Sermon Delivered at Church of the Good Shepherd
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Sunday, October 11, 2021, at 8:00 & 10:00 a.m.
By the Rev. Stephen C. Galleher
God’s Call to Compassion
“For I know how many are your transgressions,
and how great are your sins—you who afflict the righteous, who take a bribe,
and push aside the needy in the courts.”
(Amos 5:12)
“Surprise us with love at daybreak; * then we’ll skip and dance all the day
long.”
(Psalm 90:14, The Message Bible)
I believe that there is one need and one wish that every human
being has, and that is the need and the wish to be loved and to love.
And I further believe that this is all we need. And this sentence,
which is the thesis sentence of a series I am beginning this morning,
is the frame in which I wish to speak with you about compassion.
Compassion: the love of and the love for ourselves and one another.
The constant harping on sin that we find in the Bible, and
especially in the Old Testament, as we find in the Book of Amos, is not
so much to chide and shame us but to call us out of what we are
missing—that our lack of concern, of deep concern, for ourselves and
one another kills our spirit. When we hide love from one another, when
we pursue our own selfish ends (this is what all the fuss about rich
people having trouble getting into heaven is all about), then it is
ourselves who will suffer. That is, we bring judgment on ourselves. I
believe that anger, if you want to call it that, is our frustration as to what
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we are missing. Every moment we fail to love is us digging our own
graves of sorrow and alienation. Amos says as much: “Seek good and
not evil, that you may live.” Virtue is its own reward. We simply feel
better. We reflect the light and the love of God itself. This is why the
psalmist has the boldness to declare, “Surprise us with love at daybreak;
* then we’ll skip and dance all the day long!”
Did you hear about the husband who said that his wife said that he
lacked empathy? He replied, “I don’t understand how she could feel that
way!”
Haven’t we all noticed a lack of empathy in the land? What’s
going on with all this nastiness we show toward one another? Can we
even put our minds around the number of people who have died from
this dread COVID? Our own pastor, Father Shearer, fell prey to this
virus. Our failure to fully face our grief is part of what lies behind the
fear and the anger so rampant in our land. We are in an empathy
epidemic. Fear shuts down empathy. And our anger is partly our anger at
ourselves that this empathy is being stunted.
Compassion mean having feeling towards another. Having passion
with someone else. We won’t take time distinguishing sympathy,
empathy and compassion. Love is love and we want and need plenty of
it, both to receive and to give! But, of course, we need for this
compassion to begin with ourselves. Most of us are much too hard on
ourselves. When we are hard on ourselves, it follows that we lack the
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ability to look up and out on our brothers and sisters standing right next
to us.
The Latin word passion means suffering, and we look to Jesus
whose compassion confronts us every Sunday when we look at the Cross
on which Jesus hung. Can we even believe someone’s empathy going
the length of suffering right alongside us, with us? Our pain is his pain.
Boy, that should wake us up! As long as we keep the focus on ourselves,
compassion will be limited.
And yet, and yet, we have to come to be comfortable with who we
are, accept our shortcomings, know that we are not the manager of the
universe. Letting go of the control stick can help us relax into the
wonderful people that we really are, and then we can look outwards and
forget ourselves and join in the dance with others.
The funny thing is this: we cannot really forget ourselves until we
love ourselves and have a clue as to exactly who we are! And, to take
this even further, coming to love ourselves depends on trusting and
knowing that we are loved. We receive the love of parents, friends,
clerks in the grocery store; this strengthens our sense of who we are;
then we can throw this love we have found away on others.
Love, love, love. All you really need is love. The Beatles were
dead right. This love is not all kum-ba-yah. It is not all about feeling
good and rosy. I close with this poem by folk singer David Wilcox:
It is love who mixed the mortar
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And it’s love who stacked these stones
And it’s love that made the stage here
Though it looks like we’re alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it’s love that wrote the play
In this darkness
Love can show the way
—David Wilcox, “Show the Way”
Amen.