March 17, 2022

Jesus gets a warning (or is it a threat? or both?) that Herod is out to kill him. In the face of violence and hatred, Jesus practices, proclaims, and lives empathy and compassion – the way of the cross that reveals true power through weakness and self-sacrifical love (Luke 13:31-35).

But Pastor Drew, when we see evil at work so clearly in the world in wars that rage in Ukraine and elsewhere, in deliberate attacks to undermine someone’s dignity as an image-bearer of God, in the pressure to work for personal gain at the expense of neighbor, in narratives that paint people who aren’t exactly like us as the “other” and “enemy,” how can I not be judgmental, and how could I possibly exhibit empathy and compassion.

If we return to the gospel text together, we will see that Jesus states clearly the evil that needs to be renounced and the ways of opposition to the gospel that need to be repented of, as well as talks plainly of the consequences we bring upon ourselves when we fail to live God’s love. Nevertheless, it does not make him cold toward his enemy but he instead sees them as his siblings and children – as those he loves. 

As Fr. Richard Rohr is fond of saying, Jesus shows us “The best critique of the bad is the practice of the better.”

And so, Christ does not desire vengeance or suffering for those who would bring it upon him. Instead he longs to protect and care for them in the shadow of his wings like a mother hen longs to protect her chicks.

God is inviting us and empowering us to live this better way. 
I hope that we might learn to join in cultivating our love and compassion and empathy for ourselves, our neighbor, and even our enemy. This does not mean refusing to call people to repent from the harmful ways of evil and destruction, but it means not doing so in a way that plays the same game of vengeance and instead practicing the better – the way of grace and mercy and love.

Our confirmation students, in talking about how a church could be a positive force in our community, shared their hope that church would be a place and people who you could always go to and know they would really listen to you and welcome you without judgment. And even moreso, that the church would be a training ground for people who show this kind of empathy and compassion and nonjudgmental listening wherever they go in life – school, work, the post office, school board meetings, coffee shops, wherever.

Rest in the grace and peace and love and life of God with you in the wilderness, never leaving or forsaking you, bringing you into the new creation.

Blessings,
Pastor Drew