32 “If you love those who love you, why should you be commended? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 If you do good to those who do good to you, why should you be commended? Even sinners do that. 34 If you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, why should you be commended? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be paid back in full. 35 Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to ungrateful and wicked people. 36 Be compassionate just as your Father is compassionate.
Reflection
It’s summertime and this week we will be going (virtually) to Compassion Camp VBS! The church I attend used Compassion Camp curriculum with a different focus on the act of compassion each day. Compassion is an emotion that calls for action on our part. The call to “Be compassionate as God is compassionate” will be explored as Compassion for Myself,
Compassion for Family, Compassion for Neighbors, and Compassion with, in, and for the World.
Our reading today sets the stage for a deeper understanding of the word and the act of “compassion.” I have been reading Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time by Marcus Borg which offers this description of compassion: “For Jesus, compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God. … Not simply an individual virtue,
but a sociopolitical paradigm expressing his alternative vision of human life in community.” (pp.46-47) Because both Old and New Testaments were written in different languages over hundreds of years translations vary. The singular form of the Hebrew word for “compassion” is “womb.” Borg and other scholars use the metaphor of “womb like” to describe the compassion of God. When Jesus calls us to be compassionate as God is compassionate (v.36) he is saying that we would be “womb like”. We should be nourishing, life giving and deeply caring. According to Greater Good Magazine “Compassion literally means ‘to suffer together.’ Among emotion researchers it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.”
God cares for us as a mother cares for her unborn child, by loving, nourishing and continuing to be a life giving force, even when we are suffering physically, mentally or emotionally.
by Kathleen Stolz
For Pondering and Prayer
Compassion in the Bible can be defined as showing or having mercy, sympathy, empathy, or pity. Many people think of giving to those in need, but compassion encompasses something much deeper, something felt in one’s heart more than one’s head. As part of my pre-retirement ministry, I taught laypeople how to be active caregivers, called to be compassionate in exactly this way. There was a graphic image we used as a metaphor for
compassion which we found very helpful. Imagine a hole in the ground, into which a person falls. The compassionate individual will not jump into the hole to help, but rather stay above the hole, holding onto a tree with one hand while reaching down into the hole to help the fallen person get up into a safe place. Many years after first seeing this image I still find it helpful to feel compassionate for someone who is in pain by trying to relieve their pain and not by jumping in the hole and suffering with him/her.
Think of a time when you have been in a position of being compassionate as God is compassionate. Does the image of being “womb like” or the graphic of rescuing someone from a hole offer you any guidance for your behavior or actions on future occasions?
Prayer: Gracious and Compassionate God, each of us has encountered challenges in our lives. We have been driven to despair, faced obstacles that seem insurmountable, felt lost or alone. We thank you for never leaving us. We thank you for your everlasting love and for those compassionate people who step into our lives to rescue us. Amen.
