August 23, 2009
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
When I park my car in the garage above Powell Street when construction across the street is preventing me to park at the white zone, I hear all kinds of sounds, conversations, and noise walking down to church. Sometimes I hear the women clutching their handbags and chatting about winning the jackpot later in the day while waiting to board the casino bus. I hear the young business executive talking on his Bluetooth hurrying to get to the office in the financial district. And as I get to the church, the din of hammering and renovating the YMCA makes it almost hard to hear myself. These are the sounds that I hear working in the city.
But if you were standing at the corner of 14th Street N.W. in Washington, D.C., a couple of summers ago, you might have heard a sound that would make most streetwise city-dwellers slow down for a second to listen. A chime goes, “Ding Dong” cuts through the noise and you hear a compliment in a pleasant voice saying, “You create a brighter future.”
You wonder, “Where did that come from?” Well, there on 14th Street was a bright red-and-white-striped box perched on a platform of bricks, with a speaker at eye level. A small sign read, “The Compliment Machine.”
“Ding Dong! People are drawn to your positive energy.” While the official look of the box suggests that it was government project, the Compliment Machine was the brainchild of Tom Greaves, a local visual artist.
Greaves originally conceived the piece as a comment on our “saccharine” culture in which, everyone is special and unique, nobody can be criticized and everyone gets an award. I remember the one season that Lauren played on a soccer team named the Bluejays. She got a certificate at the end of the season for “The Most Cooperative.” Some people hate this idea and others embrace it.
For Greaves, the Compliment Machine was less a judgment one way or the other but more about perception. He said, “On the one hand, I think there are a lot of gratuitous praise and awards and trophies heaped upon people for barely showing up. On the other side of the coin is the real human need for assurance and reassurance and to be complimented.” Last Sunday, our church’s sports award dinner didn’t heaped on awards and trophies on everyone but only on one player in each team who demonstrated the “Most Inspirational Player.”
Initially Greaves thought of making some of the compliments subversive but had a change of heart. “Why not make it completely positive? Everyone deserves to have a compliment paid to them.”
And so the Compliment Machine had kind words for everyone who walked by. If the compliment doesn’t apply to them, the artist hoped that the pedestrians would revise it to have the compliment better fit their situations. If the machine said, “You leave things better than you find them” or “You are on a constant quest for knowledge,” then maybe, just maybe, the recipient might have been inspired to improve one little thing about himself or herself.
At Youth Camp this year, we had an “Encouragement Box” on a table right outside the dining hall. Throughout the week, we were invited to write notes of encouragement to each other. Youth wrote notes to their “buddy in the bush” and to each other. Staff and counselors wrote notes to campers and they wrote notes to us. Here, I have my envelop of compliments. When I read them, some of them made me cry.
The lesson here? Perhaps life does imitate art. If we’re able to slow down, and if we take the time to listen to positive words, no matter where they come from, they can have an effect on us.
We live in a world that bombards us with all kinds of negative messages. The sounds of commercial jingles remind us every day that we’re too fat, too poor, too unattractive, too whatever and that true happiness and validation come from the acquisition of stuff. We hear seemingly nothing but bad news about the world everywhere we turn. In the midst of all that negativity, we need to hear a positive word from someone who can give us the ultimate Good News about ourselves and our world. We can thank a Compliment Machine for a compliment but the person we really want to thank is God who deserves our utmost thanks.
Thanking God
In our lesson for today, James earnestly challenged his reader to first be “hearers of the word” and, having heard the truth, to act on it (1:22-23). For James, that “word of truth” is a “perfect gift” from God, through which God “gave birth” to humanity as “first fruits” of all his creatures (vv. 17-18). In other words, the truth about God’s love for us has been with us from the beginning. That the Creator God has always sought to be in relationship with his human creations, and that God continues to desire that relationship in spite of our sin, is the ultimate compliment we can hear.
But it is also a compliment that we need to hear again and again. Therefore, says James, we are to be “quick to listen” and “slow to speak” (v. 19). We must weed out the negative messages that bombard us on a daily basis and focus on that “word” of truth that God has implanted in us and that has “the power to save our souls” (v. 21).
A few years ago, Tommy Lim gave me a book by management consultant, Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-Minute Manager. This little book highlights the importance of maintaining a four-to-one ratio of praise vs. criticism in the workplace. Effective bosses, he suggests, praise employees four times as often as they criticize them.
In one research study, bosses intentionally praised and criticized employees according to a one-to-one ratio. Most of these employees reported having a totally negative relationship with their boss.
When the ratio was changed to two-to- one, employees still felt the boss was all over them. It was only when the ratio hit four-to-one that employees relaxed and reported having a good relationship with their supervisor.
“The perception of a reprimand is powerful,” Blanchard writes. “One negative word can be balanced only by four positive words. It’s clear that if you don’t start giving a lot of praise, the people you work around will begin to think of you as negative and unfair.”
