As with generosity, there are some people who are naturally
compassionate. They have a gift for
reading the emotional atmosphere of a person or situation. As Paul writes to the church in Corinth,
these are people for whom “if one member suffers, all suffer together with
it.” (1 Corinthians 12:26). These folks can be the heart and soul of a
community, pushing all of us to pay attention, to expand our vision to include
those who are on the periphery of our lives.
Yet
just has generosity is a value that can be learned, so also can
compassion. Most religious traditions
give high value to compassion, that ability to notice and accompany others,
that ability to pull your head from the sand of modern life and see what is
happening around you. Most religious
traditions also have techniques and advice in how to grow in compassion.
For
Christianity, much of the focus has been around service to those in need. The Lutheran tradition has a long history of
organizing to help people locally and around the world. Check out the work of the Lutheran World
Hunger Appeal, Lutheran Disaster Relief or, in New England, Ascentria Care
Alliance (formerly Lutheran Social Services).
This is not to mention the work
of local congregations in feeding, sheltering and advocating for people in need
around them.
Such
service is the product of compassion.
However, sometimes we are tempted to skip the compassion and move
straight to the service. We know the sorts
of thing that the church ought to be doing.
We develop a social outreach committee and turn it into a program of
doing good deeds. However, there is a
marked difference between working out of a space of obligation or expectation,
doing things because we should do
them, and working from a place of compassion, doing things because we can’t help
but do them.
I would
argue that the church’s job is shifting.
At one point in history, religious organizations were the primary means
of social services in many communities.
The church had the food bank. The
church had an emergency fund. Today,
many of these functions are done more effectively by social service agencies
and organizations, some religious and some not.
Perhaps the church’s job is not so much to provide these services but to
cultivate compassionate people who might be moved to aid and volunteer for such
agencies and organizations. Is our goal
to develop a Christ Lutheran Church food bank or is it to develop compassionate
people who will support and volunteer at our local service center, a group that
has already done the groundwork and organization to feed other people?
One
tool for developing compassion is along the lines of the daily examen meditation in the tradition of
Saint Ignatius. At the end of the day
you take a few of minutes in stillness to replay the events of that day. As you go through them, consider those
moments that were opportunities for compassion.
What happened? How did it
feel? How do you think the other person
was feeling? The purpose of this
exercise is not to label these moments as good or bad, but to consider how they
were handled and how they might be handled differently. The hope is that through reflecting each day
through the eyes of compassion, we might prepare ourselves to be more
compassionate in days to come.
Another
important means for growing in compassion that is common among many
contemplative Christians is meditation on the passion and the cross. In our culture we often want to skip the pain
of the cross and embrace the joy of resurrection. Yet there is great power in considering what
Jesus experienced as he suffered not only pain but also betrayal, abandonment
and mockery. Through the story, Jesus
offers himself as an icon for compassionate thought.
Most
importantly, through the story of Jesus, we are set free to be
compassionate. We are set free to step
away from self-centeredness and into compassion for others. We are also set free to be less than perfect,
knowing that through Christ’s compassion our incomplete compassion does not
disqualify us from the love of God.
Compassion is a gift that can change the world and a virtue in which
Christians are called to grow.
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