Trinity Metropolitan Community Church of Gainesville (Trinity MCC)

Jesus Came…to Show God’s Compassion

Rev. Vickie Miller

Matthew 9:36- 10:8

Topic: Jesus had compassion on those who were hurting. We need to also walk in others’ shoes and show compassion.

There was a President of a non-profit organization who realized they had never received a donation from the city's most successful business man. So the volunteer paid the man a visit in his lavish office. The volunteer opened the meeting by saying, 'Our research shows that even though your annual income is over two million dollars, you haven’t given a penny to charity.' Wouldn't you like to give something back to your community?

The business man thinks for a minute and says, 'First, did your research also show you that my mother is dying after a long, painful illness and she has huge medical bills that are far beyond her ability to pay?'

Embarrassed, the volunteer rep mumbles, 'Uh... No, I didn't know that.'

'Secondly,' says the business man, ' did it show that my brother, a disabled veteran, is blind and confined to a wheelchair and is unable to support his wife and six children?

The stricken non-profit rep begins to stammer an apology, but is cut off again.

Thirdly, did your research also show you that my sister's husband died in a dreadful car accident, leaving her penniless with a mortgage and three children, one who is disabled and another that has learning disabilities requiring an array of private tutors?

By this time the non-profit rep was so humiliated, and completely beaten, says, 'I'm so sorry, I had no idea.”

And the business man continues, 'So...if I didn't give any money to them, what makes you think I'd give any to you?”

This story is such a contrast to our gospel reading today. This business man showed no compassion for his family or his community, whereas it is said of Jesus, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them.”

The Greek word used in our Gospel reading today is the strongest word for pity in the Greek language. It means Jesus was moved to his being, to his bowels. He was stirred up. He had heart pangs and an upset stomach.   He felt that sort of grief that radiates through our whole body and affects us physically.

The first time I recall feeling that level of compassion was when I left home and went to college. In the spring our tennis team had a match against DePaul University in Chicago. I was excited because as a small-town girl I had never been to a big city. As we approached Chicago, my excitement turned to great despair and we passed row after row of very low income, ghetto housing projects. I knew what they were but I had to ask and my teammates confirmed, “That’s where people live.” I cannot explain how I felt. It was a sickening feeling in my gut, a lump of grief and compassion and, at the same time, such humbleness for my own blessings.

I can only imagine that what I felt in a small way on the highway to Chicago, was what encompassed Jesus’ whole being on a regular basis. To carry that burden of compassion day after day must have been a heavy load.

It did not occur to me how many different places the gospels specifically refer to Jesus’ compassion as his motivation for ministry. We assume it but the Gospels specifically cite it many times.

For example, Matthew 14: “Jesus had compassion on them and cured their sick.”

Chapter 15, Jesus had compassion for the crowd because they had nothing to eat.

Chapter 20, “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes.

The Gospel of Mark: “Jesus, had pity on those who were demon possessed.

And again in Mark: Moved with pity, Jesus reached out and touched the

          leper

And in Luke: Jesus had compassion on the widow whose only son had died.

Jesus was affected by world’s pain, by the world’s sorrow. He was moved by the world’s hunger, by their loneliness and in today’s reading Jesus was moved to compassion because the crowds were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Sort of sounds like our world today, doesn’t it? Nothing much has changed, and it gives me great hope that if Jesus was so moved by the world’s hurts that surely that must be God’s response to us today. When we encounter our own personal struggles and failures or when we lose someone we loved and value in our church community, surely God feels the pain of our suffering to the depth of God’s very being.

Huston Smith, well known religious scholar, takes it as far to say that Jesus had concluded that Yahweh’s central attribute was compassion. If Smith is correct, then Jesus did not heal to the be center of attention or to prove that he was the Messiah.

If Smith is correct, then I ponder, how did Jesus come to this understanding?

If we take the approach that Jesus emptied himself of divinity and learned in the same way that we learn, then Jesus must have learned compassion partly through his own human experience.

Jesus himself was poor, he probably was the brunt of ethnic jokes. He lived in a region where illness and bad weather easily brought disaster to a family. And of course, as a Jew he was subject to living under the injustices of a pagan Roman Empire.

Sometimes there is a gift to being oppressed and encountering struggles. When we are oppressed, like Jesus, we know what it feels like to live in the world, and if we do not let anger take over, we can better grasp the need for compassion on others because we so desire it for ourselves.

