Choosing compassion: Suffering with others

Reynoso ("Formed through suffering" in The Kingdom Life) repeatedly talks about how while suffering can be redeemed by God, it is not something we ask for, except for in one instance: we are called to bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2).

Now this seems like a choice; I could choose not to enter into another person's suffering, I could look away. But in I Corinthians 12, Paul writes about the community of believers being the many parts of one body. And "If one part suffers, every part suffers with it...(vs 26)." Looking away doesn't mean I escape the effects.

And Jesus did not look away. Mark 6:34 says, "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things." He arrived, he saw, he had compassion. The Latin roots of the word compassion mean to suffer with or to suffer together.

Here are some thoughts on having Jesus' compassion:

Presence
Jesus sees the crowd, he is moved by them, and then he walks among them.

Just as knowing that God is near us and not indifferent to us is a consolation to us in our times of suffering, we need to choose to enter the suffering of others with our presence. I think we shirk this role because it seems like not doing anything. It's just being around. It's being around without a chore to complete, without the right words to say, without anything but being there. It'll probably be awkward, but that's ok.

Provision
While he is with the crowd, Jesus teaches them. That's what his compassion moves him to. With our limited abilities, I think we have a limited capacity to provide tangible help in suffering, but we still can try and should respond to opportunities to do so. In fact Paul's encouragement is to "...not become weary in doing good...as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers (Galatians 6:9-10)."

When we are able to push back against the suffering of others, we are participating with God in bringing goodness to the world and extending the reign and rule of God's kingdom.

Sometimes this means a material response, food, shelter, clothing, etc. Sometimes this means using our influence or knowledge. Middle-class Americans have tremendously more influence and knowledge and most people across the globe. Sometimes it's an act of service, picking up medication, volunteering childcare, fixing a broken toilet.

Prayer
Jesus got so into teaching the crowd that they were together through several meal times and in the middle of nowhere (Mark 6:35). They had a spiritual need, and now the crowd had a physical need, they were hungry. This is the five loaves and two fish story. I think we always tend to focus on how this small amount of food miraculously feeds five thousand. We miss the part where Jesus holds on to not enough food, looks up to heaven and gives thanks (vs 41).

In suffering with others, we pray. We pray with what we know is not enough. We trust the Holy Spirit to perfect the prayers we cannot form (Romans 8:26-27).

Perseverance
Suffering people frequently suck. They make choices that hurt themselves or others more. They say awkward things or don't say anything at all. They can be ungrateful. And even if they suffer in a saintly way, sometimes the suffering just keeps on coming and it doesn't end soon, or soon enough.

Welp, as members of one body there's no get-out-of-jail-free card. In fact, in John 17, Jesus says that our oneness, unity, ability to be one body, is evidence to the world of the love of Jesus (see John 17:20-23, The Message).

We must continue to be present for one another, to provide for one another, to pray for one another. We press on even when the miracle healing doesn't come, or the promised "better" doesn't arrive, especially then because our God is a God who perseveres, who does not wait for us to be pretty before he comes to us and loves us.

As we celebrate Easter, we celebrate a risen King, who came to earth as a baby and was here with humanity on earth, experienced the joys and discomforts of our lives while living in perfect unity with God the Father. He died on the cross, was buried, and on the third day beat death and rises again. The perfect, Creator God of the universe fully suffered humanity's death sentence. In doing so, death lost its sting. In Jesus, there is life. We can choose to follow him as our King, a King who knows our every pain, our every heartache, a King who promises us rest.

Alleluia! He is risen!

 

Invitation to beauty

-Sky Rift by Nicholas A. Tonelli

Over the past week, I've been buffeted by this idea that NOT complaining is a part of gospel living. We've been trained to think that sharing the gospel is about telling people about creation, the fall, and redemption through Jesus.

But I was reading a book with some friends, and the author pointed out that after the Apostle Paul, writer of many New Testament books while sitting in a drafty prison, says, "Do everything without complaining or arguing," [WHAT!!] Paul explains the reason this way:

 "so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. (From Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi, chpt 2)"

First of all, I get that "good" people, "nice" people should not complain or argue. I just don't always want to be good or nice. But Paul claims that this not complaining, not arguing does two things: 1) It shapes who we become. 2) It attracts people to the word of life.

Just as pianists practice scales in becoming pianists, children of God who are blameless and pure, or innocent as one translation puts it, train for it by practicing not complaining or arguing. When we choose this path, we are changed.

This change is beautiful. Think about the night sky with the stars twinkling out of the darkness. On a warm summer night, it's a wonder to behold. As the practice of not complaining or arguing takes hold, our lives light up with beauty like the night sky, and this is an offering of the word of life.

A friend recently blogged this : "There’s a mother of two I’ve gotten to know, and for a long time I felt like something was weird about her until I realized that I’ve never heard her complain. About her kids. About anything." You don't have to wear a sign that says, "I've given up complaining." People will notice because it is attractive, because it is light in a world of darkness, because it is life in the midst of death.

But let's say you don't care. You don't care about other people, you don't care to become an innocent child of God. Fine. How about this: Complaining and arguing are making you miserable.  Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, a therapist lays out the 14 habits of highly miserable people.  Stuff like, "Be critical. Make sure to have an endless list of dislikes and voice them often, whether or not your opinion is solicited." or "Pick fights. This is an excellent way of ruining a relationship with a romantic partner. Once in a while, unpredictably, pick a fight or have a crying spell over something trivial and make unwarranted accusations. The interaction should last for at least 15 minutes and ideally occur in public."

