Compassion: Excerpts from a sermon preached the day following the acquittal of
George Zimmerman – July 14, 2013
“…And he was moved to pity” (Luke 10: 33, The Good
Samaritan).
Without pity, without compassion nothing changes.
Jesus tells a story about the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan is the only one who helped a
man beaten and left for dead on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. Earlier a priest passed by and did
nothing. Then another religious man, a
Levite passed by. He ignored the bloody
mess, too. Some claim it was for
religious reasons, but the truth is it probably came from their need to stay
safe and out of harm’s way.
The need to play it safe is in our DNA. As one preacher put it: “…everything from heroism to heartbreak is
the direct result of the battle of our ‘selfish genes’ for survival, supremacy,
and self-replication. [1] That may be original sin, the fight we have
to rise to a higher calling versus the instinct embedded in our genes to play
it safe. Compassion is letting the soft underbelly of our humanness take over
and move us to risk everything.
The lawyer to whom Jesus told the Good Samaritan story wanted
Jesus to approve of him. The ‘him’ that
followed the rules. The one who seldom,
if ever, was moved to pity. Following
the law, Jesus knew, was easy. Love is
more demanding. [2]
The Samaritan, the unlikely hero, goes against every
instinct. His need for survival, supremacy, and self-replication is overrun by
the power of compassion, the power of love.
Only love is big enough to hold the pain of this world, to
contain the tragedy that greets us every day. [3]
Only love can move us past our instincts to protect only what we know and those
we know.
It’s easy to reach out and scoop up a family member or
friend who is in trouble. Human beings are also genetically programmed to know
the difference between those bound to us by blood and ethnicity and those who
are not. And we are programmed to
maintain and reinforce the separation between ‘us’ and ‘them’. That may be why the immigration issue is so
hard to resolve, why racism, sexism, and all the other isms exist.
Because it is so hard for us to get past our ‘us’ versus
‘them’ programming a young man named Trayvon Martin died this past February
26th because another young man saw him
as the ‘other’ and not a fellow human being. On that night a fight ensued, that
didn’t need to happen.
Trayvon Martin was armed with his fists, Skittles and a can
of Arizona tea. George Zimmerman had a gun.
The gun fired. Trayvon Martin died.
It didn’t need to happen.
One life was lost and another forever haunted.
It didn’t need to happen.
That night of February 26th is the tragic true story of the
human struggle to move past primitive instincts and moved toward the higher
calling of being fully human and be the people of God.
Last night after the acquittal of George Zimmerman the
tweets began to fly. One of those
tweets said this: “How cool would it be
to live in a world where George Zimmerman offered Trayvon Martin a ride home to
get him out of the rain.”(@Nick_Surkamp) How cool, indeed. How cool it would it be to live in a world
where Trayvon knew it was safe to accept that ride.
If you’re sitting there wondering how that kind of world can
happen, it’s not magic. It takes
work. It takes effort. It happens when people make the choice to
give their hearts to the process. It
happens when people do the hard work to make it happen.
When Jesus finished his parable he as much as said to the
lawyer “It’s up to you”. God isn’t
going to swoop in and make it all better. Only by daily practice will we ever
begin to create a compassionate world.
I have to confess that after events like what happened to
Trayvon and after last night’s acquittal and the responses that followed I
question God’s wisdom in thinking human beings can rise to a higher
calling. I even think God is wrong and
asks too much. After all failed and flawed legislative leadership on
immigration, abortion, gun regulation and food stamps it seems unlikely that
human beings can get past primitive natures.
I wonder if God’s faith in us is wishful thinking and wasted hope.
And yet, I also know that God made it possible for us to
cross to the other side of road. But
it’s not easy. We’re made to see the
other as a neighbor and not a threat.
But it’s hard.
On a rainy February night in Florida George Zimmerman saw a
hoodied teen and every fiber of his body screamed “danger”. He made a death dealing choice. He was helped by laws that let him carry a
concealed gun and ‘stand his ground’, a ground he didn’t need to claim was his.
In our DNA is a remnant of what we think will keep us safe,
grant us supremacy and make our replication likely. That remnant is our original sin.
When we see the stranger or what is stranger the primitive
part of our brains fed by that remnant cries out “danger”. The danger is real. We can get into all sorts of trouble trying
to be like the Good Samaritan. Life gets
messy when we expand the neighborhood.
We’re unsure and uncertain how it will all turn out. But unless we try, unless we move beyond our
primitive instincts nothing changes.
Nothing changes unless we are willing to dare foolishness
and court failure. Nothing changes
unless we are moved by pity.
Jesus ended his story by asking: Which of these three acted as a
neighbor? He didn’t know about evolution
and that we came by our self-interest the honest way by inheriting it. But he knew about fear and how that perverts
the best of us. He knew how
self-preservation, survival and need for safety corrupt goodness. He understood how looking out for ourselves
leads us to racism, prejudice even death.
He knew how we limit compassion.
He knew what it was like when I passed by the stranger on my
morning walk in Spokane last week. In
the early morning I saw a man lying in an open field next to the marmot dens. He was lying on his stomach, not moving. No shoes.
No blanket to keep him warm. We
walked close enough to see if he was breathing.
He was and we walked on. I could have made another choice. I could have reached out and asked him if he
was okay. But I was afraid.
Probably all Jesus expected of me is that I move past my
fear and concern for my own safety and touch another human being. Truth to tell, my greatest fear was that I
could do nothing. I couldn’t be the hero
of his story or mine. My greatest fear
was my own impotence. Fear led to
failure to connect with another human being.
Being fully human means that we understand that we share a
common humanity, that we share this planet, that each us our trying our best to
do the best we can.
It means that we live each day as Jesus lived; that we move
toward one another with compassion, mercy and loving kindness. That each day we practice loving those we
find loveable, those we find despicable and those for whom we feel nothing at
all. It’s not easy. It’s not magic. Sometimes we’ll get it and often we will
fail.
But the practice begins again, each day when you and I look
in the mirror. The one who looks back is
the very one who needs compassion most of all.
When you rise from the near death of sleep and look in the
mirror are you moved to pity for that one has known broken promises and broken
dreams, a face lined with the remembrance of things done and left undone. Eyes that have cried more tears than anyone
will ever know. Are you moved to pity? Do you feel compassion for that soul who is
trying his or her very best to get through the day. Do you have compassion enough to reach out
and touch the wounded you that lies beaten and naked on the road? Are you moved with pity and moved enough to
embrace the very self that you’ve tried to walk by.
If we can start there, every day, we can extend that
compassion to the world. It’s that
simple. It’s that hard. It’s not magic.
Nothing changes until we are moved to pity. Nothing happens essential to our souls until
we cross the barriers of self-protection and enter into the realm of love. Only love is big enough to hold the pain of
this world and only love will move us toward the good people we are meant to
be.
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