Hymns:

Can You Feel the Seasons Turning ACS  1065

When Long before Time ELW 861

Lord Whose Love in Humble Service ELW 712

In these hardline brutal days the word compassion holds me fast and provides the hope. Just the word itself is like an antidote and an aspiration all at once. To speak of and promote compassion is to locate yourself in the camp of love with those who feel the hurt of others and seek and pray for remedies. That is the anticipation of greater goodness to come – hope.  As it always does, the gospel of God’s love and mercy stands out in increasing contrast with the news stories which are offering ample evidence of a world bending the knee to the gods of power, greed and violence. Over and over, the story of God in Christ gives us accounts of healing, restoring, and forgiving. The feeding of the great crowd is just one such instance.  That message is so opposite the ascending style of hardline, fundamentalist religions that seem to strive to divide, dominate, punish, and restrict. How can it be that we as a wealthy nation have chosen to withdraw from giving food aid or medical aid to hurting people? In contrast, Jesus saw a need and moved to help. The domination system sees the life or resources of the other and plots and plans how to take it.  In contrast, Jesus touched the unclean, healed the foreigner, and forgave the sinner. The dominators create more harm, create more barriers, and seek to codify caste and racial divisions.

These hard-hearted ways of being stand in such opposition to the way of God demonstrated in the life and teaching of Jesus.  We know that there are pastors who do not pray for peace: they pray for the war effort to destroy the ‘enemy’, they pray for the violent destruction of other lands and people.  Have they never read the story of God in Christ?  The mind of Christ is far from them.  They seem stuck on Joshua and Judges, always idolizing the destruction, but missing the message of mercy woven through all of Scripture. Jesus, however, leads with compassion – always. Not only does the Bible give the impression that love and care is an explicit mission of Jesus, but also frequently records the events of caring set in motion explicitly because “he felt compassion.”  The authors of the gospels were very deliberate in portraying compassion as a driving emotion in the life of Jesus. 

What does this mean? Jesus as the incarnation of God reveals that love and compassion are central in the heart and mind of God. If we strive to be of God, we must also love and show compassion. In today’s gospel story in particular, Jesus saw the hungry people, is moved by compassion, and then helps the disciples feed them. That is simple enough. The event is meant to offer immediate aid, but also becomes a teaching moment.  It is a passing on of the mission when Jesus tells the disciples, ‘you find something to give them’.  Lesson learned?  Lead with love! And don’t stop with a feeling. Turn that compassion into action that serves as a demonstration of the kingdom of God.

Lead with love! This is vital in times when we hear so much retribution, so much violence, so much hurt and anguish. God’s message in Christ has always been clear: lead with love.  We love because God first loved us.  As Christians we know that this demands of us broadmindedness.  To practice our faith with integrity requires not only open hearts but open minds. This story in Matthew and the message in Isaiah point to the way God invites the hearer to see beyond the merely apparent, and to apprehend the possible.  Through the mystery of the incarnation, God our creator entered in to lift our eyes unto the hills and to see from where our help comes. The holy hill to which all Christians look, Calvary, is a demonstration and a repudiation of revenge and retribution. It is a declaration of forgiveness and of a love that cannot be overcome, even by the deadly system of domination.

Moreover, in this love, this compassion, we are to see more clearly, more broadly, and strive to comprehend the wonder and grace of all that God has fashioned.  Rather than closing minds and borders and always defining differences, we are to be expansive in our thinking, finding connection and relationships. Broadmindedness, inclusive compassion, recognizes the web of life, the interconnection of all things, our mutuality and interdependence with all people and organisms. Broadmindedness, inclusive compassion, recognizes that we simply cannot survive on a planet that turns uninhabitable.  Broadmindedness sees that waste dumped on someone else’s land or into someone else’s water or air will harm everyone.  Broadmindedness sees that as people we are always stronger together and that difference and diversity are our God-blessed assets. Jesus told the disciples to feed the people to complete the action of compassion.  In Christ, God continues to call the people away from futile endeavors, away from idolatry of power and wealth and back to caring for all.

During times of trouble, we have witnessed bold expressions of the compassion God’s Spirit inspires. Every chapter of human history holds stories of compassion that carry the light of God’s love forward, inextinguishable.  When deportation actions and concern for quotas turned human lives into metrics, and wrought havoc and pain in Minnesota communities, people of faith, allfaiths, and people of compassion responded with acts of love, risky love.  These people led with love, delivered food, gave rides, offered support.  We’ve seen this response before.  Compassion has been the driving force of Lutheran Refugee and Immigration Services, Lutheran World Relief, Luther Disaster Response.  We remember the efforts of many congregations and individuals sponsoring Hmong refugees in the 1970s and 80s. We remember the efforts by many congregations to assist in the resettlement of Somali refugees after the crises in their country. That same compassionate effort has been the hallmark of so many congregations and church organizations.  They are following the path of Jesus.

Following the lead of Christ in living inclusively compassionate lives will be the healing our world needs.  Learning and rehearsing the compassion of Christ is the light for our path and the lamp for our feet.  To hold compassion as our life-shaping ethos will be the defining of our greatness.  After all, Jesus told us the truth we can recognize – there are those who, striving after greatness, only lord it over others.  It shall not be so among you, Jesus said.  Rather the greatest among you will be the one who serves.