The church women's study this semester is reading through Calm my Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow. The first couple chapters go back to Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi. From prison, he tells them that he's learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. Who doesn't want that? I think about my life; I think about the lives of my friends; I want peace, contentment for all of us. And I think many of us, if we were promised eternal peace and contentment at the top of a mountain, we would climb and drag ourselves up the mountain, we would walk over broken glass, we would give up our last cup of water.

After Paul says that he's learned contentment whether hungry or full, rich or poor, then he says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The miracle that Jesus did for Paul, that He can do for us, is that He can train us in the practice of not complaining or arguing. It will take a miracle. Thankfully, Jesus is in the miracle business. Let us join Him in His work.

Jesus for 'special' people

My husband and I met at University Presbyterian Church just off the UCLA campus. It was a really different church from the ones I had grown up in. Being oriented to the college campus, most congregants were undergraduate or graduate students with a few people who stuck around after graduation and even fewer who had no affiliation with the university.  Having a Korean pastor, most of the congregation was also Asian; fresh-off-the-boat international students and US-born Asian-Americans. So picture a congregation between 18-35 years old, mostly Asian, with elite university-educated minds.

Nevertheless, what strikes me about my time there is what a motley crew of 'special' people we were. When I say 'special' I think I actually mean odd & needy. I arrived at the church in culture shock after having spent a year overseas; I had very little financial means; I was skeptical of the value of the formal church setting; and I'd had a really bad roommate experience while overseas. I was a mess. And as I think of all the friends at that church, I think about what a mess they were too. Individual, messy stories.

Our leaving LA coincided with our feeling that it was time to move on from that  church. So I'm not saying it was a perfect church. But a distinguishing feature of that community is loving messy people and loving messy people who are supposed to be ok. University elites are supposed to ok, to have succeeded in the past and to succeed on into the future. What I got to participate in for myself and with others was Jesus loving the little child in each of us; the child that we'd hidden away but was scared nonetheless, was hurt and confused.

Now that I've had some time away, I think how small my dissatisfactions were compared to the privilege of being with a pastor and church committed to loving 'special' people.

Crisis

Despite the title of this post, there are many parts of my life that I feel quite happy about. The family is more or less healthy for the first time in months. I've mostly come to peace about my mostly stay-at-home-mom, but partly research linguist life. My husband and I are about to celebrate our 6th anniversary on a fun date this weekend. I'm discipling a younger believer in the faith in a way I have not since college. I'm helping the church women's ministry with some big picture thinking which is totally my cup of tea.

Good stuff. Good stuff.

Nevertheless, I'm at a total crisis regarding two things: 1) the centrality of the "Great Commission" and 2) therefore, being at a church laser-focused on the Great Commission.

The "Great Commission" comes from the last chapter of the gospel of Matthew where Jesus commissions his disciples saying,

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." ~The good news according to Matthew, chapter 28

 This is probably the central mission I've heard since I was eight when my parents moved us from a Chinese church to a large, mostly Anglo church. The front of that church said, "To know Him and to make Him known" and over the door on the way out it said, "Go Ye".

I am not repudiating either the truth that Jesus commissioned his disciples and by extension us/me to making disciples of all nations or my American evangelical heritage.

However, I question the primacy of the Great Commission over the Great Commandments:

‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ~The good news according to Matthew, chapter 22

It is hand waving to collapse the Great Commandments into the Great Commission. Making, baptizing, and teaching disciples may be part of loving God and my neighbors but I don't accept that it is the whole of it. I know why the Great Commission is appealing to me; it has a "Christ's love compels" motivation and a to-do list. It's easy to see the Great Commission as a task to be accomplished.  And a good, just, moral task. And if I'm doing that I'm ok. People should like me. God should like me.

And that's the messed up part. That's where I worry I've lost the Great Commandments. Is love about to-do lists? It seems that way sometimes when I'm putting away laundry, but then again not when I'm cooking.

On that note, I'll say that cooking might be where the Great Commandments and Great Commission meet. When I cook for my family, friends, and neighbors, I feel like I'm loving God by living out who he made me to be, I'm loving the people around me by putting tasty goodness in front of them, and I'm making disciples as I teach my children to lovingly serve people.

By adding in the Great Commandments to my heart song, I've destabilized the place of the Great Commission which has been so central for so long, I feel like I don't know how to move forward. By adding the Great Commandments to my heart song, I worry that my church community which is so explicitly focused on the Great Commission won't have a place for me. I'm in a place of disorientation. Crisis.

Affirmation

Affirmation, on the one hand, feels like a really namby-pamby, soft, needy word. On the other hand, my experience is that it can be a razor sharp blade that frees someone to be more of who they were made to be.

My deepest hurt, I've realized, about our current church is the lack of affirmation and the constant, relentless message that we are not doing enough, not doing what we are supposed to be doing. I've been grappling with this for some months now, and it feels good to be able to identify the pain, but also stunning to see it in black and white. Partly because the problem seems abusive. The beatings will continue until morale improves. But mostly because I believe in the vision and mission of the church and was so encouraged to find a community with such a heart. Additionally, I believe we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. I believe that we could, we should be affirmed.

To be honest, I don't know what to do about this. No community is perfect; I don't think we're looking for that. But I feel we are being ground under and I don't know what it would take to live free.