In my six months with the YMCA, and in my twenty years as a pastor, I’ve had many people come to me needing compassion. And it’s always complicated my life. I recently had a young man come up to our fifth floor suite looking for money to alleviate his hunger. Not too long ago I took a phone call from a woman needing money for temporary lodging. My compassionate response has complicated my life.
A Christian minister among the poor of Philadelphia, Shane Claiborne, once remarked that when the poor ask us for help, we are obligated to do something- but we are not always obligated to give them what they ask for.
Sometimes we can’t give what they ask for, sometimes we shouldn’t. But I think the Christian response is always to give them compassion. And that complicates our life. Sometimes it would be easier to just give them what they ask for – $20 for food, $200 for a weeks worth of lodging and some bus fare, but more for convenience than compassion.
Jesus is known for his compassion for the poor and diseased, the disabled and possessed. Already, in the stories from the gospel according to Mark we’ve seen how the healing ministry of Jesus complicates his life.
In the last story of the first chapter, a leper comes up to Jesus, gets down on his knees and pleads with Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” The older English translations read that Jesus, filled with compassion, “reached out his hand and touched the man.” Newer English translations read that Jesus was indignant. Either way, Jesus responds by touching an untouchable, and declares “I am willing; be clean!”
Even though Jesus sent him away with a strong warning to not tell anyone about the healing, even though Jesus sent him with clear instructions to go to the priest in order to offer the proper sacrifices, despite all that – the healed man ran around town blabbing his mouth about all Jesus had done for him.
What’s so bad about that, you ask? Well, it resulted in Jesus getting ganged up on by crowds wanting healed, he couldn’t hang out in town, and he ended up escaping into the wilderness to rest and pray. But, even out there in the forlorn desert the people sought him out. Compassion complicates.
Jesus came to proclaim the gospel in word and deed – he had a message he preached about the coming of the kingdom of God – and he had a message he demonstrated through healing and feasting with outcasts. Sometimes the people who were healed complicated Jesus’ work to preach; sometimes Jesus’ work of preaching complicated his work of healing.
Because his work was full of compassion, Jesus’ life got complicated: he missed meals and ended up homeless, he was misunderstood and slandered, he was taken advantage of and betrayed.
But what’s the alternative for Jesus – for us? If we withhold our compassion, we might make our life more convenient, we might keep greater control over our schedule and finances, we might be able to keep our hands cleaner…. But can we be Jesus if we withhold compassion?
Imagine how your home, your workplace, your church, your neighborhood might be slowly transformed if you and some family and friends became more open to the needs you see around you and became more willing to offer compassion to outcasts in the way of Jesus?
What if the prayerful courage to be present and compassionate prevailed in your life over the hesitancy to get involved and the fear of complicating an already complicated life?
And what if the compassion that complicates your life is part of God’s healing work in your own soul? It may be that the messiness of compassion becomes a moment to trust God more with your schedule, your budget, your safety, your life.
Yes, compassion may complicate your life. But it is how Jesus heals.
Who in your life are you resisting giving compassion to? Why?
Consider submitting it to the Lord, and be attentive to what he would have you do next – to how he would have us offer compassion in the way of Jesus.
It’s interesting that following a long night of driving out demons and healing those with various diseases in Capernaum, while still hungry and exhausted, he slipped out of the house while everyone was still asleep. “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Success has it’s draining cost and distracting temptations. You can probably relate.
Sometimes we think prayer is always asking God for stuff. For safety, for security, for success. But for Jesus, prayer was about presence. It is about being present with his Father, the one who revealed his why to him, who sent him with his why to embody the healing gospel to the children of Israel.
What’s the darkness that you hate? What’s the sins in our community that anger you? What’s wrong with our world that you want deeply to fix? Jesus is against it even more than we are. In fact, you could say that he’s the one who ignites our desire for justice and mercy.
When you overlook the widows and orphans, when the poverty of the majority is ignored by the powerful minority, that community is sick and under judgment. Jesus came to drive out the spirits that drive us to madness – and that comes from deep love and hope, not from being nice.