Take A Chance on Compassion

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, welcome to God’s living room,

Something is really, really wrong with our world. Something is wrong basically and fundamentally with our world. It is it because we don’t know enough. I don’t think so. I mean we have more accumulated knowledge than even before. Is it because scientific progress isn’t up to par? I don’t think so. Over the past few decades our scientific development can be nothing but amazing. Our scientific expertise has allowed us to chart super highways through the expanse of the skies. To find the real cause of the ill in the world, we must turn to the heart and soul of people. In fact, we can actually narrow it down from there. The problem with the world is not so much out there as the problem is right here in my heart and in yours. The problem is that we have let our scientific and materialistic advances far out pace the most important relationship of all, our relationship with God. The problem isn’t an atomic bomb that can kill thousands but the atomic bomb of our hearts that can come up with all kinds of hatred.

CS Lewis in poem writes:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am a mercenary and self seeking through and through; I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn. Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside of my proper skin; I talk of love - a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek - But self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Martin Luther King Jr, said, “To go forward we are going to have to go backward and reclaim Christian values that we have left behind. Like the dignity of all people, every person has worth and is made in the image of God. Now I want you to know the more we know the real Jesus the more loving and compassionate we become. This is how God sees people. Let’s read it together: Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” I was blessed to grow up in El Paso, TX. At the time, I didn’t think so. But now I know so. El Paso was about 80% Latino, 5% African American and 15% cracker. It was kind of like this big bag of gum balls. All the colors in one community. El Paso, like all places had people who were prejudice. I would routinely here things like: “Dumb Latinos, Dumb Blacks and Dumb Whites.” (The names of course were a lot worse.) The cool thing for me was I got to confront those lies with the truth of Scripture like in the passage we read before and I also got to experience the fallacy of those comments just sitting in my classes. Because in my classes were not only dumb Latinos, Blacks and Whites but also brilliant Latinos, Blacks and Whites. I had a friend in high school who was African American and the first two times he came over to the house, he would just yell out my name from his bike out in the street. Somewhere along the way he had been taught, told, perceived that he was not allowed to go into a white person’s home. Now, my friend was inferior, but it wasn’t because of his color. It was because of his basketball skills while they were good, were not good enough.

I know we all have a sinful nature that jacks us all up in so many different ways. But is prejudice a natural thing? Last week I was playing tennis at Lake Park. Kids of all colors were play together at the playground without a clue that they are “supposed to hate each other and not trust each other.” Prejudice is learned. It is an acquired thing. We have to be taught to hate and fear and mistrust. Taught to not trust an different shape eye or a different color skin. James 3:9,10 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. 1 John 4:20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. Keep in mind those are God’s words not mine. There is no wiggle room or yeah buts. That’s the deal. We hate someone we can’t love God.

Jesus is serious about reconciliation. 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Jesus was dead serious about this whole reconciliation thing. And the only hope for reconciliation and justice in this hate filled world is when each one of us enters into a vibrant, daily, love relationship with Jesus. When we are made into new people, then we will be able to reach out with a love we have not previously known before and we will be able to have the compassion and the courage to build bridges with each other just as Christ did for us. E V Hill said, “We can’t legislate brotherhood. Don’t put your trust in the left wing or the right wing when the bird is dead. The system that keeps us locked into our roles can only change by people who are changed on the inside. Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

As you and I flip through the pages of the New testament we find that Jesus broke down racial and gender bias’. He went places where no one had gone before and he would take people with him. He broke down man made rules of the day and expressed the heart of God to everyone and they would kill him for it. Jesus didn’t just have the right attitude and the proper perspective, he also did the right thing. Jesus was a friend to people who had no friends. Compassion flowed form his heart. And he rolled up his sleeves and got involved with people.

Compassion is a churning in our gut that will not let us rest until we do something. Maybe there is a churning in your gut when you see hungry children, AIDS orphans, refuge compounds, homeless people, cancer patients and their families, a kid at school who gets made fun of, or when you see social injustice. It is a churning that says to you, “that is not right, and I must make it right.” Compassion gets into our feet leading us. Compassion gets into our hands providing service. Compassion gets into our pocketbooks leading us to support. And we take a chance. Recognize that compassion always involves taking a chance and a reach. Reconciliation was not just a nice concept in the mind of Jesus. He approached the unapproachable. He touched the untouchable, he infected the infected. Jesus knew the power of coming next to someone and touching them. Jesus touched the leper who was labeled as unclean. But compassion got churning in the heart of Jesus and he had to take a chance to reach and touch this guy. And when he touched him, the healing began. Can you imagine the leper? When was the last time he felt a touch? The last time he hugged a kid? He kissed his wife? Someone even bumped into him? Jesus knew before he needed to be healed, he needed to be touched. Article from paper about Marquette graduate in Honduras who saw children eating rotten food from the dumpsters and be compelled to touch them, love them, and build a cafeteria for them (June 9, 2010 Milw. JS).

Compassion says everyone needs to be cared for and touched. You realize, right, that you and I have never locked eyes with anyone who doesn’t dearly matter to God. Every society has their untouchable, their list of the last five they would invite to dinner. So I ask you and me: Who is in our last five? Why are they untouchable? Is it because of their race, their social standing, education, maybe they dress really weird or have like 50 too many tattoos or piercing, is their past or present lifestyle, or perhaps they have hurt us in the past. Compassion always takes a chance and makes a reach and that is where healing begins. Galatians 6:2 says, Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. And Galatians 5:6 says, The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Compassion involves taking a chance and making a reach. It has been said that, “We live on a contaminated planet. It is contaminated on every level. It should be quarantined from God. No reasonable God go near it with a ten foot pole but Jesus is no reasonable God. He became a human being and took our uncleanness but instead of being infected by the world, he infected the world with his holiness and perfection. It is still spreading. My challenge for us is simply this: to be like Jesus and to take a chance on compassion!

Prayer.