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Compassion

Abraham Lincoln was once challenged by his supporters about why he reached out to his political opponents and offered them positions in his government. In reply Lincoln said: “When I make friends with my enemies then they are no longer my enemies.” Lincoln’s answer was a simple statement of the obvious. But it required greatness to put the obvious into practice.

If there is one thing we human beings have repeatedly failed to do down through history it is to love our enemies and to forgive those who offend us. As a consequence we have experienced war, after war, after war. There is nothing more futile than war, nothing more destructive, nothing more devastating to the human spirit. Yet we persist in using it as a way of settling disputes, of defeating our enemies and as a means of asserting our power and gaining control.

It is understandable that one of the major concerns of Jesus was the building of community. Jesus offered people a way of living together that would both respect difference and create unity and peace. For Jesus the key to creating community was compassion. “Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate” (Luke 6:36). This one simple instruction is at the very heart of Jesus’ teaching. Some would even say that it sums up his teaching.

Compassion begins with acceptance, unconditional acceptance of others. Unconditional acceptance means that I accept others no matter what their colour, class, culture, religion and sexual orientation might be. Compassion is also about my willingness to understand the experience of others, to listen to their stories, to hear what they are saying, to learn where they are coming from, to stand in their shoes. In its purest form compassion is about my capacity to enter into the life of another at the level of emotion, where my heart knows the heart of the other.

Compassion is what distinguishes the follower of Jesus; it is the mark of a true Christian. It is the way to end war and conflict and create real community among the peoples of the world. Compassion has its source in God who is compassion itself. It is a gift, a gift that we must pray for, and pray for every day.

Prayer

I once had a very wise spiritual director who said to me about himself, “The most necessary thing in my life is sleep; the most important thing in my life is prayer.” I am sure many of us would agree with his first statement about sleep. It would be good if we also agreed with his second about prayer. Prayer was the most important thing in his life because the most important relationship in his life was his relationship with God.

Prayer is an expression of our relationship with God; prayer helps us to grow in our relationship with God. But who is the God whose friendship and help we experience in prayer? Jesus calls him Father; in fact he calls him Abba which means daddy! To call God Abba Father means that God is not someone who is remote and distant from us, someone who is uninvolved and uninterested in our lives. On the contrary, the God of Jesus is a God who knows each of us personally, who loves us unconditionally and who cares for us faithfully. The Abba of Jesus is a Father who wants what is best for us as parents want what is best for their children.

So how should we pray to this God who loves us to bits? Jesus is clear that we should use simple, honest words when we talk to God. There is no need to babble, to use many complicated words. The best words are those that come from our hearts. The best words are those that are an honest expression of what is in our hearts. What Jesus is asking us to do is talk to God as if we were talking to our best friend.

Jesus is also clear that we should ask God for what it is we need and to keep on asking. Jesus insists that we persevere in prayer. Our prayer must be persistent. Jesus assures us that God does answer our prayers of petition, but we must remember that when God answers our prayers he does so in a way that is best for us. God sees the overall picture of our lives whereas usually we only see the immediate, present really. When God answers our prayers God has our true good, our lasting good at heart. It is important that we do not get discouraged if we do not get from God what we ask for. What we ask for may not be what we truly need at the time. Our prayers are never wasted on God. After all God is our Father.

Personal Knowledge

There is a question many of us sometimes ask ourselves. Does Jesus know me personally? Am I a name to Jesus or am I just a number? Perhaps the best place to find the answer to this question is in Chapter 15 of St Luke’s Gospel. There Jesus leaves us in no doubt. He has a personal knowledge of and concern for every individual person, without exception. Jesus knows us by name and calls us by name.

