Posts Tagged ‘compassion’
Compassion, from God’s Heart of Mercy – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
“When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38).
What is this labor for which the laborers are so few? Here Jesus is inviting us to co-labor, to collaborate with him. And what is the labor? It is to be agents of God’s mercy.1 Jesus has compassion for the crowds “because they were harassed and helpless.” And why was this the case? For the same reasons as today. People suffering from poverty in many forms: fear, loneliness, violation, powerlessness, discrimination, injustice, homelessness, hopelessness, hunger, and more.
Compassion, which is the gift of mercy, springs from the heart of God. In the absence of compassion, in absence of God’s tender loving mercy at work in our hearts, we will become what the scriptures call “hard hearted.”2 Being “hard hearted” will affect all of our relationships: our relationship to our own self; our relationship to others; our relationship to God. Read More
Anchor yourself in God – Br. Jack Crowley
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In our Gospel this morning, Jesus tells us to take the log out of our own eye before looking at the speck in our neighbor’s eye. We have all sorts of expressions that get at a similar meaning. Focus on yourself. Stay in your own lane. Mind your own business. Keep your side of the street clean…my personal favorite is put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.
What’s amazing about these expressions is you could probably say them to anyone, at any age, anywhere on earth and people would understand what you mean. These are timeless truths and make common sense, yet personally I fail at following them all the time.
One of the great paradoxes of human nature is that we can think about ourselves all the time and still have the energy to obsess over other people. This is especially true when we obsess over the faults of other people – their mistakes, their shortcomings, their annoying habits, and so on. We can talk at length about how other people are driving us crazy, yet when it comes to opening up about our own soul, that takes work. Read More
God’s Pity – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
If you have occasion to study a tapestry or quilt, where you can view both the front side and the back side, you often discover that though the front side may be more beautiful, the back side is more instructive and shows all the quite-hidden work that has enabled what is presented on the front side. That is a fact of life.
There is a word which surfaces in the Psalm we prayed a moment ago. This same word appears many times elsewhere in the psalter: pity.[i] The word “pity” comes from the same etymological root as our word “piety.” Pity is a holy compassion, and it begins with God’s piety. The psalmist cries out:
Have pity on me, Lord, for I am weak;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are racked.[ii]
The psalmist also proclaims:
[God]shall have pity on the lowly and poor
[and]shall preserve the lives of the needy.[iii]
Isn’t it so reassuring that God, as the master weaver, knows us: knows what we present “up front,” and knows from whence it all comes, our “back side.” Isn’t it comforting that God who created us, calls us, uses us, is thankful for us, knows us well, pities us with a loving compassion.
Today we remember our departed Brothers of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist who, over the years, died in the month of May. We cherish these archival memories of our predecessors. God took pity on them, the complex and sometimes-tangled threads of their lives, and wove into them such amazing, distinctive, colorful, often complex and beautiful lives. We remember these departed Brothers both with amazement and with gratitude. We also remember how they give witness to God who looks on us all with such loving pity, and with such promise.
[i]For example, Psalm 9:13; 17:10; 25:15; 26:11; 72:13; 109:11.
[ii] Psalm 6:2.
[iii] Psalm 72:13.
Secret Faults and Presumptuous Sins – Br. Curtis Almquist
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Br. Curtis Almquist
Psalm 19:7-14
“…Cleanse me from my secret faults.
Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins;
let them not get dominion over me;
then shall I be whole and sound,
and innocent of a great offense…”
In the early 1970s, the great psychiatrist and clinician Karl Menninger wrote a book entitled Whatever Became of Sin? where he acknowledged that the notion of sin had fallen into disrepute because it had failed to help people to change.[i]
There is a qualifying adjective for sin in the psalm appointed for today, Psalm 19, which has currency. The psalmist prays, “Cleanse me from my secret faults. Keep your servant from presumptuous sins,” also translated, “Keep your servant from being insolent.” The word insolent comes from the Latin insolentem, which is arrogance, or haughtiness, or unwarranted pride.[ii] This “presumptuous sin” qualifier may bring some clarity to the subject of sin: arrogance, self-importance, haughtiness: a “presumptuous sin.” Here’s a disclaimer. The great Boston preacher, Phillips Brooks, said that “all sermons are autobiographical.” For the sake of full disclosure, I want you to know that I can speak with some expertise about “presumptuous sins.”
A presumptuous sin is to presume that your “take” on things is the way things are. Period. What you see, what you hear, what you sense, what you conclude, what you remember, how you judge another person or situation or conversation or altercation has a kind of invincible veracity. Your conclusion is correct, and uncontestable, and patently obvious. You might even presume you clearly know the motives in other people’s actions or comments: why it is they have done or not done, said or not said whatever it may be. It’s a kind of presumed omniscience about others. And when our subconscious sense of omniscience leads us to judge another person harshly, to condemn them, or belittle them, or to be quietly satisfied that we are not like them, we are likely in touch with a presumptuous sin. Read More
Judging Rightly – Br. Curtis Almquist
The issue that Jesus and his disciples did not wash their hands was not the Pharisees’ concern about the spread of germs. This is about ritual purity. The Mosaic Law defined certain kinds of uncleanness which required a kind of ritual washing to make oneself again worthy. The Pharisees believed that Moses received other commandments from God communicated privately to the Pharisees down through the generations.
