Compassion 3

We had a good night of building and discussing. After some productive building, we shut the saws off and began to tackle the question: What is compassion?

Compassion seems to be a type of love, what might be called Exceptional Love and Mercy. Jesus taught this in his Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6. The verses right before the "call to compassion" in v36 is another type of exceptional love and mercy - loving your enemies. Pretty radical stuff. Not ordinary. Not natural. Not easy. Rare. Yet the call is direct and unequivocal. Have we settled for ordinary love? Have we ceased to encourage each other onto exceptional love and mercy? Is it optional for Jesus followers?

The experience of compassion involves identification with the sufferer which creates thoughts and emotions of sympathy and sorrow, along with a strong motivation to do something about the situation that would relieve the suffering. This later part of the definition is necessary, otherwise you just have sympathy or pity.

Breaking down the definition further, compassion seems to involve the experience of identifying with someone in who is suffering or experiencing some type of misfortune. Here is a preference of sorts. Not just anybody, but someone who is suffering in some way. Does God have a preference? Some have said God has a preference for the poor, the widow, the orphan, the oppressed. Is God calling us to have a preference? I know that not all believers buy into this because I have had many heated discussion about this one. Yet, Jesus said that the Father is compassionate. By our definition, He then feels sorrow and sympathy for those that are suffering and has a strong desire to do something about it (his will?). He wants us to be compassionate (carry out his will?). He waits for the rebellious son to return. He leaves the flock to look for the one who is missing.

Some remaining questions from last night:
- Does compassion require an action?
- If you don't have the warm fuzzies (feelings of sorrow/sympathy) but have thoughts that building a bed for a kid sleeping on the floor is the right thing to do, is this compassion?
- What do you do if this definition of compassion does not match up with your life and what you are doing?

Good stuff. We are on a journey. Let's journey together in community. Let's invite others to come with us. Last night, Mark Scott joined us. I worked with him over 10 years ago. He believes he is in his last year of life. He is my age. He is struggling with liver failure. Yet he wants to build beds for those without beds.