Break My Heart for What Breaks Yours
By: Erik Brummett
No division and equal concern. When one person suffers, all should suffer. When one person is honored or rejoicing, all should rejoice with them.
What does this mean? How can this work in a society and culture that is so divided, politically, religiously, spiritually, economically? How can there be no division? How can we have equal concern for everyone?
It sounds extremely difficult. It sounds uncomfortable, challenging, hard, tiring, and frustrating. It almost sounds impossible. And when something is impossible, it’s just better to not do it, right?
I know a little secret that some of you know about. Doing these things is impossible. We can’t do them. That is, we cannot do them relying on our own strength, power, skillsets, and abilities. And neither can we do them if our attitudes are in the wrong place.
To create an environment in which there is no division, in which each person is equally concerned for the others in the community, we need to forgo our selfish attitudes that say it’s all about us and put on an attitude that puts others before ourselves.
We need an attitude of compassion. But what is compassion? Is it just caring for someone else or is it deeper? If we look at the two passages of scripture that have been shared today, they show us that compassion is much more than caring, it is a way of looking past a person’s surface into the depths of their souls to understand who they are and what they are really feeling.
The word compassion can be broken down into two words. “Com” and “passion.” The term “com” comes from the Latin term “cum” meaning “with.” And “passion” comes from the Latin term, “pastior” which means “to suffer.” So, compassion literally means “with suffer.” And if we turn that around, we get “suffer with.” To have compassion for someone means to suffer with them.
But who do we have compassion for, who do we suffer with. Do we only have compassion for the members in this congregation? Do we only have compassion for the people directly in our lives? No. Paul informs us that God put the body together, and certainly this congregation is one body and we should have compassion for each person that is part of it. But the body is much much bigger than that. When Paul says God put the body together, I think he means that God put the entire church together, the body of Christ together. Meaning that the whole body is comprised of Methodists, Catholics, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Church of the Brethren. Every single Christian denomination is part of this body. And because of that, we must have compassion for every person that has staked their faith in Christ, but it doesn’t end there.
If we only have compassion for fellow Christians, how does that help? How does that spread the word of God? How does that spread the love of Christ? As Matthew tells us in chapter 5, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?” Therefore, we must show compassion to everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike. We must be compassionate to all of God’s creatures.
Some people might ask why, they might say that denomination’s beliefs and theologies are so different, so disagreeable that they can’t possibly be Christian, and others may question why should we be compassionate to Muslims or Hindus. It is those disagreements, that kind of attitude that stifles and chokes any attempt at compassion. That attitude is selfish and pushes people away more than it brings them close. There is such a thing as right doctrine, but if a person is ever to accept that right doctrine, they need to see that they are loved, they need to feel cared for, they need to experience compassion. So, instead of pushing our agendas and our beliefs on a person, we simply need to love and exhibit compassion. And through that love and compassion, true unity and community will be created. Through compassion, the body will be made whole.
Let’s be honest, being compassionate to others in our congregations and maybe in other denominations is probably a lot easier than having compassion for those not part of either. When I drive down the street and see a homeless man or woman, I pass them by. And I have all sorts of excuses as to why. Mom told me not to talk to strangers. What if they use the money for drugs and alcohol? Why don’t they just go get a job? Any excuse to get out of showing them compassion, I will use it. But that is the worst attitude to have because once again it puts Me first. I am more concerned about me than this person. I have what I want, I have what I need, shouldn’t I be able to give them some money or provide them a meal? I should, but I don’t. Why is that?
Because I have only formed a partial attitude of compassion. I only have compassion for some people. Only having compassion for some is as bad as having compassion for nobody. For some of us, our hearts have become hardened. And in our hardened heart, we forget how to love, how to show compassion, we forget how to be like Jesus. We might still be able to “talk the talk,” but we are only barely “walking the walk.” We’re taking baby steps, instead of full strides. In our hardened heart, we forget that there are so many people around us that need to be loved and cared for. Our hardened heart causes us to ignore a lot of people. Our hardened hearts are at the root of our selfish attitudes. It is the cause of our uncompassionate attitudes. We cannot go on living with a hardened heart. We cannot do the work of God with a hardened heart. We cannot love with a hardened heart. We cannot put others before ourselves with a hardened heart.
