Adam: Dad do you know what Empathy
and Compassion are?
Me: Yeah, but what do you think it means?
Adam: Well, Empathy is trying to feel
and understand what others feel.
Me: Ok, so what is Compassion?
Adam: Compassion is feeling what
others feel and then doing something about it like helping them or saying kind
things to help them feel better.
Me: So how is that like what we will be
doing in Honduras?
Adam: Well we visited the ranch, and
met all the kids without parents. We are showing compassion because we
are going back to help them.
I
watched a little video about a fight on black Friday where three women were
fighting over who knows what, but a person standing there was concerned enough
to pull out a camera to film. The most
startling thing about the video was not the fighting itself, but the lack of
action taken by those in the crowd of shoppers.
It is
not that people did not have empathy. I
am sure there were people in the crowd who felt the same frustration as these
women. Some, may have even sided in their
heads with the women they felt were in the right. Empathy comes in bucket loads at times, but
empathy is not enough. How come no one
stepped into stop the fight? Empathy
did not stop the fight; empathy just recorded and took in the pain.
As
followers of Jesus, we need to move past empathy and embrace compassion. We can watch the news or hear about
people’s pain and feel the prick of pain in our hearts. But, God wanted a world where people acted. He did not want people just to know about
others pains, but He wanted people willing to partner with them to alleviate their
suffering.
As I
said in my last post, God commanded his people to respond in action, because He
knows it is easier to have empathy than compassion. He knows it is the human tendency to be
spectators of the destruction going on in our world.
I hear people complain constantly about the state of our world, but what
steps are we willing to take to show compassion to one person at a time.
In the
story of Ruth, she is a widow and a foreigner.
She has been reduced to gleaning in fields to provide for her mother
in-law. She was gleaning in Boaz's
field. Boaz could have happily let her
pick through the passed over crops and known she had food to
eat. But he was moved with compassion
and went beyond just empathy; he redeemed her and took her as his wife when her
intended redeemer would not. The whole story can be found in the book of Ruth in the Bible.
I think
some of you could argue that Boaz showed compassion by allowing Ruth to glean, but I think that would just be showing
empathy. It is kind of like saying we are showing compassion by paying taxes to help those on welfare. Meeting needs out of moral or mandated obligation does not always mean
weare being compassionate, but sometimes the opposite happens and we are resentful
of these people who need help. God wants our
compassion to inspire us to invest in the lives of others. Jesus called this type of compassion
discipleship.
Matthew 9:35-37
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in
their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every
disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them,
because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The
harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
Matthew 28:19-20
Therefore go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey
everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age.”
In
Matthew 9:35-37, Jesus feels the pain of his people and states his need for
harvest workers. His command to his
Harvest workers is stated in Matthew 28:19-20. According to Jesus, how do you show compassion? By making disciples!
This is the kind of compassion God wants his people to show, it is beyond just the finacial obligation to care for fatherless (widows or foreigners). It extends to how much we are willing to personally invest into the lives of people. Jesus' discipleship meant personal
investment. If you want to gain more understanding,
read the Gospels to see how Jesus invested in the lives of his
disciples over the 3 years they were together.
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