Last week began series entitled LIVING BEYOND SELF… Jesus understood that if we want to truly find ourselves we can’t just look within… to do so will become like the onion being peeled away to find it’s essence…
We find ourselves by losing ourselves… not literally ‘losing’… but in giving ourselves beyond ourselves.
Our truest self lies not in autonomy but in relationship with God and others…. and finds itself when given to these.
So the ‘self’ grows through relationship… not becoming lost in others… but in relationship to others.
This morning I want to explore the power of what allows us this to happen… COMPASSION
Compassion is that which expands us… as it makes room to take in others in our inner being.
When we become self-absorbed… we become small… but the compassionate person is truly the bigger person.
Compassion is the essence of living beyond self… the sustenance of the soul that allows us to become bigger… to grow into the fullness of our God-given nature.
Compassion flows from the very nature of God.
Psalm 145:9
The Lord is good to all;
He has compassion on all he has made.
Shouldn’t surprise us that when Jesus bore the human condition, compassion is the inner dynamic within which Jesus lived and lives.
Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV)
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching 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. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."
Not merely that he felt sad… or bad…
‘Compassion’ comes from two Latin words, ‘suffer’ and ‘with’. Compassion means to suffer with someone, to enter into a person’s situation.
Compassion is not some superficial or romantic feeling; it is a deeply inner effecting sense of the needs of others that quite literally moves us to action.
The original language for the word being translated as compassion bears the literal meaning of bowels… being moved in one’s bowels. Hallmark cards might not do well using that meaning for sympathy cards…. We might refer to what we feel in the ‘heart’… but deep emotions emerge even more deeply… in the way we speak of something being ‘gut-wrenching.’
It is the movement of one being to enter the ife of another… and I believe is the most underestimated power. Jesus proved just how powerful in that the empire of greatest physical force fell … while the force of his life prevailed.
Compassion is the most powerful force that exists. A similar statement could be said of love and the sacrifice which love leads to… but compassion is the initiating force of these.
So how do we cultivate this soul expanding power?
Compassion will expand our souls as we…
1. Begin to see others in the true condition of both need and potential
“When he SAW the crowds, he had compassion on them…”
I’ve come to believe that the primary challenge in living a life of love lie Jesus… is that of seeing people as he does.
I feel like I’ve been trained not to see… or at least to manage what and how I see.
Whereas I can see a crowd and see no people… Jesus sees the real picture of what’s at hand.. individual lives in need.
Jesus has compassion… embraces them as connected to himself… for he sees them as “harassed and helpless…” The words he uses are very physical… even violent.
‘Harassed’ – pushed down and pushed around … with an intensity that could even reflect being molested. He sees the work of something powerful and exploitive. Life may be filled with opportunities… but there is an underlying work of exploitation.
Jesus isn’t enamored with the current condition in which he came to engage this world.
Prodigal Son – off to a distant land… far from home… where he squandered his inheritance… and essentially the life apart from the Father… from God.. . leaves him degraded and exploited.
> THAT is what Jesus sees… IN EVERYONE. From the beggars to the Bill Gates of life.
‘Helpless’ – means pinned and held down. Left to ourselves… there are problems and patterns none of us will simply overcome… we cannot simply escape the condition that binds us… that is how Jesus sees us.
‘like sheep without a shepherd’… leaderless
Rich Nathan -
They need a shepherd and that’s why Jesus came, to be our shepherd. To be our good shepherd, to provide us with leadership for life, to help us sort through all the confusing and contradictory and conflicting advice from the experts. To help us out of the thicket and out of the maze. To free us from the harassment and being pushed around and shoved around, to give us power to overcome that which controls us.
Jesus sees the POTENTIAL that we rarely grasp…
As Helmut Thielicke wrote:
"Jesus gained the power to love harlots, bullies, and ruffians. . . he was able to do this only because he saw through the filth and crust of degeneration, because his eye caught the divine original which is hidden in every way - in every man!. . . First and foremost he gives us new eyes. . .
Philip Yancey
We may be abominations, but we are still God’s pride and joy. "To love a person" said Dostoevsky, "means to see him as God intended him to be."
(Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, p 175)
It’s a great tragedy to confuse compassion with compromise… to believe that compassion means that we need to just accept what we do wrong… what others may do that is wrong. That’s just a false quick way to offer a little temporary relief from the problems we are in.
Compassion sees the problems as problems… but sees the potential… and wants to enter the problems.
Brennan Manning
‘The compassionate life is neither a sloppy goodwill toward the world nor the plague of what Robert Wicks calls "chronic niceness." It does not wink at sin and injustice. … it seeks to see with penetrating clarity. The compassion of God in our hearts opens our eyes to the unique worth of each person.” (Brennan Manning, "Abba’s Child", p. 64-66,73)
2. Make room in our hearts for others.
Compassion begins with a movement within myself, in which I make room in my soul for another.
True relationships, by their very nature, are able to liberate us from the self-absorbed state of life.
