones and insults in David’s direction.  “Get out of here, you man of blood, you fiend of hell!”  “The LORD is paying you back for all you did to the house of Saul.  He’s taken your throne from you because of how you took it from Saul in the first place.  It’s ‘payback time,’ David.  You’re getting what you deserve.”

If you go back and look at the story of David and Saul, you see that David never did anything but show loyalty to the house of Saul.  But from Shimei’s point of view, David had only appeared to be doing good when in fact he was being driven by selfish interests.

Have you ever had someone falsely charge you in the same way?  Have you had someone accuse you of doing something good for selfish gain?  Of course you have.  People of faith will always face that challenge.  Even Jesus himself faced that challenge when in Luke’s gospel the assembly brought Jesus before Pilate and accused him of crimes of sedition.  “He stirs up the people with his teaching, claiming to be the Messiah” (Luke 23:1-5).

How do you handle such criticism?  Notice how David handled it.  One of David’s soldiers, a man named Abishai, had a sure-fire way of silencing this cynical critic: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?  Let me go over and cut off his head.”  That would have done the job.

But it wouldn’t have been good.  Notice how David responded.  “Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.  It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.”  In other words, God had allowed David to receive this curse in order to remind David that he was not above wrongdoing.  He had not been perfect.  He had in fact sinned.  All he could do was to continue to seek God and serve God in the faith that because his life was in God’s hands, only God could reverse this situation.  And of course, God did.  In due time, Absalom’s pride led to his death, and David’s good faith brought about his restoration.

This story teaches us the importance of accepting criticism with grace and not allowing it to deter us from doing the good that God calls us to be about.  There are times when we need to hear the truth that none of our friends will tell us.  There are times when our enemies reveal what we most need to know.  There are times when the people who are against us give us opportunity to examine our motivations.

Someone once put it this way: “Criticism is the manure in which the Lord’s servants grow best.”  If we can receive it with grace, that is certainly the case.  But if we receive it any other way, then it’s just manure.  It’s the grace that makes the difference.

Some of you here this morning will know the name Roy Angell.  He was pastor of the Central Baptist Church in Miami for 26 years, a pastoral tenure which staggers me.  How anyone can sustain effectiveness in a place for that period of time is a dissertation topic if I ever heard one.  But my guess is that the short version of how he was able to do it was because of ability to show grace to everyone, especially his critics.

When Roy Angell was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1945, he immediately became a target for the rhetorical abuse of a fundamentalist pastor in Dallas by the name of J. Frank Norris.  When the Southern Baptist Convention met that year in Dallas for its annual meeting, Norris set up a platform in the park across the street from the convention gathering and began criticizing Roy Angell, in Shimei fashion, as an emissary of the devil. 

Dr. Angell arrived in Dallas early and decided to go down to see how things were going in terms of set up for the meeting.  When he got there, he heard J. Frank Norris holding forth in the park across the street.  So he wandered over to hear what the man was saying.  Angell was astounded to hear himself being viciously attacked as a communist and a sinner, but he stood silently and listened to his critic.

Because God has a sense of humor, it began to rain.  At first the rain came down softly, but then it started raining “cats and dogs” as we say in the south.  Norris had no raincoat and was being drenched by the rain.  But he didn’t stop his verbal assault; he just kept hammering away at his enemy, whom he considered a scoundrel and infidel.

As the story goes, Roy Angell couldn’t stand to see the poor man standing there with the rain soaking him.  He noticed how Norris’s voice was beginning to crack.  So he eased up the platform behind him, removed his own raincoat, and gently wrapped it around the speaker.

Norris never skipped a beat.  He kept going and going, until when he was finally finished, gave Angell back the coat without ever noticing that it was his enemy who had furnished it, and left the stage for his next appointment.  He left unaware that the man who had loaned him the raincoat was the very man he had been painting as an emissary of Satan and one of the archangels of Hell.

He didn’t know, but God did.  And in the end isn’t that all that matters?

You may be here this morning and exasperated at how the good that you’re about always seems to be misinterpreted by the people you intend to help.  Don’t be exasperated; God isn’t misinterpreting the good that you’re about.  You may be here this morning at wits end because of how others are accusing you falsely and criticizing you unfairly.  Don’t give up.  As David believed, “It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good.”  You believe the same thing.

And remember Jesus, who went about doing good and calling people to God, and who announced to everyone who would listen, “You’ve been robbed.  Satan has robbed you of the life God has created you to enjoy.”  And for that he was beaten and cursed.  For that he was whipped and he was crucified.

And for that, on the third day God raised him to life, bringing to fulfillment the words of the Psalmist: “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the LORD; I will praise him in the midst of the throng.  For he stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who would condemn him to death” (Psalm 109:30-31).

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; do good anyway.  As another Psalm, Psalm 37:3 reminds us, “Trust in the LORD and do good,” for that is where you’ll find happiness.  That is where you will find God.