Do good deeds in private and know God sees them

Perhaps the most hunted human in the world today is Salman Rushdie, whom you May remember to be the Indian-born British American author of The Satanic Verses. Because the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ruhollah Khomeini, found his writing to be “blasphemous,” he placed a fatwa on Rushdie subjecting to numerous assassination attempts.

But few people recall that on today’s date, June 27 in 1990, Rushdie contributed $8,600 to the victims of the devastating Iranian earthquake in which almost 30,000 people had died. For his good deed, the fatwa was upheld and even more attempts were made on his life.

One cannot help, but be reminded of Oscar Wile’s sarcastic phrase, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Actually, the experience of a negative reaction from someone whom a person has aided is so common in the 12th Century, literature dating long ago testifies to it frequently.

The first known use of the concept was recorded by Walter Map in his 12th Century De nugis curialium, inverted morality “left no good deed unpunished, no bad one unrewarded.” It has also been the subject of Brenden Gill’s The Trouble With Of One House, the song No Good Deed and Franklin Pierce Adam’s poem So Shines a Good Deed In a Naughty World which begins “No good deed goes unpunished, No matter what good you try to do.”

Most of us assume that we live in a moral universe where good deeds are positively rewarded and evil works receive some kind of punishment, but sooner or later that assumption is startlingly jolted with the unexpected — and the outreached hand that was feeding is bitten. The person we were trying to help turns on us.

Psychologists explain this unforeseen behavior in a couple of ways.

One, a lot of people do not like being helped even when they know they need the assistance. Once they are more secure, they resent their dependency and take out their aggression on the helper. And, two, others not only want the aid, they in fact desire to become dependent upon the helper and hold them responsible instead of striving toward an independent life arrangement.

The apostle Paul ran into such a corundum when the city of Jerusalem was experiencing ruin. The Christian there were having a particularly difficult time as they were being persecuted by the non-Christian population.

He had taken a special offering from churches elsewhere and delivered it personally to the capital city. For his humanitarian action, “All the city was stirred up, and the people ran together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple… and were seeking to kill him.”

Again, no good deed goes unpunished! If you go to the psychology text books on the matter or listen to the self-help gurus on the internet, you will find such repeated advice as be patient, stay low key, become a better listener, volunteer to do deeds that are stimulating and develop a ‘happy place’ in your mind.

Let me short cut it to a simple reality.

When you know a good deed is right for the occasion, perform it because it is the right thing to do under those circumstances. If one is acting on the assumption that praise or recognition is to be obtained, then the motivation is not of the spirit of Jesus’ teachings.

As always, the admonitions of Jesus are most illuminating for guidance: “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven… When you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”