So, our hearts need to be broken, they need to be shattered and destroyed so that God can build us a new one. To do the work and will of God, we need a heart that is constructed out of God’s own heart. God’s heart is infinitely, eternally, enormously gigantic. When we get this new heart formed out of God’s own heart, we become attuned to the cries and suffering of all of God’s children who have now become our brothers and sisters.
I am reminded of the story of Marvel Comics superhero Tony Stark aka Iron Man. In the 2008 film, Iron Man, Tony Stark is the owner of a company involved in the development of weapons for the US military, quite often developing the weapons himself. While on a trip to Afghanistan to demonstrate his new “Jericho” missile, the convoy which Tony was a part of is attacked and Tony is taken captive and held hostage by a terrorist group known as The Ten Rings. In the attack, shrapnel pierced Tony’s chest and is dangerously close to his heart. To prevent the shrapnel from getting closer to his heart and killing him, Tony’s cellmate, Dr. Yinsen, constructs an electromagnet to stabilize the shrapnel and keep it from inching closer to Tony’s heart. And in a way, this electromagnet, which Tony further develops into an arc reactor, a source of infinite energy, acts as a new heart for Tony. In his captivity, Tony sees that many of the weapons that he and his company designed were being used by terrorists to harm people. Thusly, he constructs his first Iron Man suit, called the Mark One to escape his captors. Upon escape and return home, Tony makes a bold pronouncement that his company will no longer be involved in the development of weapons. At one point, he says to Pepper Potts, his assistant, “You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. Now that I'm trying to protect the people I've put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?”
In becoming Iron Man, Tony Stark literally and figuratively received a new heart and a new attitude. He went from being someone who reaped destruction and hurt others to being someone who fostered restoration and helped others. Tony’s captivity helped him see the world as a whole, rather than his own little world. And in this revelation, he saw that things had to change in his life and in the world. From that point on, he lived a life transformed, a life of compassion. He felt the suffering he caused others and upon experiencing it himself, he decided to have compassion, sacrificing his own wants and needs and even his business so he could come alongside and suffer with people.
We are all like Tony Stark in a way. We all live in our own little worlds, thinking about ourselves before others, making sure we have what we want before others have what they need. We might go off showing our business plans, economic policies, land development, and other ideas and inventions that hurt more than they help. And then there comes a point where we are attacked on the journey, taken captive and held hostage by the enemy. In this time of uncertainty and despair, we are confronted by the atrocities we are responsible for, directly and indirectly. And like Tony Stark, we have a cellmate that cares for us, that digs out as much shrapnel as he can, and engineers a new heart for us that keeps the shrapnel still in there from getting any deeper. And when we see what our cellmate did for us, we too are moved or should be moved to accept this new heart, allowing us to form a new attitude of compassion, where we seek to care for those we hurt in the past and have compassion for those we ignored.
So, when we are walking down the road and see Bob and Mary on the side asking for something to help them get by, remember the new heart Jesus has constructed for us to have compassion, remember the example Jesus sets for us in his own walk down the road. When Jesus walked the road, he had compassion for each person he encountered. He healed each person that needed healing, those that came to him and those he sought out. He paid attention to anyone he encountered on the road. He gave them what they needed. If a person needed to be heard, he listened to them. If a person needed to feel love, he loved them. It didn’t matter who they were, what they believed, what social class they were a part of, Jesus had compassion for all. Shouldn’t we then have compassion for all? Yes, if we are serious about being like Jesus.
If you paid close attention to the Matthew passage that was read earlier, you would have heard two key phrases that should convict us of how our action and inactions directly affect our relationship with Jesus. Listen to what Jesus says, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” and “whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” So, when we stop and care for Bob or Mary, we are caring for Jesus. And if drive past ignoring Bob and Mary, we are ignoring Jesus.
So what can I do, what can we do to stop ignoring Bob and Mary, to stop ignoring Jesus? It boils down to compassion. We need to let God give us brand new hearts. We need to be intentionally compassionate for the people around us, the people in other faith communities, and for Bob and Mary. And eventually, that compassion will become normative, habitual, we won’t need to think about it, we will just do it.
Prayer.