Imagine there are one hundred people and one strays, one wanders away, one gets lost. Our response might be to cut our losses and stay with the ninety nine. After all to lose one out of a hundred is a pretty good record. Not so with Jesus. He does not stay with the ninety nine. He knows the ninety nine are ok. He goes off in search of the one who has strayed. In fact he does not rest until he has found the one who has got lost, until he has brought the one who has wandered back to the ninety nine. Jesus is adamant, “The Son of Man came to seek out and save those who are lost.” This is how he understood his ministry and his mission.

It has been said that if there was only one person living on the earth Jesus would still have come into the world, that he would have lived, died and rose to new life for that one person. Every single individual is important to Jesus. Jesus forgets no one, neglects no one, excludes no one.

Sometimes we can feel lost in the crowd. Surrounded by a lot of people many of whom seem important, we can feel small and insignificant. In the family of Jesus no one is small and insignificant. In the family of Jesus everyone is unique, everyone is important, everyone is special.

There may be times in our lives when our self-esteem is very low and our confidence is shattered. During these times it is natural for us to feel that we do not really matter. The truth is, despite the way we feel, we do matter. We matter to others and we certainly matter to Jesus. Jesus will never give up on us. He has invested too much in us to give up on us. Jesus will always keep faith in us. Indeed during those times when we withdraw into isolation and loneliness he actively pursues us. He comes searching for us. This is why the poet Francis Thompson was able to describe Jesus as the Hound of Heaven.

Radical Grace

Jesus once told a parable about a landowner who hired labourers to work in his vineyard (See Matt 20:1-16). Some started work in the early morning, some at midday and some in the early evening. In his generosity the landowner paid exactly the same wage to all who worked for him during the course of the day. The actions of the landowner do appear to be unfair, even unjust. Those who worked all day in the blazing hot sun received the same wage as those who worked one hour in the cool of the evening.

Today’s employers would certainly not get away with this approach to remuneration. Ours is a culture of trade unions and worker’s rights and hourly rates of pay. It is a culture of entitlement. But Jesus’ parable is not about human rights and entitlements. It is not about human justice. It is about God. It is about God’s abundant goodness and generosity. God isn’t generous towards us on the basis of what is right and fair and just. God is generous towards us because we are his children, his sons and daughters whom he loves equally.

What Jesus is teaching us in this parable is this: we cannot buy or earn God’s love. God’s love is free. It is a gift, a pure gift offered to all without exception. This is what we mean when we say that God loves us unconditionally. There are no conditions attached to the way God loves. The little word ‘if’ is not in God’s dictionary! In practice this means that the Christian life is not about winning God’s approval and God’s favour. It is not about making ourselves acceptable to God by our good deeds and our efforts to please him. When we love we do so in response to God’s love for us; not in order to make God love us.

The renowned Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, has described the experience of being saved as our acceptance of the fact that we are accepted unconditionally by God. God’s salvation is free and we must accept it freely. The Father’s love is gift, not achievement. Those who came at the twelfth hour got the same wage as those who came at the first hour because God does not love those who came at the twelfth hour any less than those who came at the first hour. This is what we mean by radical grace.

A Prodigal Father

The story of the Prodigal is regarded by many as the greatest story ever told (see Luke 15:11-32). It is a story that describes the relationship between a father and his two sons. The father is God the Father of Jesus. The two sons represent humanity.

The younger son asks for his share of the family estate, leaves home and treats himself to a good time. He is wasteful and ends up broke. In fact, not only does he end up broke he also ends up broken. He finds himself broke financially and broken emotionally. He becomes penniless, powerless and friendless. He is stripped completely bare, left with nothing to hold on to. His hands are totally empty. Knowing that his hands are empty he decides to take a risk. He returns home hoping that his father will forgive and accept him. His hopes are realised beyond measure. His father is delighted to have him back. Without words of complaint or judgement his father clasps him in his arms and kisses him tenderly. Indeed his father calls for a celebration because he has got his son back safe and sound.