Often making room in ourselves is a more challenging process than we think…..especially if our own lives growing up have been left deeply wounded and wanting. While our personal needs are a valid and natural part of what motivates us to develop relationships….true relationship is never merely about meeting our needs.
There are many ways in which we can feel overwhelmed… like there is no room for others…which we must confront… or we will be forever trapped in the isolation of Me-Ville.
• We may have to face our busyness… and need to embrace that inconvenience simply has a redemptive place in life.
• We may have to face our fear of sadness that wants to avoid engaging the pain of others… and simply resolve that sadness is not a danger that has to be feared.
• We may face our self pity that easily feels envy towards others… and rise above it lest it consume us.
We may speak of people who are ‘too full of themselves’… but actually they are quite empty. A self absorbed self is generally a fragile self that has been deprived.. It’s never a matter of simply being too full of self… as if there is a percentage that adds up to 100% and we must divide. Rather it is a choice to operate not out of our potential to get… but our potential to give.
• We may have to face our cynicism that guards against hope… and embrace the vulnerability of daring to care.
Compassion and empathy aren’t traits of weakness….but a reflection of strength and a broadening sense of security in oneself.
(The NT term Splagxnizomai is related to the Greek noun for inward parts much as Hebrew rachemim. Here is located the center of personal feelings and emotions. Before Christ’s appearance the Greeks apparently did not use this word to speak of compassion and mercy, it being more closely related to courage.)
C.S. LEWIS –
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The atlernative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
(C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Ch 6, p. 169)
3. Take a genuine interest in others.
Once we have room in our souls, it’s natural for us to express our interest…
I’ve spent a lot of my Saturdays at my kids soccer games. Some ask, so you must be pretty into soccer. Not really…I don’t love soccer… but I love my kids.
This past week… a guy who we’ve know simply as a fellow coach and parent at the local park … known for a few years… almost never speaks. I just happened to have an opportunity to ask about his new job. I heard more than I had in three years.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Ultimately, asking can lead to involving ourselves in the interests of others.
4. Identify with others
Jesus had come to reach us through identifying with us. It’s the power of identifying….being present with others.
Hebrews 2:18; 4:15; 5:2 (NIV)
“Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
…For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.
…He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness.”
Paul would call us to enter each other’s lives…
Romans 12:15
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
Identify with what you share in common … the whole human experience.
Galatians 6:2
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Jesus was going to send his disciples out… not as superiors… but as fellow sheep who had found a shepherd who had led them to life.
5. Connect with what God is doing… rather than merely ourselves
It’s interesting. The very first thing that Jesus says when he gets us in touch with the harvest is "I want you to pray.
‘Jesus didn’t immediately send His disciples out to work in the fields. He first commanded them to pray to the Lord of the harvest. He wanted them to realize that God was in charge rather than going out merely on the basis of an emotional response to human needs.’ -"Faces in the Crowd" by Paul Borthwick, Discipleship Journal, Jan/Feb 1991, #61, Pages 57-60
And what are they to pray for?... for the workers who will go
And who is that? – Well the very next verse says… he sent them out as the workers.
To pray for the workers is to pray for work that WE will enter.
6. Embrace our role as the working force of God
Rich Nathan –
…. he calls 12 disciples to him, gives them authority to drive out evil spirits, to heal every disease and sickness and we read …”As you go preach this message: ’The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons."
In Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God that the Jews were looking forward to, that future age that involved the forgiveness of sins and healing, deliverance, rescue from addictions. The future age, which would enable people to be reconciled, where there would be no more divorce and no more arguments and no more family violence. Jesus is telling his disciples to go into the world and tell people that because he came, life can be different. Go into the world and tell people that because of Jesus Christ there is freedom.
And who is it that Jesus sends off on this great mission? Ordinary people.
It says, "These are the names of the twelve apostles; Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector…" In that society most of the men that he chose would have been middle income workers. They weren’t the very poorest or the very wealthiest. Certainly Jesus can use the poorest of the poor and the wealthiest of the wealthy but mostly because this is where most people are, he chooses average people.
It’s interesting in this whole list there’s no religious professionals.
7. Extend what we can to others
Compassion is not just feeling something but literally being moved… moved in response.
In the conversation that Jesus has with the rich young rule… Jesus sums of the answer of what one should do by stating to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. This might have settled in okay… but Jesus adds the little statement… “DO this and you will be blessed.” That put a little more pressure on the man… so he asks who is neighbor is.
Jesus tells a story to exemplify how…Good Samaritan. (Summarize)
Who did he help? Just the man in need before him. It wasn’t a global cause… but the essence of true compassion.
What did he offer? He simply extended what he had… some water… cloth to bandage him… a little time… ride on his donkey… and a little money.
What above all was the defining difference? He crossed the road.
This Samaritan crossed a lot more than a road. He crossed indifference… animosity… dividing differences…justification… convenience.
This man crossed so many differences because he could see a fellow human being.
> Compassion will involve a moment in which we chose to cross the road… to walk across the room.