The truth about God’s love is that it has been with us from the beginning of our creation. But we think that we are not good enough to accept God’s love. The Creator God has always sought to be in relationship with us and God continues to desire that relationship in spite of our sin. But we turn away from God’s loving compliments of us and choose to validate our worth by worldly standards.
Just like one negative comment needs to be balanced off with four positive compliments, we need to hear again and again that God loves you and me. James said we need to be “quick to listen” and “slow to speak.” Listen to the truth that God has implanted in us and that word, Jesus Christ has the power to save our souls.
We thank God for his compliments!
Doers of the Word
But just like Greaves’ Compliment Machine, we have the option to either believe the complimentary messages about ourselves or simply walk on by without acknowledging them at all. We don’t know the full story of the machine’s impact on the 14th Street pedestrians, but James tells us that when we hear the complimentary and convincing “word” of God coming from the pages of Scripture, it’s certainly not designed for temporary effect or entertainment.
Today you can hear God’s compliment about you and we can politely thank God for the compliment. But that’s not all it is. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves,” warns James (v. 22). Otherwise, when we walk away from it we’ll forget it, like a person who forgets his or her reflection in a mirror or a pedestrian who hears a compliment and flips it off because he or she is too busy thinking about the morning meeting.
God’s word isn’t merely random or philosophical. Instead, God’s word is living and active, calling for a response. When we “look intently” into the meaning of the Word, says James, and when we act upon it we begin to activate its transformative power in our lives (James 1:25). It’s then that we experience the true “freedom” and blessing that God intends for us and for the rest of the world through us.
A week ago, I officiated a wedding in this sanctuary for a couple that most of you don’t know; he was from Florida and she from China. They met at a hotel restaurant because the man heard God calling him to go to China where he will find true happiness. This amazing story is that the man looked intently into the meaning of the Word, Jesus Christ in his life. And when he acted on his faith, God activated this beautiful relationship that developed between the two of them. At first, I couldn’t believe it. I told him that I don’t do such weddings for people I did not know. I told him that my ministry workload was too busy. But he persisted, insisted, and while I resisted, convinced me that the power of God is working in the world and in this couple’s new life.
This man heard a compliment from God that his life has meaning and purpose. He could have simply brushed it off without acting upon it. But meeting this couple and spending hours with them in counseling before their marriage, my faith in God’s transformative power to save our souls has been renewed. God’s complimentary word for us that he loves us from the beginning of creation is not merely random or philosophical; it is living and active and calls all of us for a response.
Compliments Through Us
James reminds us about how really practical being a Christian is. He said, “Those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing.” When I decided to officiate this couple’s wedding, I just didn’t hear how God was transforming their lives, I became a doer who acted. And because I did, I feel truly blessed.
The compliment of grace and truth that God showers upon us seems to be designed to always come through us on the way to someone else. God’s truth came to this man in Florida. From this man, he shared God’s truth with his sweetheart he met in China. From this what first appeared to be a random couple, the word of God came to me. From the simple wedding service a week ago, God’s truth was shared with those who came to bear witness to God’s plan and love for them. God’s compliments are not merely random or philosophical. God’s word is living and active and requires a response from us.
Our response isn’t enough to just give someone in need a compliment or encouragement and call that faith. It is a connection between faith and what we do for others that really matters. James said, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world (v. 27).
Who are the “orphans and widows” who need to hear God’s complimentary word of love, forgiveness, and acceptance in your life? When I walk down the streets of San Francisco, who are the “orphans and widows” who might need to hear God’s word that has the power to save their souls? How can I be quicker to listen and slower to speak?
Notice that we have two ears and one tongue. Based on the number of ears and tongues we have, we should listen twice as much as we speak because we have two ears and one tongue. God is telling you that he loves you from the very beginning of creation and the word of truth in Jesus Christ has the power to save your soul. When you hear this, share that with others.
Notice that we have two hands and one mouth. Based on the number of hands and mouths we have, we should use our hands to feed others more than we feed ourselves. With our hands, we can feed the hungry and care for people in distress. We often speak before we listen, and we often put food in our mouths before we feed others. But God gave us two ears and two hands as a reminder that it’s very important to listen to God’s compliments and to serve others by sharing God’s compliments through us on the way to somebody else.
Thank you, God for your compliments!
Let us pray.
Lord, when we consider all the good gifts that you have given us—our lives, this beautiful world, our beloved friends and family, our possessions, our health—what can we say but to say, “thanks.” We thank you, Lord for the truth that from the beginning of creation, you gave us birth as “first fruits” of all your creatures. Remind us again to be quick to listen and slow to speak so that we may know this truth. Encourage us to share your love and the perfect gift in Jesus Christ with all those whose souls may be saved through the power of your grace and mercy. Thank you, Lord for your compliment! Amen.