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!

 

That's a lot of failure

In the lectionary today:

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
~The good news according to John, chapter 5

Now let's assume the waters stirred daily and we take this guy as this word that he tried to get himself to the pool of water believing that if he was the first one in he would be healed. That's 365 days of failure each year times 38 years or 13870 failed attempts at healing. And even if he was disheartened and gave up and didn't even try 10% of the time, he DID try almost 12500 times and FAILED every time.

All I can think of is persistent desperation. And I wonder if I could handle that level of failure and I wonder if I would believe a guy who said, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

I have no grand conclusions, but I'm totally in awe of this level of persistence and desperation.