I believe Jesus had a dilemma. I believe he was carrying around this intense divine caring for the world in the limitations of a human body.   So, in order to meet the needs of people he came up with a solution that we see in our gospel reading today. Jesus called forth his disciples, and gave them authority and sent them out. Jesus multiplied his ability to show compassion x 12. I wonder if these twelve very different commonplace people were chosen, not for their abilities, but for the capacity to care at a deep level. Was that the main attribute in the disciples that Jesus sought when choosing them? If so, is that the main attribute required of us as disciples today?

When I first confronted this idea that compassion was God’s prime attribute, then a lot of things started making sense to me. The way we view God is more than likely the way we also respond in the world. For example, if we see God as a judging, condemning God they we will be like those people I saw on the street corner yesterday smiling and waving their signs to vote yes for amendment 1. If we view God as a compassionate, loving God then we will believe that all people are in need and worthy of housing, jobs and food.

Compassion - if all Christians world-wide possessed it how different our world would be! But, compassion is not that easy to sustain. People can be difficult or they irritate us, or they act out. Plus, we simply get hardened to the hurts of the world.

Since my first exposure to extreme poverty on my trip to Chicago I have visited many large cities and been to third world countries, and my compassion is not as intense as it once was. Victor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor and psychiatrist, says that is a normal human reaction. Even for him suffering and death became so commonplace that he was no longer moved by it.

My attempt to be compassionate began weighing heavy on me. I knew that I was inadequate in being able to sustain this level of caring like Jesus did. I began to pray about it and ask God – how can I be compassionate, how can any of us make that our main focus day in and day out. Originally, I thought, well I just need to listen to others more. I need to be more empathetic. At the same time I was feeling inadequate in my ability to do so in the way that Jesus did so I continued to pray about it.

Then, I received a miracle message. Has it ever happened to you that you have been searching for an answer and then it comes when you least expect it? So, I have a testimony this morning, and my story has to do with the paragraph we read today as our contemporary reading from Marcus Borg.

Here’s my story. At the church in Sarasota I had coordinated for Rick Sosbe, the pastor of Naples MCC to come to preach as a guest speaker. I thought that just in case Rick does not make it, I should bring a back-up sermon. So, I selected a sermon that I had preached previously and reviewed it quickly. Incidentally, it happened to be a sermon I preached here at Gainesville, probably about three years ago and the contemporary reading that I had selected to go with it was the one we read this morning.

Well, Rick made it, we had a great service and then I returned that evening to church for our Taize service. When I sat down and opened the bulletin, there was a contemporary reading that our music director had selected for that evening. In fact, this reading was from the same page book that I had read that morning, Marcus Borg’s, The Meaning of Jesus. In fact, it was from the same page, page 78. In fact, it was the exact same paragraph. What are the chances of that we would choose the readings from the same book, let alone the same paragraph? Immediately, I got chills, and I knew that God was answering my prayers about compassion in this reading.

“As a Jewish mystic, what did Jesus know? He knew how to heal. He knew how to create memorable sayings and stories; he had a metaphoric mind. He knew that God was accessible to the marginalized because he was from the marginalized himself. He knew that tradition and convention were not sacred in themselves but, at best, pointers to the mediators of the sacred and, at worst, a snare. He knew an oppressive and exploitative social order that legitimated itself in the name of God, and he knew this was not God’s will. And Jesus knew all of this most foundationally because he knew God.

Jesus knew all of this most foundationally because he knew God.

This is the message about compassion that I had been seeking. God was saying to me, instead of focusing on the world in its hurts, and feeling so inadequate to respond…instead of focusing on other people and not knowing how to help, God said, focus on me. Seek me in prayer, in scripture, in worship, in communion with others.

When we do that, when we seek first the heart of God, then God’s very heart is transplanted into our own.   When our hearts are joined to the heart of Jesus then our compassion will come naturally. Jesus came to show God’s compassion and as Jesus’ disciples, we are to develop in us the heart of Jesus.

It took God putting this message in front of me twice in one day to get it and I think, if we miss messages from God, how many times do we miss the messages we get from each other? God gives it to us twice, but often people do not give us a second chance to hear their hearts.

But when we focus most foundationally on God, like Jesus, we will learn to respond to each other from God’s own heart of compassion. People will be drawn to us and we will continue to be a place of healing for all. Amen.

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