Jesus
Bade Them, “Follow Me”
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the September 10, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
“Which
of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands
of robbers?”
The
expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus
told him, “Go and do likewise.” Luke
10:36-37, NIV
Compassion can be a rare commodity at times, but when we
need it, we quickly learn who has it and who does not. Because we all are
broken, either by something we have done, or by something someone has done to
us, we all need it. Why is it so hard to find then? From Cain who slew Abel to
the modern day, some seem to have difficulty being compassionate toward others.
Perhaps it is because of our brokenness that we lack the compassion others need
to see in us. However, that brokenness should help us to understand the brokenness
in others. We should have empathy for their situation because we have been
there also. Empathy shapes the root of every form of compassion.
When we need compassion from others, we usually don’t
care what form that compassion comes in. We only want the hurting to stop. Sometimes
simply to be held and know that someone sees value in us when our self-esteem
has been shattered is enough. The world is filled with such shattered people.
Many of them may be doing crazy, even despicable things because of their pain.
What has happened in their lives may have frozen their hearts and seared their
minds to the point they are captive to the chains of their brokenness and
riding a train whose only destination is oblivion. Perhaps this is why
antidepressants are among the most commonly prescribed medications today. The
picture is not a pleasant one. No wonder we desire a way out.
Sadly, when we don’t find compassion for our pain, we
can become less likely to be compassionate toward others. If we succumb to that
cycle, the world can become a very dark place for everyone. Even a just world,
without compassion, is harsh and foreboding. The church also can be infected by
the darkness. Instead of showing compassion, we can become harsh and
judgmental. Instead of attempting to heal the pain, we focus on the failings of
the individual that allowed it to happen, further emphasizing the weakness of
another and cranking down their level of self-esteem yet another notch. When we
do this to people, and they unite in fellowship with the church, we have
trained them to do the same to others. Then when we need compassion ourselves,
should we expect to find it from those we have modeled compassion to so poorly?
Perhaps like the rich man who feels disaster is far from him,[i] we feel we will never need
grace from anyone else, especially not someone who is younger in the fellowship
than we are, or comes from a different socio-economic status or ethnic
background. But Jesus tells us we may be mistaken in that assumption. Life can
change in an instant for each of us, whether saint or sinner.
As Christians we are bidden to take to the world what
Jesus has taught us.[ii]
For some reason we have interpreted this to mean telling everyone what terrible
sinners they are and telling them to repent or be lost. “Turn or burn” I believe
is the colloquial phrase. We do not understand that we have done something
Jesus never did. We have somehow managed to often divorce compassion from our
testimony. Perhaps this is not the result of anything we have done in modern
times, but is the legacy of what has gone before. At some time in the past,
dogma became more important than compassion. That this was a problem even in
the days of the Apostles can be seen in Paul’s felt need to write about it to
the Corinthians.[iii]
Even when we recognize the importance of acting out loving compassion toward
others, we tend to keep it walled up in the church, preferring to show
compassion toward those of the household of faith and not at all to those
outside. In doing so, we may not realize that failure to show compassion
anywhere diminishes it everywhere, even within the walls of the church. The
Jews discovered the truth of this, they saw their faith as contained within the
walls of the temple and all others were excluded from those precincts. Anyone
who dared to violate that could pay with their life. Only those who practiced
the pure faith of the temple could find sanctuary and blessing there. This typically
excluded even the Samaritans who felt they were worshipping the same God.
When the temple was destroyed in 70 CE, even those “pure”
believers found no compassion in the precincts of the temple, being slain by Romans,
some of the very outsiders they themselves had found it impossible to love or show
compassion to previously. Jesus tried to break down this wall of
hard-heartedness, by purposefully visiting Samaritan villages.[iv] When He taught about
compassion with a parable, He even illustrated it in terms of overcoming the
wall of prejudice that existed between Jews and Samaritans.[v] But this was only an
example of the far greater need to overcome prejudice throughout the world.
Only by doing that could the gospel commission be accomplished. Some may feel
that telling others about Jesus and inviting them to accept Him as their Savior
is the fulfilling of that commission but it is not. If that is all we do, we
have failed.
We see the results of that kind of failure all around us.
While Jesus commanded us to be baptized “in the name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Ghost,”[vi]
we have reinterpreted that as baptizing in the name of our peculiar denomination.
For instance, a Seventh-day Adventist minister would never baptize someone into
the Southern Baptist Church. A Lutheran minister would never baptize someone
into the Eastern Orthodox Church. We have divided Christ up into many pieces
and anathematized those various pieces from one another. As a result it is not
only difficult to show compassion to non-Christians, but we have placed
barriers against compassion even within the Christian community. Then as if
that were not enough, we created barriers within our denominations as well.
We have created hierarchical clerical structures within
our churches wherein we have relinquished control over the spiritual
development of all to an ordained and empowered few. Those few make decisions
for all the rest about who will be allowed to receive compassion and who will
not. We have seen the ugly side of this in our churches when people are
marginalized based on gender or disability. Compassion would dictate giving
women an equal voice in the church with men. That has not been the case.
Compassion would say that we care for the disabled among us. But in far too
many cases when church workers have become disabled through injury or illness,
they have been unceremoniously “kicked to the curb.” The sentiment at times
being, “Let the government take care of them so that they are not a burden on
the finances of the church.” When we treat those of our own denomination with
so little compassion, it becomes understandable why we might not have the
perspective necessary to treat those of other denominations with compassion
either, and even less so those who are not even “Christian.” This becomes
problematic when we are expected to invite others to come to the gospel feast.
How can we do that when there is no feast for everyone? How can we do that when
there is a strong likelihood that they will be used and abused instead of
appreciated and nurtured? How do we invite others to join a church where dogma
has separated from compassion?
This is not a new problem. As said previously, Christ
dealt with it during His ministry. In spite of widespread corruption and little
regard by the priests for the common people, when He healed lepers, He still
directed them to the temple and the priests, even a Samaritan was told the
same.[vii] In spite of the state of
the church and the priesthood, Jesus performed acts of compassion in the temple.[viii] He was aware of the
corruption in the temple and warned His followers about it, telling them to
obey the religious leaders, but do not behave as they behave.[ix] Thus it appears that in spite
of institutional church structures, Jesus bids us not only to come directly to
Him, but to serve Him without regard to the failings of the church. As a
result, we are to demonstrate the compassion that He modeled.
As Seventh-day Adventists we like to refer to ourselves as “The Remnant Church”
which keeps the commandments of God and has the testimony of Jesus.[x] This may be simply saying
in other words something similar to the Roman Catholics who see themselves as
the only true church. We have become very good at the first part, even
expanding the Ten Commandments into 28 commandments to be obeyed in order to
remain in good and proper fellowship in our remnant or “true” church. But in
doing so, we have overlooked the example, witness, or testimony of Jesus which
was compassion. We can rescue this as Jesus did, personally. We need not wait
for orders from the pastorate, the General Conference or any church administrative
entity. That entity cannot answer for us in the judgment. It is up to each of
us individually whether or not we will surrender to the compassionate grace of
Jesus and then allow that grace to flow through us to everyone we meet,
regardless of race, gender, denomination, or whatever barriers may exist to
separate them from that. As God is able to overcome all obstacles, Christ-like
compassion can breach those barriers and set everyone free. We are offered the
privilege to each be a part of that.
