Because Jesus came and lived among us, as one of us, he "was just as much God as though not at all human, just as much human as though not at all God. Divine, he had power to help us; human, he could represent us . . . Jesus knows the reasons behind the problems in your day-to-day existence. He knows the battles you have fought, the agonies you have borne. Jesus knows the warring desires of your heart, the mixed motives that acuate you. He knows; he understands -- and he loves you . . ." (Desmond Ford)

That is the Jesus who saw the crowd and "had compassion" on them. (Matthew 9:36) He felt with and for them. He identified with their needs. He saw them as sheep without a shepherd. That is to say, he saw them as needing care, compassionate care.

Because he lived as one of us, "as much human as though not at all God," his compassion is something we as humans can develop.

Compassionate humanity is response-ability, the ability to respond to the hurts and joys of others, to smile with them . . . and cry with them.

Donald McNeill from Notre Dame, Douglas Morrison from Catholic University of America and Henri Nouwen from Yale, all teachers of pastoral theology at the time, met in a restaurant in Washington and expressed discontent with the individualism and dryness of the academic environment in their respective universities.

For several months they met every Thursday evening to develop a theological concept of compassion. They wanted to live compassionately in this world, to reflect the life and life-style of Jesus in a world of violence and malevolence.

They involved others, including Jim Wallis and Hubert Humphrey, in some of the discussions. After many months of concentrated prayer, study, meditation and discussion, they jointly wrote the book, Compassion.

One of the insights I appreciate in their book is that compassion is not simply feeling sorry for and "helping" the less fortunate. They point out that this can be part of the "competitive" spirit of our society, which they see as antithetical to what Jesus tho't and taught. Rather, compassion is "radical servanthood."

"Radical servanthood, as the encounter with the compassionate God, takes us beyond the distinctions between wealth and poverty, success and failure, fortune and bad luck. Radical servanthood is . . . a joyful way of life in which our eyes are opened to the vision of the true God who chose the way of servanthood to make himself known." ("Compassion" page 31)

Paul told the Galatians to be "one in Christ." He taught that Jesus breaks down the walls of separation, the barriers that divide us, leaving "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) "One in Christ" means to love as he loved.

Jesus taught the disciples to pray "Our Father . . . " Our parent! Not some distant deity, not some vague Spirit, not some ambiguous Being out there or up there or somewhere in space. Father! Our Father! Jesus' Father and my Father and your Father and the Father of the Man of the Week . . . and the Father of the hoodlum in Cass Corridor! That makes us all brothers and sisters!

The more I study this the more I realize I need to learn compassion. I need to feel the hurts and frustrations and anger and suffering and disappointments and bitterness of others. I need to feel from their perspective. I need to understand why they feel as they do. This is especially true, and especially challenging in regard to those for whom I have little respect or affection.

I also need to feel the joys and the celebrations and the accomplishments of others. Paul warns us against conceit, envy, self-interest.

During World War II the Nazis besieged Warsaw. A Polish concert pianist volunteered to work in a hospital. Here's what she recounted: "Going thru the wards, I noticed a patient with his head buried in a pillow. He was sobbing. How could I help him? I looked at my hands. If I could transmit harmony thru a piano, maybe I could transmit harmony without an instrument. I took the young man's head in my hands. He grabbed them with such force I tho't his nails would dig into my flesh. I wanted him to know I cared. Soon, his hands released their grip, his sobbing ceased and he fell asleep." Compassion!

Compassion. Feeling with others is more than just emitting words of sympathy. It is reflecting the Jesus life-style -- serving. We cannot truly serve others if we have prejudice or antipathy toward them. Compassion is a way of life. Compassion is love in action.

Leo Tolstoy, one of my heroes, walked down the street and saw a beggar. He reached into his pocket for some money to give him. He had none. "I'm sorry, my brother, but I have no money."

The beggar brightened, and said, "You have given me more than I asked — you called me brother!"

"To the loved, a word of affection is a morsel; to the love-starved, a word of affection is a feast." (Max Lucado)

Prejudice colors our perceptions. A woman had a son and a daughter who were both married. She told a friend, "My daughter is so fortunate. She married a man who washes the dishes, helps with the baby, even cooks meals sometimes! My son is not so fortunate. He married a woman who expects him to wash dishes, help with the baby, even cook sometimes."

A judge in New York was mugged. He said to reporters, "This will in no way affect my decisions in the courtroom."

A lady in the back of the crowd shouted, "Then mug him again, someone."

Life and its experiences need to affect our decisions.
Compassion is really only possible if and when we experience (maybe vicariously) the experiences of others. We put ourselves in the others' shoes. We "walk a mile in their moccasins." That is why Jesus became a human being, to walk in our shoes, to feel our joys and our pain.

Jesus knows our teenage problems and he knows our problem teenagers. He knows our aging problems and he knows our problem aged.

In our Gospel for today, Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."

What a repulsive metaphor! And if you think it is repulsive to us, think how it must have repulsed the Jews who first heard it. In their culture, Satan was tho't to be an "eater of flesh," and their laws absolutely forbade the drinking of blood.