Many, many people were labeled unclean – because of their birthright (being a Samaritan, for example); because of their vocation (being a shepherd or a tax collector, for example); because of their poverty (because they could not afford to purchase a clean animal or bird for temple sacrifice to atone for their sins); because of their sickness (because they could not afford to see a doctor); or simply because of their humanity (for example, a woman who had given birth to a child). All these people, and many other types, were unclean. Whenever a Pharisee came from the marketplace or public gathering, hand-washing was required to ritually cleanse oneself, if only because of having accidentally touched an unclean person. Before and after every meal, a ritual hand-washing was required according to certain ceremonial practices. All cups, pots, brazen vessels, and sitting places also had to be ritually cleansed. Read More
God Beholding Us Compassionately – Br. Curtis Almquist
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O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Life is full of mystery. Especially people. We are all such mysteries. Yet there are these moments when we learn something about another person, and it’s like the light turns on in our heart of understanding who they are and why. It may be in our learning about their family of origin, their life history, their health, their abilities and training, their failures or successes. Whatever. And we have this “ah-ha” moment. It’s like a missing piece has been found in the puzzle of understanding this person… and their life now makes much more sense to us. Perhaps even what before had seemed to us a stain on this person’s character, we now can see is a scar which they have worn and wear well. We realize they are something of a walking miracle. You probably have had this experience. I certainly have.
The word in the scriptures that captures this deep sense of understanding another person is mercy, often also translated as compassion. The Hebrew word for compassion comes from the same root as the word for womb. Compassion is womb-like, for both the giver and the receiver.[i] Compassion safely, gently nurtures life. Estelle Frankel, a rabbi and psychotherapist, says that, “With compassion we enable all things to grow into their most beautiful and complete form, and with compassion we learn the wisdom of the womb,” how to hold, when to hold back as we carry someone in our womb of awareness.[ii]
Read MoreWhose Property is Always to Have Mercy – Br. James Koester
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Isaiah 35: 4 – 7a; Psalm 146; James 2: 1 – 10 (11 – 13) 14 – 17; Mark 7: 24 – 37
I love this story of the healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter from the Gospel of Mark! I love it in part, because I get to say the word Syrophoenician! Just throw that into the conversation next time you are at a dinner party and see how impressed people are with your erudition! I love it because of the breathlessness with which Mark tells the story. You can almost hear the urgency in Mark’s voice, as in just six verses he tells us an awful lot, that is profoundly significant. I love it, because it harkens back to the church of my youth, and it calls to mind growing up at St. Mary’s, Regina. It is from this passage, among other sources, that Cranmer created, what some of you will remember, as the Prayer of Humble Access, or the Zoom Prayer, as a friend of mine calls it:
We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, Trusting in our own righteousness, But in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy So much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, And he in us. Amen.[1]
But mostly I love this story because it shouldn’t have happened! There is a hint of the forbidden. We see Jesus acting out of the box. He shouldn’t be where we find him today, doing what he shouldn’t be doing. And that’s just the point. Read More
A Mission Interrupted – Br. David Vryhof
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Mark 5:21-43
You might have noticed that the gospel story read this morning contains two healing miracles, not one. What makes them particularly interesting is that they are interwoven – in fact, one story interrupts the other.
We find Jesus surrounded by “a large crowd” just after his return from a healing mission that had taken him across the Sea of Galilee. A man approaches him – not just any man, but a leader of the synagogue, a person of considerable social status and importance. He is desperate with worry and grief and, abandoning all dignity, he falls to the ground at Jesus’ feet and “begs him repeatedly,” the gospel writer tells us,to come and lay his hands on his sick daughter, who is at the point of death. There is a mixture of desperation and hope in his eyes. He is convinced that Jesus has the authority to make her well, if only he will come, and quickly. So Jesus went with him. The crowd followed.
On the way a curious thing happens. Jesus suddenly stops and looks around. “Who touched me?” he asks. This strikes even his own disciples as an odd question, given that throngs of people are surrounding him and jostling against him. But he is “aware that power had gone forth from him” and he wants to know to whom it has gone. There is a pause, until a woman slowly comes forward and admits that it was she who reached out to touch his robes. Her situation is similarly desperate. The gospel writer Mark underscores the seriousness of her case by telling us that not only had she been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years, she had “endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and she was no better, but rather grew worse”! Unlike Jairus, the man whose daughter was gravely ill, she has no high social standing. Her disease has impoverished her and isolated her; anyone coming into contact with her would have been rendered ritually impure. For twelve years she had been in pain physically and ostracized socially! It is no wonder that she took the risk she did in reaching out to touch the man of God. Read More
Snorts and Groans – Br. Keith Nelson
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Mark 1:40-45
Listen for a moment and think carefully about whether you have had an experience parallel to any of the following:
The experience of a social worker as she counsels an opioid addict struggling to extricate himself from a destructive network of peer relationships;
The experience of a teacher giving hours of help after class to a student with special learning needs or a toxic home environment, neither of which the school system seems concerned about;
The experience of a doctor or nurse spending the time necessary to really listen to a patient’s needs, whilst attempting to navigate a broken medical insurance system;
The experience of a psychologist working with a transgender prison inmate who is verbally and physically abused by fellow inmates and guards, but whose gender identity is unrecognized by the prison system.
The list could go on. Read More
God's Wide Embrace – Br. David Vryhof
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Think for a moment of the images of Jesus you have seen over the years. Jesus, standing with arms stretched out in welcome, radiating gentleness and peace. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, with a lamb resting contentedly on his shoulders. Jesus, seated, tenderly welcoming little children to come near to him. These images show us a Jesus who is full of compassion, the One who reveals to us a God of compassion, mercy and love. Read More