2 You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain,2but though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition.3For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery,4but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts.5As you know and as God is our witness, we never came with words of flattery or with a pretext for greed;6nor did we seek praise from mortals, whether from you or from others,
7though we might have made demands as apostles of Christ. But we were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children.8So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us.
The ones who share the Good News - become the Good News. It is not merely some kind of sales pitch or a good argument about how one needs to live a moral life or how one can hitch onto a way to some after-life reward. The Good News that is brought to all we encounter is like that mother - that nursing mother - that mother who will sustain one who is helpless and cannot even ask for what s/he needs. That is Good News. We become for anyone - anyone and everyone - people who nurture the well-being of those we encounter. There can be no qualification to that extension of love. When there are qualifications, the Good News is not the life we offer to others.
We all know people we have judged as being 'them' and sometimes 'other' and at other times 'the evil ones' and then again 'dirty, lying, fools.' Yes, we know that. We can see how they live and what they have done to people - maybe even to us. And yet, as we are Good News people - followers of Jesus - we are pulled into a contrary way of facing off with others. We love neighbors - without pulling back (damn that's hard - if not impossible). Within that love comes words that must be said to one another and actions that must take place. We will not be the recipients of kind words when we love as we have been commanded. That is why we come back and say the words and do the loving even when we are rejected. Good News is meant to remain Good News even when we think it is impossible for it to be Good anymore.
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