Think about some of our own cultural idioms. "I could just gobble you up." "I could swallow you whole." "Oh, how I feast on you." Or in the negative, "I can't stomach him." Or "She sticks in my craw." The overtones are of intimacy. That is what Jesus was teaching. Let us be intimate with him.

Another translation says, "I want to tell you in all sincerity, unless you feed on the same spirit that motivates me to love you and to die for you, you can't be given eternal life." Intimacy!

The key word is "unless," an imperative. Unless you eat his flesh and drink his blood.

Unless you develop compassion, unless you learn to feel the joys and the sorrows, the excitement and the pain, the highs and the hurts of others, unless you smile with those who smile and cry with those who cry . . . "I want to tell you in all sincerity, unless" you learn compassion, you will never know what it is to be Christian.

Compassion is not an option; it is an imperative, a prerequisite, an essential component of Christian character. And the only way to learn compassion is to want it with a passion, to pray for it with a passion. Then it will be given to you.

You can learn mathematics by staying up all night and studying. You can learn compassion only if the Spirit of God lives in you and gives to you. It is a gift from the Holy Spirit.

In the middle of the night you may awaken with a start -- "I've got it! I've got it! Two plus two equals four." That is the mathematical, scientific mind-set. Nothing wrong with science. Nothing wrong with mathematics. But that is not the spiritual mind-set.

The spiritual mind-set comes when you suddenly "awaken," see the light, and exclaim, not "I've got it," but "It's got me." (Eugene Lowry)

Speaking of a mathematical mind-set, there is an old Arabian story about a man who had three sons. In his will he directed that his eleven horses be divided among his three sons.

The oldest was to receive half, the next was to receive a fourth and the youngest was to be given a sixth. The boys were perplexed. How could they divide eleven horses according to the will?As they stood arguing, a man rode up, dismounted, and left his horse with the others. He asked what was bothering the boys. They explained their dilemma.

He said, "How many horses do you see there?" They counted twelve (including the stranger's horse, of course). Then the man said, "Alright, half of twelve is six, a fourth of twelve is three, and a sixth of twelve is two. The sense of the will has been met." With that, he mounted his horse and rode away.

If we have trouble understanding the will of God and the terms of the Kingdom, let's add one -- the Lord Jesus Christ -- and we'll meet the terms of the will of the Father!

Bertrand Russell, in his book, Why I am Not a Christian, conceded that altho he took Jesus to be only a humanistic moral prophet, modern progressivism is indebted to Christ for the ideal of compassion.

Richard Rorty agreed that as a progressive philosopher he owes more to Jesus for certain key notions, such as compassion and equality.

Two millenniums ago there was a man who reached out and voluntarily touched lepers, an action forbidden to Jews. He did not die of leprosy. He died at the hands of those who wouldn't touch a leper!

Compassion works best when compassion becomes works.

A grandfather explained to his grandson the tradition of breaking a wishbone. Eager to have his wish come true, the boy was disappointed when he got the short end of the bone. Then Grandpa said, "That's alright, my boy. My wish was for you to have your wish come true some day."

Maybe he was the boy who went into an ice cream store. The waitress came. He asked, "How much is an ice cream soda?"

"Fifty cents."

The boy reached into his pocket, got out his coins and counted them.

"How much is a plain dish of ice cream?"

The slightly impatient waitress answered, "Thirty-five cents."

Again he counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream."

The waitress took his money and brought him a dish of ice cream.

When she came back, he was gone. Beside his empty dish were two nickels and five pennies. He had ordered the plain ice cream so he could leave a tip!

Compassion works best when compassion becomes works. "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works." (Ephesians 2:10)

Marvin Olasky wrote, The Tragedy of American Compassion. He says of compassion: "'suffering with' means adopting hard-to-place babies, providing shelter to women undergoing crisis pregnancies, becoming a big brother to a fatherless child, working one-on-one with a young single mother. It is not easy, but it works." Yes, compassion works when our compassion becomes works!

John Wilson and Mark Thompson shared a nursing home room. John was by the window and was able to get up and look out. Mark was nearly paralyzed, was not close to the window, so he could not see out.

From time to time Mark asked, "What's going on outside?" And John would describe the scenery. Children feeding the ducks, swans in the lake, birds flying by, flowers and trees, young lovers wandering along the walk, kites flying and people going to and fro . . . It was exciting for Mark to enjoy the scenery and life outside their hospital room, if only vicariously.

When John died, Mark asked to be moved to the bed by the window. He struggled to lift himself just enough to see out the window for himself.

What did he see? A brick wall! Sometimes compassion requires creativity, imagination, love in action! Works of compassion.

When Jesus saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.

"Compassion" appears about a dozen times in the Gospels. It is a Greek word, splangchnizomai (splagcnizomai) which conveys deep emotions. The Greek word splangchnon (splangcnon) means the inward parts -- the entrails of the body, where we experience our most intimate and intense emotions, and where we are most vulnerable, most passionate.

