Paying the Price of Being Nice

The United Church of Christ Statement of Faith reads, in part:

 "God calls us into the Church to accept the cost of joy of discipleship, to be God's servants in the service of others, to proclaim the gospel to all the world and resist the powers of evil, to share in Christ's baptism and to eat at his table, to join him in his passion and victory."

As much as I want to amend the statement to claim that we share in God's call to both discipleship and apostleship, I want to highlight just a portion of this Statement of Faith (Doxological form). I want to underline the notion that, while both discipleship and apostleship involve the joys of faithful ministry and service, those acts necessarily come with costs. We join Christ in both his passion and his victory.

This is contrary to the wishes of many in our congregations, who seemingly want to celebrate the victory of faithfulness without having first suffered the passion. Many seek the joy without the cost.

Put differently, there is a price for being nice. It seems infantile, really, to have to be teaching simple lessons of being nice, of going out of our way for others, of doing what it takes, in every aspect of our personal and communal lives, to exercise fundamental respect and honor.

Perhaps we tend to compartmentalize. Perhaps we have been led to believe that it is appropriate for us in certain, convenient settings, to act from the fundamentals of our faith, but it is not required of us when we are pursuing leisure or in the course of our daily routine. We have been taught that there are times to be nice. There are circumstances in which it is right for us to act kindly. In other circumstances, and at other times, we don't have to do that.

I am dumbfounded when I witness otherwise good people engaging in intentional acts of rejection, exclusion or isolation of those whom they do not particularly like. Being nice is off the table when we reject, exclude or isolate.

There is a difference, of course, between being nice and being polite. Being polite can be accomplished superficially or inauthentically. We can fake it. We can smile and say kind things, even when we do not honestly intend them. Being nice is on a completely different level. It cannot be faked. Being nice requires something of us in a situation that might otherwise result in exclusion, rejection or isolation. It costs us something for the sake of those whom we may include, accept or embrace.

The Church, at its best, is a training ground for those who would be nice in the name of Jesus Christ. It is a place where we learn by watching our founder practicing beyond politeness. It is a place where we join together, supporting one another in the cost of our apostleship, praying for one another's strength and witness. It is a place where we accept, embrace, and include those who may differ from us, because we are called to be nice.

Everything that gets in the way of the Church being a place that practices being nice should be stopped. Everything that promotes the Church being a place that practices being nice should be pursued. (By the way, I happen to believe that this is the case for every religion...that, at it's core, we are taught to go out of our way to be nice.)

So, be nice. Pay the price. Accept the cost of apostleship, in order that others may know its joy.