How to be good
In spite of nasty phrases like 'goody-goody' and 'do-gooder', there is something extraordinarily attractive about goodness.
There is a simplicity and transparency about 'good' people. Try peeling the layers off them, and you will find soundness all the way through. What you see is what you get.
Attractive, yes; but also in some ways disconcerting. More than any other virtue, perhaps, goodness throws into stark relief the pettiness, hypocrisy and inconsistency of most human beings. That is why the 'goody-goody' is mocked: he or she is 'too good to be true' and hence probably isn't true, but is trying to suck up to someone, or win some advantage over others.
The scornful phrase 'do-gooder' is one that is often directed at Christians who engage in acts of love and compassion. Calling you a do-gooder lets me off the hook. I can suspect you of paternalism, of hypocrisy, of, in Jesus' words, 'doing your "acts of righteousness" before men, to be seen by them'. And I can then go on my selfish way with a (reasonably) clear conscience.
'Do good', Jesus said, '...without expecting to get anything back' (Luke 6:35). In a world where few expect something for nothing, and few will do something for nothing, it's easy to think, as we help someone, of the help that person may be able to give us in return. 'Calling in a favour' we call it.
Nick Hornby's novel How to Be Good got nowhere near the heart of our dilemma. But he was posing the right question, for in order to do good we have to be good. Jesus pointed out that a bad tree could not bear good fruit. But only God can change the human heart. That is why true goodness is the fruit only of the Spirit.
Genuine, consistent, transparent - that is what we should seek to be, at home, at work, at church, in the plane, in the supermarket, in the boardroom.
Augustine prayed 'Lord, make me good - but not yet'. Lord, make me good, starting from today.
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