Please pardon the long excerpt, but I begin chapter two of my book Defeating Pharisaism thusly:
It is reported that a sign on the wall of Mother Teresa’s children’s home in Calcutta displayed the following words of exhortation:
ANYWAY
People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful,
you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be
destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have
And you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.[1]
Evidently, even Mother Teresa had her critics.[2] My theory is that every significant personality in history, even those to whom history ends up being kind, has had to deal with enemies who sought their undoing. This was certainly true of Jesus of Nazareth. Most New Testament scholars will readily admit that, as a group, the Pharisees are portrayed in the Gospels as the enemies, rather than the friends, of Jesus.[3]
My point in sharing this excerpt here and now is to provide some encourage for anyone who might be tempted to think that just because they have a critic or two that they should stop doing the good work they believe God has called them to do. What if Mother Teresa had done this? What if Jesus had done this?
Of course, because we are not Jesus, we should endeavor to monitor the true motives behind our actions. According to both Proverbs 16:2 and 21:2, our motives matter to God, and we should not assume too quickly that we are actually in touch with them ourselves! Let’s do our best not to deceive ourselves about why we’re doing what we’re doing. The Scriptures, the witness of the Spirit, and confirmation coming from a variety of spiritual friends can help us achieve some degree of clarity in this discernment process.
But at the end of the day, if you have good reason to believe that the good you’re doing really is good, not just for you and yours, but for the world as a whole (especially the poor, hurting, lonely, hungry, exploited, discouraged or oppressed), keep doing it despite the clamor created by your critcs!
Let’s strive to be like Jesus and Mother Teresa today: despite what any critics might say, let’s do some good anyway!
Something to think about.
[1] Lucinda Vardey, Mother Teresa: A Simple Path (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), 185.
[2] For example, see Christopher Hitchens, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (London: Verso, 1988).
[3] For a fairly concise survey of how each of the four Gospels portrays the Pharisees as the enemies of Jesus see Kathleen Kern, We Are the Pharisees (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1995), 32–53. For an even more thorough analysis see Günter Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 21–38, and Donald Riddle, Jesus and the Pharisees (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1928), 8–54.
