Sermon for
Sunday,
July
11,
2004
Compassion
And Kindness
10th in a
Series on "Building
Your Life on a Solid Foundation"
By
Rev.
Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture:
Luke 6:32-36 (Reading from the Jerusalem Bible)
32
If you love those who love you, what thanks can you expect? Even
sinners love those who love them. 33And if you do good to those who
do good to you, what thanks can you expect?
For even sinners do that much. 34And if you lend to those
from whom you hope to receive, what thanks can you expect? Even
sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. 35Instead, love
your enemies and do good, and lend without any hope of return. You
will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High, for
he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. 36"Be
compassionate as your Father is compassionate."
New
York City police officer Eduardo Delacruz was just suspended last
month for applying his Christian faith to his work too effectively. He
was suspended for following the mandate that Jesus just gave us in the
gospel of Luke. Officer Delacruz was too kind, compassionate, and he
may lose his job and his pension for being too compassionate. Until
his suspension, he has had a flawless record with NYPD since he joined
the force in 1994.
Delacruz
had been assigned to the Homeless Outreach Unit that he saw as a way
to help the most vulnerable persons in the city. He would find people
living in tunnels and he would find a way to see that they had food
and clothing.
But
the philosophy of his department changed over a year ago and homeless
persons who were found and who did not want to go to a shelter were
then arrested and taken to jail.
Officer
Delacruz had had no problems arresting homeless persons who were
criminals or who posed a danger of violence. He did have a problem
arresting them when they seemed to pose no threat. Finally, his
superior officer saw Delacruz approach a man in Union Square who was
sleeping under a no trespassing sign. Delacruz was ordered to arrest
the man, but Delacruz wanted to give him the option once more to go to
a shelter instead of going to jail. His superior had someone else
process the arrest and had Delacruz suspended for disobeying an order.
Delacruz
believes that a person who is down on their luck is not a criminal and
he says that many New Yorkers are just a paycheck or two away from
being homeless. He related to homeless people in a compassionate way,
even befriending some of them because he believes his Christian faith
teaches him to be compassionate. He said, "My position in life is
to treat people the way I want to be treated. That is what Jesus
taught. That is what I instill in my children."
The
trial for Officer Delacruz will occur later this month and he will
learn then if his decision to practice compassion will cost him his
job and his pension.
Be
compassionate, Jesus says because God is compassionate toward you. Be
compassionate even toward those who are difficult to treat with
compassion - your enemies. I have been reading the biography of one
American leader who practiced that kind of Christian compassion in a
very emotionally charged period of American history.
General
Ulysses S. Grant was the chief general for the union army at the end
of the civil war. I am halfway through his excellent biography and I
am just very impressed with Grant's humility and servant leadership
and with the way he treated his opponents. His biographer says that
Grant was not only a superb and exceptional military leader, he was
also a better president than many give him credit for.
As
a general, he was aggressive and energetic in his pursuit of his
southern opponents. But after he had defeated the Confederate armies,
his attitude toward them was the attitude that Jesus asks us to have
in these verses from Luke. Grant did not try to further humiliate the
troops from the Confederacy after they had been beaten. He let the
officers of the Confederate army keep their sidearms, and he let the
soldiers keep their horses since they would need those animals to be
able to go back home and make a living on a farm.
One
passage in the biography describes what happens after Grant's forces
have won the battle of Chattanooga. Grant's "compassion for his
defeated adversaries was again on display" writes his biographer.
"A Confederate soldier who was taken prisoner recorded that as he
and other prisoners were being taken to the rear, they were halted to
allow a group of Union generals and their staffs to pass by. The Union
officers passed the Confederates smugly without any sign of
recognition except by one. When General Grant reached the line of
ragged, filthy, bloody, despairing prisoners, he lifted his hat and
held it over his head until he passed the last man of that living
funeral cortege. He was the only officer in that whole train who
recognized us as being on the face of the earth."
Jesus
calls us to show compassion toward people who are not like us. He says
it is easy to be compassionate toward people who are like us. Anybody
can do that. He asks us to do some things that are not easy but if and
when we do them he says, people will be able to see God in us.
Grant
was not the only American leader to show that mercy and compassion and
that desire for reconciliation in 1865. President Lincoln had that
same compassionate spirit toward the defeated southern troops and
leaders. You may remember
right after the last Union victory, Lincoln was challenged by
Secretary of War Stanton because Lincoln was not being hard enough on
these evil rebel enemies and according to Stanton, was not making them
suffer enough. Stanton shouted at Lincoln, saying, "Mr.
President, don't you know you are supposed to destroy your
enemy?"
Lincoln's
quiet response was, "Do I not destroy my enemy when I make him my
friend?"
Be
compassionate, Jesus says, because that is how God is; God is
compassionate.
I
read one other story about compassion this week. An Anglican priest
named Samuel Wells was conducting worship one Sunday morning in a
small church in a changing neighborhood around London. A gang of
neighborhood tough kids burst into the service and came up to the
altar table confronting the priest. The congregation was horrified.
The gang leader demanded of Father Wells as he held the bread and the
cup, "Give us some of that!"
