Seeing the Good: 31st Sunday OT

I have a problem this time of year. There is a war in my soul.

Fall is probably my favorite season. I don’t have to explain why. That first day I can put on a hoodie and sip a hot drink, or wear a flannel shirt at a campfire, or go out of my way to step on crunchy leaves. Those October skies and sunsets. The Indian Summer that isn’t a guarantee in the Shawnee, but is so glorious when it happens. There’s just nothing better.


But I also love summer, and I love it a lot. It means camp, and mountain biking, and everything growing green and lush. Driving with the windows down on a summer night, preferably to get ice cream, it’s magic. Jumping into a creek midway through a hike. Getting muddy with the kids at Camp Ondessonk. Summer makes me so happy, and I’m never ever ready to say goodbye. So on a day like today, in full autumn glory, sometimes I’m pretty depressed. Because I don’t want to let go of Summertime. So I miss out on the glory and goodness of the Fall because I’m hung up on Summer. I miss out on what's beautiful and good because I’m absorbed by what’s missing.

Well, this is just a very, very simple example of a basic fact of life: you can go through life seeing the good, or seeing the bad. Usually one or the other has the upper hand. Usually we’re focused more on one or the other. And that makes all the difference in life, really. At least it’s one of the things that makes all the difference in life. We all have days when we’re just negative. We’re totally absorbed in everything that’s wrong. Our whole existence is defined by negativity. We all have those days. If you have enough of them, you can become a person who is defined by negativity. Perhaps you’ve known someone who you could always count on to see the bad in any situation. To be a person like that is to be insufferable. May God have mercy on the sourpusses!

But then I hope you’ve known people who bring positive energy to any situation, who can always be counted on to see the good. They help us to see the good too. They help us be grateful. They lift up everyone and everything around them.

Two of my favorite words that I don’t get to use in everyday conversation are magnanimous and pusillanimous. They’re from Latin: magna anima means “large soul.” Pusilla anima means “small soul.” A magnanimous person, a large-souled person, can see the good in anything and anyone. A magnanimous person can find something to appreciate. A magnanimous person can find something to encourage. Thank God for the large souls!

The Book of Wisdom speaks of God as Creator, and how the Creator views what He has made. Wisdom says that God loves all He has wrought. “You love all that exists, and despise nothing of what you have made.” Wisdom gets theological, reasoning “for how could a thing exist and continue if you did not will it?” “You spare all things because all things are yours, Lord, lover of life, your imperishable spirit is in all.”

God is a “lover of life.” And God’s spirit is at work in the large souls who imitate this love of life. To see the good in people, in situations, is not just pleasant and positive, it’s Godlike. 

I said it’s one of the things that makes all the difference in life, and you know that’s true. It doesn’t mean burying your head in the sand and pretending nothing’s wrong when lots of things are very wrong indeed. It means being able to see the good shining through, even when there is bad alongside it. It means welcoming the Fall even as you mourn the Summer. More importantly, it means gratefully accepting each day you are given, even if things aren’t going quite the way you wish. Most importantly of all, it means seeing the good in other people, even when it takes a little effort.

If Wisdom gives us a theological take on God’s magnanimity, Luke’s Gospel and the story of Zaccheus give us a brilliant example. Now we might think of Zaccheus as kind of a lovable clown figure; you know that song? He comes off as maybe misguided, but kind of cute. But that misses the meaning of the story. For the people in that crowd, Zaccheus was not a lovable guy. There was nothing cute about it. He was a traitor, a collaborator, and a cheat. He was surrounded by people he had personally robbed in his sophisticated ways. Now you tell me how easy it is to get along with someone who has robbed you!

But somewhere in Zaccheus there is a seed of conscience, the Holy Spirit is in there working, and today is a big day for him. He goes way out on a limb, literally! He does something a little bit crazy, scampers up a tree because something inside him is responding to something about this Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus, passing by, recognizes the big moment when he sees it, and makes eye contact, and says, “Zaccheus, I think I’ll be coming over for dinner tonight.” Where everyone else saw a wicked, despicable thief, Jesus saw the work of his Father. He saw the good in Zaccheus that others couldn’t see.
"Christ Encounters Zaccheus" by Marysia Kowalchyk

How desperately the world needs Christians who will imitate Jesus in this way!

Will Rogers famously said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” That’s a famous quote because there’s something very admirable and very rare at work in it. If that’s true, good for Will Rogers. Wouldn’t it be nice to go through life like that? To be magnanimous enough, to have a big enough soul, to be able to say that? It’s not that everyone is easy to like. It’s that you make the effort to find something good in everyone. We get this sense from Jesus in the Gospels. He doesn’t just tolerate sinners because it’s the right thing to do. He doesn’t sort of hold his nose and bear with it for the sake of helping them. No, you really get the feeling that Jesus likes people. He likes sinners. He likes hanging out with them. He doesn’t approve of sin, in fact he invariably calls them to repent. But he likes the person. Because he can see what is good in them. Because he’s big enough to do that.

That connection between largeness and mercy is made clearly in Wisdom too. It connects God’s power to his mercy. “You are merciful to all, because you can do all things.” God is able to overlook what’s wrong because He is strong enough to do so. A weak ruler has no choice but to throw his weight around. He feels the need to make his power felt precisely because it is so small. He can’t afford to show mercy. He can’t afford to be lenient. These are the counsels of weakness. God is nothing like that. God is big enough to overlook what is inadequate. He is mighty enough to afford mercy. He is big enough to see and encourage the good.


If it’s our job to show Jesus to the world, then we have to imitate Him in this too. When you choose to see the good in your life rather than being consumed by what’s wrong, that’s Godlike. When you choose to see the good in others, even when, especially when, you have to squint a little to find it, that’s being another Christ. God’s Creation has been wounded by sin, but that’s precisely what Christ came to overcome. His image is born by every man, woman, and child, every one without any exception ever. It’s there. It may be scarred or disfigured. It may be buried very deep. But it’s there. And to be someone who sees the good in people is one of the most Christlike things you can do.

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