The elder son is the dutiful son who stays at home and does the work. His sense of duty while admirable makes him angry. He is angry at his younger brother for being wasteful with the family’s hard earned money. He is angry at his father for welcoming his younger brother back with open arms and no conditions. And he is angry with what he perceives as the unfairness in the life of his family and indeed in his own life. For the elder son love is not free. It has to be earned, achieved by hard work. The elder son is a conformist who has remained loyal, but his heart is resentful. He is not at peace.

The younger son’s failure and emptiness allow him to accept his father’s love as gift while the elder son’s pride does not. The younger son has no choice but to come to the father with empty hands. The elder son needs to have his list of achievements in the presence of his father. Perhaps for the first time in his life the younger son knows that his father’s love is unconditional. The elder son continues to see it as conditional.

But what about us? Where are we in the story? Is our experience of God that of the elder son or the younger son? Are we still trying to win God’s affirmation and approval by our achievements? Or are we now able to come to God with empty hands in the affective knowledge that his love is unconditional? Of course the truth is it usually takes an experience of failing and falling like that of the younger son before we can really accept the Father’s love as gift, not achievement.

Accepting our Humanity

There is a saying that familiarity breeds contempt. Whatever about breeding contempt, familiarity can certainly make us blind. When we grow up with people, when we live with people and become accustomed to them we can find it difficult to believe that there is more to them than meets the eye. We can make assumptions that may in fact be wrong.

This certainly was the case with Jesus. His own town’s people, his neighbours, could not accept the fact that a person who went to school with them, who played with them, who attended the synagogue with them, who socialised with them, who worked for them as a tradesman was in fact a prophet, indeed the long awaited prophet promised by God.

Perhaps the issue for the Jesus’ town’s people was ordinariness rather than familiarity. How can God be present in someone who is so ordinary, who is like the rest of us? Can God’s Messiah be someone who comes from a remote village, who lives in relatively poor circumstances, who works as a carpenter, whose life is full of simple, mundane chores? This is the scandal of Christianity; that God has come to us in and through the life of an ordinary human being known as Jesus of Nazareth. Whether we like it or not, whether we are comfortable with it or not, God is to be found in the humanity of Jesus. This is the fundamental truth of Christianity and it is called the Incarnation.

The Incarnation has two important implications for us. The first is that we need to accept that we experience God in and through the humanity of Jesus. The second is a consequence of the first. We also need to accept that we experience God in our own humanity and in the humanity of other people. God is not to be found in some ethereal world outside and beyond our human experience. God is found in the here and now, in the concreteness and ordinariness of everyday life, in all that is human. To deny our humanity in all its forms of expression is to hide from God. To say ‘yes’ to our humanity is to say ‘yes’ to God.

Back to Eden

The Garden of Eden is a symbol of life the way God intended it to be. In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve knew who they were in God. They were aware of their belovedness which was their original blessing. Their belovedness was enough in the Garden of Eden. They did not need anything else. This is why they were content in Eden, in harmony with God, themselves, one another and nature.

When Adam and Eve refused to accept their status as God’s beloved creation they expelled themselves from the Garden of Eden. This led to the development of the false self. The false self came into existence after the fall. It was created when the original blessing of Adam and Eve was contaminated by original sin. The false self is Adam and Eve trying to survive outside the Garden. And very quickly they discover that they can’t! When Adam and Eve put themselves outside the garden they lost the experience of their belovedness, their original blessing. Their original blessing created their true selves; their original sin created their false selves.

Like Adam and Eve we too struggle to survive outside the Garden of Eden. Our false self has us look for happiness in the wrong places, the wrong things and the wrong relationships. Because of the false self we overly invest in accumulation, achievement and the need for approval. This investment is the main reason why many of us end up exhausted, dissatisfied and with a battered self-esteem. If we have any hope of finding some of the harmony which existed in the Garden of Eden we need to claim our belovedness, our original blessing.

Claiming our belovedness involves the acceptance of unconditional love. We need to find a way of accepting the truth that we are loved and lovable as we are. Accepting the truth that we are loved and lovable as we are, leads to deeper self-acceptance and a release from the pressure to accumulate, achieve and be attractive.

