Several years ago, on a Friday afternoon, the late actor Michael Landon was driving home on the freeway in Los Angeles. It was very hot, and the traffic was quite congested. Horns were honking, tempers were flaring, and drivers were exchanging assorted gestures with each other.
As Landon sat in his car watching all of this unfold, he began asking a lot of questions like: “Why do people hate one another so much? Why is so much energy wasted on rage? What would happen is we used t...
Several years ago, on a Friday afternoon, the late actor Michael Landon was driving home on the freeway in Los Angeles. It was very hot, and the traffic was quite congested. Horns were honking, tempers were flaring, and drivers were exchanging assorted gestures with each other.
As Landon sat in his car watching all of this unfold, he began asking a lot of questions like: “Why do people hate one another so much? Why is so much energy wasted on rage? What would happen is we used that energy on kindness rather than anger?”
In the midst of this questioning, an idea popped into his head. He began to think about creating a television series dedicated to the idea that kindness, and not rage, will best address the problems of our world. That day on the road spawned the television series, “Highway to Heaven.”
The theme of each episode of the series was the same point Jesus made when He urged people to show kindness to one another even to the point of “turning the other cheek” when someone treated them unkindly.
Kindness blesses the person to whom we are kind, but it also blesses us. Michael Landon told a story about how, when he was 19 years old, he got paid $260 for his first acting job in a TV show called “John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade.” He said he felt so rich and famous that he decided to go to Beverly Hills (where he almost never went) to look at the store windows.
As he passed by a toy store, he saw two boys with their noses pressed up against the glass looking at the toys inside. Landon walked up to them and asked them which of the toys they liked best. One boy pointed to a wagon, the other to a model airplane. He then took the boys inside where he bought the wagon and the model airplane for them. The boys were filled with great excitement and joy. What surprised Landon most, however, was the thrill that he got from his act of kindness. He said it was deeper and more satisfying than anything he had experienced before. And more lasting; it was an experience he would remember for the rest of his life.
Today’s readings invite us to take a look at our lives and to ask ourselves how much kindness is present in them. They invite us to look at our own lives and our love and to ask ourselves how they compare to the life and love Jesus describes in his Sermon on the Mount. They invite us to take a look at our own lives and to ask ourselves what would happen if we took the energy we now expend on anger and expend it on kindness. How would our lives and the lives of those around us change and become happier? What miracle might result if we took seriously Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount?
Kindness is a power greater all earthly powers. It’s not the resource of one nation or one person: It’s at the disposal of every person in every nation. And our supply of kindness is unlimited. The more we give of it, the more there is to give, much like the loaves and fish Jesus gave to the hungry multitude.
Let us pray:
LORD, help us to realize the power of kindness. Help us to use this power the way you intended us to use it when you created us. Help us use it to bring happiness to those around us. Help us use it to work miracles, healing people in our time, just as you healed them through kindness in your time. Through Christ our LORD. Amen+
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