FROM THE PASTOR’S HEART
OP / ED BY DR. ROBERT KENNEDY
The instruction to “greet one another with a holy kiss,” as the apostle Paul gave in his parting greeting to the church in Rome (see Romans 16:16), interests me immensely.
I have often wondered how such an instruction would fit during, and what is being called, post-Covid 19. The fact is that what was a gracious sign of welcome and friendship has become highly complex today. A kiss is not just as Louis Armstrong used to sing in his song:
You must remember this,
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, “I love you”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by
Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion . . .
No, Louis, “A kiss is not just a kiss” anymore and never has been. Here is another song a little later than the time of Louis Armstrong. The words of that second verse say:
What do you get when you kiss a guy?
You get enough germs to catch pneumonia.
After you do, he’ll never phone ya
I’ll never fall in love again.
I’ll never fall in love again.
In America, kissing had gained currency, not as a general greeting, as in many other cultures, but as an expression of romance. Yes, Hollywood made it famous in the movies, and there was that time when adults and boys and girls could be seen kissing everywhere and often. Some people rank kissing as follows:
- The cheek kiss – is seen as platonic, often without any real feelings attached.
- The mouth kiss – is viewed as sexual.
- The hand kiss – is seen as romantic and perhaps intended to lead to more.
- The neck kiss and other erogenous zones are seen as sexual and so on.
But today, who wants to kiss, unless you know that a person has not been in contact with Covid 19 and other diseases, of the kind? Or how can you trust to kiss any person when kissing has been used for so much sexual abuse? The day’s advice should be, “Be careful who you kiss, where you kiss, and how you kiss, et cetera, for kissing can be dangerous.”
Of course, I do not want to be seen as being so negative, as if I think all kisses are lustful and self-centered. There and those decent and innocent, like that which was given to Jesus by the woman washing his feet. Luke reports that a certain man named Simon gave a feast at his house for Jesus and that a woman turned up and began to wash Jesus’ feet and kiss them. And Simon (and Judas as recorded in another place) criticized the woman. Jesus intervened and told a story that focused on the woman’s forgiveness. Then he posed a question to Simon. Simon answered, saying, “I suppose the one he forgave more.”
Then Jesus continued by saying to Simon, “You have rightly judged.”44 Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. 45 You gave Me nokiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in.46 You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil.47 Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (Luke 7: 43-47 NKJV, emphasis mine).
As is clear, the woman’s kiss was distinguishable from an unchaste and lascivious kiss. It was not a hypocritical and deceitful kiss, such the one Joab gave Amasa, when he inquired of his health and took him by the beard to kiss him, and stabbed him under his fifth rib (2 Samuel 20:9 2 Samuel 20:10).
Nor was it the kiss that Judas gave to Jesus when in the betrayal he cried, “hail master,” and kissed Jesus to point him out to those who had come to arrest Jesus (Matthew 26:49). Someone called the Judas kiss, “The kiss that blistered.”
The reflection on the complication of the kiss causes me to ask, what kind of kiss do you give (if you ever do) in your greeting to others? Is your kiss spiritual, holy, decent, hearty, or sincere? Or is your kiss lustful, hypocritical, and self-centered?
At the depth of the reflection, it’s not about a kiss but about how we greet, welcome, and treat others. The fact is that we can live our lives at a distance. We can treat each other as untouchables or find ways of being dignified and kind in how we relate.
Maybe you have found your way of overcoming the distancing, so I encourage you to let it be with holiness and respect for each other as God would have us do.
