A sermon by Pastor Noel Anderson at First Presbyterian Church of Upland
TEXT: COLOSSIANS 4: CEB
11 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all. †
Putting on Compassion
The Greek word for compassion is an ugly word: Splangxna, which means intestines.
Paul tells us—quite literally—to put on intestines. Whaaat?
Gut feelings—we know them. Do we experience compassion this way? The English word comes from Latin rooted com-passio, literally to “suffer with” another. The Greek word for intestines may be close to “suffer with,” but it may mean much more as well.
Why do you think the ancients associated compassion with the gut? We don’t know exactly why but it takes very little imagination to capture the sense of it. What happens to you—I mean in your body—when you witness a tragedy? Have you ever visited an emergency room? Ever watched an intern sew up an open wound with needle and thread? If you’re healthy, you get a certain feeling, and yes, it might feel like something is happening in your intestines.
I used to be okay with heights. I’ve climbed Half Dome a couple times and scaled a couple of steep peaks in Colorado. But today, if I so much as watch a video of Russian teenagers playing at the top of a construction crane, or see photos of young people shooting selfies at the top of El Capitan, my gut goes into panic mode. That feeling—like your splangxna would like to jump out of your body through your mouth—is a kind of suffering with.
What is it in us that makes us go all gooey if we see, say, a black widow crawling on another person’s hand? The correct word is empathy, and you and I are absolutely hardwired for it.
The word empathy may be a superior translation of splangxna, guts, intestines, because in empathy we not only suffer with others in their tragedies, but we rejoice with those who rejoice, laugh with those who laugh, and share a full array of emotional states with those with whom we empathize.
Paul tells us to “put on empathy” just as we would a toga, robe, or shirt. We are to put on empathy in the way a soldier puts on armor; it is our equipment—our equipping for life as Christians. There is nothing we do—no work we perform, no play, no worship we do—without first donning compassion, empathy, sympathy, gut-feeling.
I think people agree that compassion is a good thing, and empathy a necessity that enables us to bond and connect as families, villages, communities, and nations
ne rather remarkable field of research that
has grown legs in the past twenty years is Social Cognitive Neuroscience. Using brain-scanning technology (MRIs), we can see which parts of the brain fire up through most any activity. A couple of the more amazing finds threaten to reshape all of Western philosophy and politics.
Research began by testing the human brain through all types of activities—working, playing, sorting, calculating, etc.—but the really interesting thing happened when they started measuring what brains do when not engaged in any meaningful tasks at all—when the mind was “at rest” or otherwise relaxed and disengaged. What they found is that nearly 90% of our brain work is social. When not otherwise engaged, all our thinking is about other people. We are primarily, basically, social.
We are hardwired for empathy and empathy is our basic human coping mechanism. The implications are enormous: it means that human life is not primarily motivated by the will to power, but the need to belong.
This means that power is not the central human drive, but belonging. The implications are world-changing. Two hundred years’ worth of philosophy, psychology, and politics are now destined for the ash heap of history. Nietzche, Freud, Marx, Adler—all wrong. This could be the end of politics as we know it, for rather than wrangling for power and influence—and expecting everyone else to do the same because “that is how we’re wired,” what would a world look like whose main motive for public thought and action was empathy? What if we were to replace all the political/power language with the language of belonging? We are on the edge of great changes, and we would do very well to heed the text and “put on empathy” as our primary garment as we make our way forward.
LIMITS OF COMPASSION
So though we may put on compassion, we may need to ask whether there are limits to showing or acting by compassion. I think we can easily name ways by which people would justify not acting by compassion. We can name a few.
- 1.The Justice Rationale
The dark side of justice is that it can lack compassion. Justice can be about getting even or making someone pay for their crimes. Justice can satisfy victims’ vengeance and otherwise right past wrongs in economic terms. We hear it in certain phrases and sayings:
• ”It’s their own fault.”
• ”They made bad choices.”
- •“ It’s what they deserve.”
2. The Achievement Bubble
This may be a mere extension of the justice rationale, but it is built on some assumptions about the world being a difficult place (which it is!):
• ”We’ve EARNED our place!”
• ”They don’t even try”
- •“ It’s a hard world and it’s the law of jungle”
This law of the jungle mentality grows from Darwin and promotes the survival of the fittest. The problem is that when you are one of the fittest, you can feel that the unfit are less than worthy of your best attention and help. Again, the death of compassion.
3. Fear and Ignorance
Some avoid the garb of compassion due to fear an ignorance. Whether it is the fear of getting involved, the fear of being taken advantage of, or the fear of personal loss—all rob us of compassion and empathy. It is ignorance as well that keeps us at a safe distance from others in need who ought to feel that they belong. We hear it in phrases like:
• ”I don’t care to be around that kind of person.”
• ”I just wouldn’t know what to say.”
- •“ I don’t feel safe.”
- • “It’s really not my gift.”
These and more are a normal part of our resistance to showing compassion. Doing so actually places us at odds with our true, human nature, which is empathy.
This is a particular problem in churches when it comes to mental health. People suffering depression, bi-polar disorder, anxiety, or multiple diagnoses tend to be met with the most unsympathetic words. “Cheer up!” “Put a smile on your face!” “Pray more,” etc. At worst, people might suggest that you are demon possessed—neither helpful nor empathic.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t spend so much energy trying to avoid compassion. We should argue for
the expansion of compassion, not its limitations.
BOUNDLESS COMPASSION
Christian love—agapé—can’t be defined by the limits of compassion. We rather should think of love as boundless compassion, as compassion with no limitations whatsoever. That is Godly, that is Christlike love. When we exercise boundless compassion, it also leads us to think and behave in ways becoming of followers of Christ, characterized by virtue rather than consuming self-interest. Paul lists some of those virtues. We’ve discussed these already so I’ll keep them brief.
Kindness
Attitude matters. Kindness is rooted in empathy, as are good manners. We do well to practice both.
Humility
We surrender our advantage, rather than being fearful that someone may take advantage of us. If someone wants to take advantage of our kindness, then we’ll give it to them willingly. That’s love.
Gentleness
Again, this is not so much a soft touch as it is doing what is most noble and excellent. As sons and daughters of God, we should act like the royalty we are.
Patience
The word is “long-suffering.” We endure, carry on, and endlessly seek to serve rather than be served.
Boundless compassion looks like even more than this, but these virtues are fruit born by those who have put on compassion and live by their empathy moreso than by their need for power, control, prestige, or all the kingdoms of this world.
oundless compassion is the subtitle of the
New York Times bestseller, Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion, by Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries in downtown LA.
Father Boyle is something of a phenomenon. He began his ministry in the poorest, most gang-infested neighborhood of Los Angeles: Boyle Heights. Building on a basic theological idea—we are all kin—which is tantamount to “putting on compassion,” he has overseen the most successful ministry to gang members in the world. Cities across the globe are now eagerly trying to reproduce his model of ministry and its success.
When we put on compassion—rather than the more popular alternatives—we wear the new life in Christ, acting out the best characteristics and proving ourselves to be followers of Christ.
Says Boyle:
“I suspect that were kinship
our goal, we would not longer
be promoting justice—
we we would be celebrating it.”
When we seek radical compassion and kinship, justice follows. I don’t think we’ve seen a passion for justice and/or social justice bear such fruit on its own.
We’re planning a field Trip to Homeboy Industries on August 8th. We’ll go, we’ll tour the facility, and we’ll share in the love. Hopefully, we may be clothed and equipped for ministry by the garb of boundless compassion. With God’s help, it will be the only armor we need, and we may wear it well! †