Empathy is No Sin
Epiphany all over again
“To be human in an aching world is to know our dignity and become people who safeguard the dignity of everything around us.” -Cole Arthur Riley
Epiphany continues to reveal more than we asked for in the United State. It is wild and unsettling ride these days. I’ve read this gospel from the Lectionary many times over the years. Luke 4:14-21 as well as the Epistle from 1 Cor. 12. Jesus is beginning to identify the Good News… which “is meant to comfort the afflicted & afflict the comfortable” -Keillor
Ignatius believed in a way of seeing that God is in all things and all things in God. God’s presence infuses all things, if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. “Those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor… giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it.” -1 Cor. 12. v25 that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. We need to realize that we are to be with and for one another, not further apart focused on our difference but our empathic in our common humanity.
Luke offers us an act in which Jesus begins to proclaim his identity. He chooses to reveal the meaning of his work through the well-worn words of Scripture of his time. It’s not as if Christ is incapable of penning a new & shiny mission statement; he is revealing that he is the Incarnate Word. Incarnation changed everything. Humanity has received God… God has become human.
Jesus opens the book & makes the old words of the tradition his own: “God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives & recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
As we will see in the lectionary next week, unlike the assembly that receives Ezra’s reading with open hearts, Jesus’s audience recoils in shock & outrage when he dares to suggest that He is the Word. Of course, what's surprising about this story is that the very people who need the freedom Jesus offers, find his invitation intolerable. What offends them is not the ancient prophecy. Isaiah’s words offer nothing but good news. But what offends them is the suggestion that the good news is available to everyone right now through Jesus himself. That the time for mercy, renewal, and metanoia is now. It challenged their identity, their tradition, and all they believed.
Speaking truth to power takes courage and sometimes it is costly. But like the Bp. Mariann Budde in DC at the Inauguration Day Prayer Service (and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day), we need to do it in the name of Jesus, regardless of who is in the audience. We live in such a strange and distorted time where some “Christians” are even criticizing Bp. Budde and calling empathy a sin. These voices are obviously weaponizing a narrative, perhaps due to the blind loyalty they have pledged in allegiance to a president who has done nothing but disrespect the work and reality of the gospel of Jesus for his own personal gain.
“When you worship power, compassion will look like a sin.” -Rev. Benjamin Cremer
Brian Zahnd said recently said: “Scripture isn’t fulfilled by biblical principles, geo-political events, end times speculation… Scripture isn’t fulfilled by the modern nation of Israel or any other nation… it is fulfilled in the Word made flesh who is Jesus Christ.”
Trusting in the Way of Jesus is trusting our identity with him. Not what others say if him. When we get lazy or apathetic with this, we can distort what following Jesus looks like. The darkest of what we are capable of can rise to the surface. Any thirst for power and influence will increase past our empathy & compassion.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. identified racism, materialism, and war as the three evils of society. This is very congruent with the teachings of Jesus. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Christ continues to offer us himself.
I imagine like those hearing Christ in the synagogue, many of us have a deep-seated fear of what we don’t know. Leaving the familiar can be scary. Like Jesus’ listeners, we long for liberation but sometimes we want to control what that liberation looks like. However, those desperate and undone enough will embrace The Way to freedom at all cost. Most of the time, that cost hurts. Empathy is no sin. Compassion and mercy… are at the heart of the Gospel. May we never forget this. If we do, we do it at our own demise.
“Jesus came to announce to us that an identity based on success, popularity & power is a false identity- an illusion! Loudly & clearly he says: 'You are not what the world makes you; but you are children of God. Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters & sons of God.’” -Nouwen