The
priest said, "If you look behind you, you will see a group of
people who are here to do the most important thing in their lives. I
don't think this is the most important thing in your life. I hope it
may become so one day. But for now, I suggest that you wait outside
until we are finished, and then we can have a chat about what things
are really important and how we learn to do them." Amazingly the
gang members responded positively to the priest's gentle words and
waited outside for a conversation with him while he continued with the
communion service.
It
is easy, Jesus says, to practice compassion toward people who are like
us, but he is calling us to do something harder - to be compassionate
toward people who are not like us.
This
compassion, this kindness, is one of the commands that God gives to
us. There are several commands that are important, Jesus tells us. He
reminds us about the greatest commandments which we spoke to each
other in our call to worship: we are to love God with all our heart,
soul, mind and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as we care
for ourselves.
Kindness
and compassion are one of the expectations God has of us as followers
of Christ. And it even
goes farther back than that. In the prophet Micah, one of the most
famous verses in the Bible, a verse we will probably be inscribing in
a prominent place in our new building, says, "What does the Lord
require of you but to do justice, to practice kindness, and to walk
humbly with God?" Kindness comes from a word in Hebrew that is
difficult to translate exactly. The Hebrew word is hesed which
can be seen as mercy, kindness, compassion. Hesed is one of the
attributes of God and it is often translated in the Old Testament as
"loving kindness".
The
book of Proverbs in chapter 21 says whoever pursues righteousness and
kindness will find life and honor.
Kindness
and compassion were certainly characteristics of Jesus as well. He is
willing to do something that was utterly scandalous for any teacher or
rabbi of his time: he was willing to touch the lepers; to touch and
heal those who were the most despised persons of his time. In fact,
when one leper came up to Jesus to ask for healing, we are told that
Jesus was moved with compassion to see this man who needed his touch
of healing power. In this story, the Greek word for compassion means
literally that Jesus had a gut wrenching experience; he was moved
inwardly. So in his compassion, he touched the man and the man was
made well.
In
another story about Jesus he exhibits that same compassion toward a
man whose station in life was extremely different from that of the
leper. A very wealthy man approached Jesus and asked what he should do
to have the best kind of life. He already has all the money he could
ever want but the fact that he is approaching Jesus says that there is
still something missing. Jesus tells him to obey the commandments we
rehearsed in our call to worship. He says he has been doing that. But
Jesus sees that he is not really, that he is not loving God with all
his heart and life, that instead his love for his wealth is the most
important thing, so Jesus asks him to set that aside and come and
follow. He is unable to because his bank account has become his god.
But
before Jesus asks him, the gospel says, Jesus looked on him with love
and compassion. He understood the man and did not ridicule him. But he
did ask him to take the next step of faith and move beyond a religion
of rules to a faith of giving himself unreservedly to God.
Be
compassionate just as God is compassionate - and just as Jesus was
compassionate. What does it mean for us to do that as a nation,
especially where the phrase of "compassionate conservative"
was a popular phrase four years ago in a campaign? We are facing hard
choices in our own state as we look at some cut backs in funding for
those on the fringes, those who are the most vulnerable and who have
the least voice. One of the things we asked of the people last spring
in the four-week Bible study for some legislators was to think about
how they could apply Jesus' commandment of being kind and
compassionate in their choices as legislators. It is not a simple
thing.
What
does it mean for us in business to treat people with kindness and
compassion at the same time companies have had to downsize?
These are not easy questions. What does it mean for us to have
compassion as committed same sex couples are asking for the same legal
rights that heterosexual couples have? In fundamentalist and
conservative churches today it is supposed to be a time to gather up
support for a constitutional amendment to prohibit those rights for
some American citizens and preserve them for others.
I
do not support that constitutional amendment because I believe it is
wrong to amend the constitution to take away rights and because I am
still trying to understand how granting rights to a few committed gay
couples will become a threat to my marriage or your marriage if you
are married. And I am still hoping someone can explain that terrible
threat to me. I am apparently in a lot of company because one Colorado
Springs pastor just said on Friday that the average man in the street
is not just mobilized enough about this amendment yet.
And,
even more important for me, sexual orientation is not one of the major
concerns of the teachings of Jesus. In fact, do you know how many time
Jesus talks about homosexuality? None. It does not appear in anything
he said. But treating other people the way we would want to be treated
and treating people with kindness, those are major themes for Jesus.
If
we are trying to be Biblical and trying to follow Christ's example and
his commandment to be compassionate, what do you think it means to be
compassionate on this question? What do you think?
Compassion
is not only a central message of Christ, it is one of the six core
values of our congregation. We have said over the past ten years, here
are the values that are most important to us: SPIRITUAL GROWTH,
HOSPITALITY, INTEGRITY, PIONEERING/CHANGE, FAMILY, AND COMPASSION.
Can
one be too compassionate? Can we be too kind and let people just make
excuses and refuse to take responsibility for their lives when they
are hurting others and themselves? Of course and that is the topic for
next week when we talk about responsibility and self discipline.
Until
then, we close with the benediction that we regularly use at funerals
and memorial services here. Life is short and we do not have much
time to gladden the hearts of those who walk this way with us.
So let us be swift to love; and let us make haste to be kind.
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