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!

 

When you feel you don't fit in

Dear Children,

While it is on my mind, I thought I would address something I hope you will not have to encounter for another decade. I think most people at some point in their life feel they do not fit in. By virtue of your family history, you will actually not fit in. While there are more and more families with parents of different ethnicities, most of your classmates will not be in this situation. Certainly, we as your parents were not. But we both did grow up in a home culture that was different from the surrounding culture. And it is from that experience that I want to offer two truths that can be lifelines as you navigate these tricky waters for yourself.

1) God did not make a mistake when he made you.
2) You have an invitation to belong to God's household.

God did not make a mistake when he made you
As a young person, I often felt like a cosmic oops, that God had been distracted when he made me and that's how I ended up being a girl born to Chinese parents in the American South. Like wouldn't it have been easier if I had been born Chinese in China or White in America? Growing up, in the US I was never American enough, and in Chinese countries, I was never Chinese enough. You may feel similarly.

But something that helped me a lot was a chapel when I was in 6th grade where the speaker said, "God does not make mistakes." I don't remember the verse she was speaking on, but here is one to offer you food for thought:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
~Psalm 139

The image here is one of God taking great care in crafting a life. God picked out your eye color, hair, nose, and mouth. And he built them on the genetic differences between Asians and Caucasians. Likewise, he knew you would have a particular cultural environment and has plans for that. Your ethnic background is not a cosmic mistake.

You have an invitation to belong to God's household
In your everyday life, you may feel like you don't fit in, you may be told you don't fit in, and you may actually not fit in. That's an awful feeling, I know. But this verse was huge for me when I was processing all of this. Listen to this:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,
~Paul's letter to the Ephesians

When you accept that Jesus's death and resurrection was for your sin too, you get a new citizenship and a new family. The spiritual reality is that God sweeps you into his family and loves you perfectly just as he made you. You have a place to belong. And this is true even if there are people actively telling you that you don't belong. And this is true even if the people telling you you don't belong are people who say they are Christ followers.

Now, I hope that you have a few friends who are also hapa. That y'all laugh about the weird, awkward things that come with it. And I hope you have Uncle Jonny and Uncle Kevin around to show you the ropes. But iffn you don't, I think these truths can carry you a long way.

I love you,
Mom

Love, Actually

On this Valentine's weekend, I want to discuss why I find myself mostly watching action flicks. Well, first, my husband has a big DVD collection from his single days. Going through our pre-paid entertainment collection means that we watch guy-oriented, action-flicks a fair amount. This was initally annoying. However, the more I'm married the more I find that watching the alternative and what I used to watch, chick-flicks, doesn't do anything for me. Now that I'm in a real live, flesh-and-blood relationship, I can hardly stand to watch what passes for one on screen. At its best, an on-screen relationship is like eating cotton candy; a sweet carnival treat that isn't filling. But really, most of the time, I think to myself, "But you guys actually suck as people and have no idea how to survive as a couple long term."

I've been thinking about love lately because I am recognizing how UNloving part of me is. That's the part that feels, "I want what I want and that's what I should get." But I'm also observing that I'm getting Holy Spirit nudges, more like sharp elbows, to consider, "What is best for him/her?" And as I work out what is best for another person and move in that direction, I find that it comes at a cost to me. But I'm paying that cost and I can pay that cost because Jesus paid the ultimate price for me.

My objection to fantasy, Hollywood relationships is that it sells love as a feeling. So I feel cheated when love has me awake early taking care of my child while my husband sleeps in. But when I look to Jesus, what I see is someone who claimed to love people and demonstrated it by dying in their place so they could be rescued from eternal death. When I look away from Hollywood toward Jesus, love is hardly a feeling. It is sacrificial action for the good of another. In that context, it becomes important to me that my husband gets the sleep he needs and I can gladly (most of the time) take kid duty.

I have seen long-term marriages that seem to thrive while neither party are believers. That's amazing to me and maybe I don't know the ins and outs of those relationships. But in my marriage, my parent-child relationships, my sibling relationships, my friend to friend relationships, the model of Jesus's sacrificial love and the promise that God will help me actually love others--that's what makes love possible in my life. Maybe I'm a particularly crappy person, but being honest here, without that, I'm a pretty selfish person who couldn't give a rip about how anyone else is doing.

Sacrificial action on behalf of another modeled after Jesus's life; that's love, actually.

The urgent long view

My current conundrum is that we don't know how many days on earth we get. I was remembering my friend Brian this morning. He has no more days; I have no more days with him. I still find that deeply saddening.

If I knew I had only 30 more days in my life, I would feel a deep sense of urgency to call some of my best friends and tell them, "I have 30 more days and beyond that my hope is in Jesus Christ, beyond that I believe I will experience beauty and majesty that we only get a taste of in this life, beyond that I will be in eternity with God. You too can experience hope, beauty, and majesty in this life and the next because of who Jesus is and what he has done."

But I don't know that. I may well have 30 + 30 years left in my life. And how sweet would be it be to have all those years with these friends and new friends? When I take the long view, I feel I mustn't force my hand, mustn't try and run ahead, mustn't try and rush things. Instead, I should live and enjoy each moment for what it is. Not rushing relationships to me means being a normal friend, not being a weird religious freak who is acquainted with someone. But that means that it might be year 8 in a relationship before someone says, "Will you pray for me and my family;" something that happened just last week. Year 8! In the urgent world, who has time for year 8? But in light of eternity, what is 8 years? Nothing.

In any event, I feel kind of stuck. So there it is, the problem of the urgent long view.