The Hebrew word for compassion (rachamim) refers to the "womb of God." God's love does not always relieve our suffering, but from the divine womb we are born again as Jesus/God suffers with us. Com-passion. Feeling with us.

The world has been changed by people whose passions ran deep, some passions of love, some of hate or anger.

Think how society has been changed by Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa -- and by Hitler, Stalin, Mao! Passion: love . . . or hate.

"Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate." (Luke 6:36) Love each other as your Father loves you. "Love one another as I have loved you." (John 13:34) How did he love us? Not enough to pull us up to his level, but enough to stoop down to our level. At our level he was treated in the most dejected, rejected way. I question that we can ever understand Jesus unless we understand that. "The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve." (Matthew 20:28) And "whoever wants to become important must be a servant." (Matthew 20:26)

So servanthood is how we become lights to the world. Voluntary slavery is the way to Christlikeness. "Radical servanthood . . . is not an enterprise in which we try to surround ourselves with as much misery as possible, but a joyful way of life in which our eyes are opened to the vision of the true God who chose the way of servanthood to make himself known."

Jesus, who stooped to wash our filthy feet, has compassion; feels with us. The call today is for us to (1) have a passionate commitment to the Kingdom and (2) to have a passion for compassion for the kingdom of this world. That is to say, as Christians seeking to follow the way of the Master we will adopt and adapt the life and love of the Master. We will become willing servants, yea, slaves of the King.

Piety is powerless unless it is put into action. Social action is but manipulation if it is not from a motive of love and genuine servanthood.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Personal piety + social action. We are saved by grace alone. We are judged by our works. Faith and works. "You can't have one without the other." "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:20)

The problem with us humans is that we tend to stress one extreme or the other.
We revel in the "saved by grace" assurance and fail to see the role of works, or we try to save ourselves by our works, which is impossible.

Our works must be a true manifestation of the presence of God in our lives. As long as it is day, we must "do the work of him who sent me." (Matthew 9:4) So it is not our works, but the works of the Father.

Faith/grace and works must be in balance, in perspective. Those who work diligently are sometimes in danger of neglecting prayer and meditation.

One of my mentors once said to me, "Felix, who saves sinners? Whose job is it to save the world?"

"Well, Jesus saves the world, of course."

"Then why are you trying to do it all by yourself? Turn your pager off, stay away from the phone, spend some time relaxing."

To the extent that I may have at times neglected spiritual growth, R & R as they call it, I must heed his critique. However, I must tell you I can't imagine Jesus or Paul or Peter . . . or St. Francis or John Wesley or Martin Luther or Albert Schweitzer or Martin Luther King or Mother Teresa taking leave of their ministry for personal comfort. Prayer and meditation -- yes. Comfort -- no.

I am on my personal soap-box, I guess, but when I go to the Cass Corridor and see the needs, I can't turn off the pager.

When I see the statistics of child abuse, spouse abuse, violence among the youth, how can can I stay away from the phone? Would Jesus?

Jesus' compassion motivated him to heal and teach people. It even led him to get angry and drive the money-changers out of the Temple! And lash out at the religious establishment, who were concerned about the bahavior patterns of the "righteous," but had little time to serve.

Our compassion will sometimes surely be reflected in anger, in social action, in movements for justice.

Can you read that the highest incidence of incest occurs among "conservative" Christians, and not be angry? Can you hear that 2,000 children die and 142,000 are injured every year, most under 5, at the hands of their care-takers, and not be angry?

Doesn't it make you angry that more Columbians die from American cigarettes than Americans die of Columbian cocaine? And that we continue to make a big deal of the drugs that come into our country, but say little about the guns we send into other countries?

I am furious that we have made an issue of Saddam Hussein's murder of Kurds, but we justify our embargo of Iraq, which has killed nearly half a million children. And I am angry that our country has an embargo against Cuba, simply ignoring the fact that the rest of the world condemns us for it.

Dear saints, a real passion for compassion must drive us to put our Christian principles into action. I plead with you to pray, study, ask questions, get involved in some cause, some program to make this a better world. Write your legislators, support whatever causes you favor.

Of course you can't change the world by yourself. But together we can make a dent. That is what we are called to do.

Jesus changed the world because he had compassion, he felt with us. Paul changed the world because he felt with the people in his churches. You and I can not be Jesus, or even Paul. But we can change the lives of a few. We can let our lights shine. Each of us can light one little candle. Together we can make a difference.

I look forward to the soon Second Coming. I look forward to new heavens and a new earth. I look forward to an eternity when we can frolick with the lions, play with the monkeys, travel from planet to planet, enjoy each other's company time without end.

BUT -- for now we live on a planet stained with sin, strained by hate, sprained by violence. While "we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently," (Romans 8:25) let us diligently do the works of our Father.

Please pray that God will give me a compassionate heart, that I might glorify him with good works.

Please pray that God the Holy Spirit will inform you of your ministry and then inspire you also to "do the work of him who sent" Jesus . . . who sent us "into all the world [to] preach the good news to all creation."

Let us pray . . .