More and more people are turning to some form of contemplative practice to help them claim their belovedness. Contemplative practice is a form of prayer that allows us to receive, to be, to let ourselves be loved, to accept the gift that has already been given to us. It requires us to make some time for silence. In silence we are able to hear the still small voice within us. This voice assures us that we belong to God and that God is pleased with us as we are. This is why silence can be a homecoming to our own deepest belonging. It certainly helps to bring us back to the Garden of Eden!

One Day at a Time

There are two days in every week about which we should not worry, two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.

One of these days is Yesterday with all its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. All the money in the world cannot bring back Yesterday. We cannot undo a single act we performed; we cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone forever.

The other day we should not worry about is Tomorrow with all its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise and its poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control. Tomorrow’s sun will rise either in splendour or behind a mask of clouds, but it will rise. Until it does we have no stake in Tomorrow for it is yet to be born.

This leaves only one day, Today.

Any person can fight the battle of just one day. It is when you and I add the burdens of those two awful eternities, Yesterday and Tomorrow, that we break down.

It is not the experience of Today that drives a person mad. It is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened Yesterday and the dread of what Tomorrow may bring.

Let us, therefore, live but one day at a time.

Author Unknown

My Welcome Prayer

I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it is
for my healing.
I welcome all persons and situations, thoughts and feelings.
I let go of my need to accumulate.
I let go of my need to be busy.
I let go of my need to be in control.
I let go of my need to feel important.
I let go of my need for approval.
I let go of my need to change other people.
I open myself to the presence and love of God and to God’s action within.

The Heart of a Child

“Unless you change and become like little children you cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 18:3). What an extraordinary statement from Jesus. To fully participate in the life of God’s Kingdom we must be willing to develop the heart of a child. So what does it mean for an adult to develop the heart of a child?

We adults have a tendency to be self-sufficient, to rely on our own power and strength, to be independent, to sort out our lives ourselves. But the truth is self-sufficiency does not work. A time will come when our own power and strength will fail us. To develop the heart of a child is to accept that we cannot go it alone, that we are too weak and powerless to save ourselves. It is to hand the control of our lives over to the Father of Jesus. The Father of Jesus can be trusted. He is on our side. He knows and wants what is best for us. He is the one who saves us. To develop the heart of a child is to let the Father save us. It is to let ourselves be dependent on him.

Another tendency we adults have is to make ourselves acceptable to God by our own efforts. We think that we have to win God’s approval and favour by doing good deeds. We are convinced that we need to prove to God that we are worthy of his love, that in fact we are worth loving. But this is not the Gospel message. According to Jesus the Father’s love is gift, not achievement. As the prodigal son discovered the Father’s love does not have to be earned. It is free. The Father is pleased with us because we are and as we are. To develop the heart of a child is to let the Father love us in the way the Father wants to love us – unconditionally. This is the only way the Father knows how to love.

Perhaps the difficulty we adults have is we think we need to be perfect to be loved by God. But God is not interested in our perfection. Like a good parent he knows we are weak and prone to failure. He knows that we are likely to make a mess of things. We see our weaknesses and failures as an obstacle; the Father sees them as a strength and an opportunity. Our weaknesses and failures allow us to throw ourselves on to the mercy of the Father. This is what a child does knowing that its parents will embrace it. There is nothing that delights the Father more than to be able to hold us in his compassionate and tender embrace.

Therese of Lisieux, known as Therese of the Child Jesus, once said that when she died she wanted to come before God with empty hands. Therese obviously came to the realisation that all is gift and grace and that therefore the only thing to do is to surrender and trust. Surrender and trust come easy to children but not to adults. For this reason adults may need to have experiences of failure and brokenness and disappointment and loss. It is these experiences that surrender us and enable us to develop the heart of a child. It would seem that the Father wants us to come home with empty hands.