From a Polarized Church to Empathy and Compassion

We live in days of polarization. Instead of facing life side by side, we take sides. Instead of sitting with, we stand against.

It has been said that Job’s friends had great empathy and compassion for Job…until they opened their mouths. In the midst of terrible suffering, Job’s friends gathered to comfort him, spending seven days in silence. But then they started speaking. How did that go? We will let Job speak from his experience:

Then Job spoke again:
“How long will you torture me?
How long will you try to crush me with your words?
You have already insulted me ten times.
You should be ashamed of treating me so badly.

Job 19:1-3 (NLT)

Job’s friends failed in empathy and compassion. Our world, and even the Christian church, seems to be failing in empathy and compassion as we stand against one another instead of sitting together, as we take sides instead of facing life side by side.

Instead of a polarised faith tradition we want to be an empathetic and compassionate community of faith but there are two roadblocks that get in the way.

First, certitude gets in the way of becoming an empathetic and compassionate community.

Job’s three friends were there to comfort him but once they all start talking it went downhill and descended into chapter after chapter of argument. The problem is, they were all sure they were right. It can feel like we live in an era of Job chapters 3-37, everyone being so sure they are right.

We see a similar kind of certitude in Saul of Tarsus. He was so sure that the Jesus movement needed to be stamped out, that the Jesus followers needed to be imprisoned, or killed. To quote Brian Zhand:

Saul was furiously enraged because he was certain that he was right and that the Christians were wrong. Biblical certainty was the drug of choice for this young Pharisee, but it only made him mean. Certitude can be an incubator for cruelty. Perceived infallibility can lead to brutality.

Brian Zhand from the book “When Everything is on Fire.”

Zhand goes on to describe how in meeting Jesus, Saul of Tarsus became Paul the apostle and moved from certitude as the top quality of his faith, to love. Can we make that same move? If so we have a chance at a world with less polarization and more empathy and compassion.

Second, the need to win every argument gets in the way of becoming an empathetic and compassionate community.

At no point in all the arguing back and forth in the Book of Job does anyone say to anyone else, “good point,” or “maybe I need to think about that more” or “well maybe we don’t need to solve it today.” Rather, the tone is “I know better.” Each needs to win.

What could have been a conversation, a good conversation and an important conversation about suffering and the place of righteousness in suffering, ended up being an argument. Job chapters 3-37 are not really a record of a conversation between, but rather the record of a series of lectures for, or worse, preaching at.

Conversation requires listening. Listening requires openness and a teachable spirit. A teachable spirit requires the ability to lose an argument.

Can we move from arguments to conversations? If so we have a chance at moving from a polarized world to a more empathetic and compassionate one.

Today we have continued our series called “What Kind of Church” drawing from the cultural statements of Open Table Communities. What kind of church would Jesus himself feel at home in? What kind of church “gets” Jesus? What kind of church do we want to be?

A church with…

A Culture of Empathy and Compassion
We nurture relationships and gatherings where being with people in the midst of their journey, is more important than being right or being in control. We encourage empathetic listening and compassion for each person’s unique journey and story, including our own.

Open Table Communities

Growing in Jesus. Evolving in Faith.

What does growing as a Christian look like?

We may think that we growth happens just by adding, so, for example, just add enough Bible knowledge and you will have a mature Christian. But is it as simple as that?

We can think of a child growing between grades one, two, three and so on. Just keep adding knowledge each year to what was learned last year and you have a growing child. Maybe so, but there is another kind of growth happening at the same time. That same child is growing taller, and heavier, and “brainier.” Growth is much more organic than simply adding knowledge as the child has an evolving body and mind. Likewise, when we speak of maturing in Christ, it is something more organic.

Maturing is not just about addition, it is also about loss. Our boys will never be knee high to a daisy again. I mourn that. But I also celebrate the men they have become. Actual growth requires alteration, even loss and the destruction of what once was. When a seed grows into a plant, the seed is destroyed.

We can think of heart growth. We can think of growing in the fruit of the Spirit, for example. Growing in love may require the destruction of hatred, apathy, or inactivity. Growing in generosity may require the destruction of selfishness. Growing in gentleness may require the destruction of tendencies toward violence. True growth requires vulnerability, a capacity to be altered, a willingness to change, to evolve. Change, evolution, not by chance, but intention, is part and parcel of growing in Christ.

Evolution is not just a process that happens in our hearts. Sometimes we need to change our minds. Growth in our Christian thinking is not always accomplished in adding new knowledge to old, but replacing old knowledge with new. Just as with heart growth, we can talk of an evolving faith which, in our current series, brings us to our next “cultural statement” from Open Table Communities:

A Culture that Celebrates an Evolving Faith
We nurture questions, doubts and uncertainty because of where they lead us. We celebrate the movement of learning, un-learning and re-learning that takes place in all of life and specifically a life of faith.

Open Table Communities

Questions, doubts, and uncertainties can be a great catalyst for change, for growth. A change of heart, of growing in love, for example, is made possible when we question if we are really all that loving. A change of mind can happen when we are uncertain about what we think. Indeed certainty can stunt our growth terribly.

A church which “gets Jesus” will nurture questions, doubts and uncertainties because they lead us to maturity in our faith. Learning, un-learning and re-learning is part and parcel of what we call discipleship. If we are not questioning, doubting, and allowing uncertainty, then we are not growing in our faith, we are merely taking on someone else’s.

When we have an evolving faith we are in good company. We see evidence of evolving faith in the Bible.

The disciples had an evolving faith. They did not know anything about Jesus when called by Jesus. Three years later and they were still quite in the dark. It took the resurrection of Jesus for them to really clue in. Their faith evolved.

Peter had an evolving faith. He likely believed what every other Jew believed before meeting Jesus. Then he came to believe Jesus was the Messiah. Then he came to believe that Jesus was risen, and more than the Messiah, the Lord. Then because of a vision from the Lord and a visit from some people he questioned his whole Jewish understanding of how things are. Peter’s faith evolved.

Paul had an evolving faith. He went from being certain that he was serving God by persecuting Christians, to serving Jesus. At some point he had to have a massive amount of doubt to overcome his huge amount of certainty. It is no accident that blindness was part of his story, as if he had to come to a point of admitting, “I’m not seeing clearly.” Once Paul made that huge shift in thinking he had it all figured out, right? Well no, he spent some time in the desert, likely thinking it all through, rethinking everything in light of the fact that Jesus is risen. But after that he had it all figured out, right? Well no, years later Paul said,

…we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)

Paul had an evolving faith, and he knew there was yet room for growth, for further change in his thinking.

Looking at the entire scope of the Bible, God’s people as a whole have had an evolving faith. What was said about God and humanity in the earliest events recorded in the Bible are not nearly as filled out as what is said in the later events recorded in the Bible. Note the words of Jesus,

But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, but they didn’t see it. And they longed to hear what you hear, but they didn’t hear it.

Matthew 13:16-17 (NLT)

Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many other heroes of the faith did not know what we now know. God has had great patience with humanity, revealing himself over time, and supremely through Jesus. Do we have patience with the humans around us, and with ourselves, when there is yet room for growth?

Do we celebrate an evolving faith? Do we allow people, and ourselves, the space to grow, to have an evolving faith?

(This sermon can be seen here, and is also available for a limited time on our podcast.)