Session II    Do No Harm

“By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced”

 

Discipline 2004 ¶103

Story #1 - Hayden Panettiere, a young actress (18 y/o), believes that humans have a responsibility to care for the other creatures that inhabit our world. In 2007 she and a group of other young people disrupted the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama, Japan. Japan protested that she was interfering with their national governance. That year she also protested to both Norway and Japan regarding their whale hunts, and spoke to the UN regarding this issue and was given an award for compassion by PETA.

 

Story #2 - Robyn “Rihanna” Fentyn (20 y/o), a young hip-hop songstress founded a charity in 2006 called BELIEVE. This company has as its goal to inspire and protect children all over the world. Though her organization usually helps children with leukemia, she recently helped a young mother of two in New York find a bone marrow donor for herself. It is her desire to use her star-power to help those who are unable to help themselves.

 

Consider this scripture: Galatians 5:14-15. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

Read: Do No Harm (pp. 19-32)

 

Questions:

1. This rule gives us space to consider consequences, and alternatives to thoughts, words, and deeds – space enough to seek a common good, to seek common ground. “Do no harm” is a conscious intention – a plan to bring about peace, to disarm, to transform. What is the common ground in the two stories told above, or is there one?

2. Bishop Job advises us that to “do no harm” is a “radical” response, and a radical action to God’s grace (p. 24). To make a sincere effort, we must give up the assumed position of

rightness that we use to determine if we are faithfully following in Jesus’ path. Read the

passage from Luke 14:28, 33 in light of this statement. What is the difference between “being right” and following after Jesus?

3. “To abandon the ways of the world for the way of Jesus is a radical step” (p.26).

Take any one of these three statements and determine if and how it speaks to your life, and whether it feels true to you.

(a) To do no harm is easy to say but very difficult to do… because we have no

control over where it will take us or what it will demand from us.

(b) There is no bartering with the will of God.

(c) When we stand with Jesus we give up being right in exchange for justice and

mercy.

4. The hymn “Where He Leads Me” (UMH # 338), speaks to the radical willingness of giving up one’s life to follow Jesus in that his journey through the garden and to the cross becomes our path. How does this hymn relate to this chapter?

5. To “do no harm” requires an earnest appraisal of ourselves, how we live, and how we practice our faith. To “do no harm” is a radical, transformative, compassionate, and loving practice. Bishop Job asks us whether it is possible to never harm anyone or anything ever. How would you answer this?

6. Being transformed into Jesus and being able to see others as children of God requires that we invest in becoming agents of healing, and vessels of compassion.  Is this the same as turning the other cheek?

 

Additional Scriptures

Psalms 141:3. Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.

Proverbs 13: 3. Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives; those who open wide their lips come to ruin.

Colossians 4:6. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.

Luke 14: 28, 33. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

1 Peter 5:7. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

Luke 6: 39-42. He also told them a parable: ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?

Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.