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RECENT SERMONS
Sermon for August 14, 2005
"Nurturing Compassion"
Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church, Saratoga, California
By The Rev. Portia Mather-Hempler
In June, my husband, Jim, and I attended the International
Stewardship Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. This conference is sponsored by the Episcopal Church. This year's theme was "Nurturing
Passionate Generosity". One
of the most memorable experiences of passionate generosity for me happened
before the conference began. It
took place on a city bus on our way into Charlotte. Jim and I had spent the first night in a hotel near the
airport. We decided to take the
city bus into town to the convention hotel so that we could see a little bit of
Charlotte. I had inquired at the
hotel desk about the bus fare and was told that it was a dollar. So, I got some one dollar bills and we
set off for the bus stop. When the
bus arrived, I got on the bus with my 2 one dollar bills in hand, only to learn
that the fare was $1.10 each. Neither Jim nor I had any change on us! Was I embarrassed! The bus driver could not make
change. The only passenger on the
bus was a black woman. When she
saw our predicament, she immediately gave the bus driver a quarter for our bus
fare. We thanked her profusely and
offered to reimburse her with the other dollar bill I had, but she refused.
She had just come from a job interview at the airport and
was feeling grateful. We learned
that she, too, was a Christian and a special ed. Teacher who tutored an
autistic child during the school year and took other work, such as cleaning,
during the summer. She was
delighted that we were visiting Charlotte and shared with us her love of her
city. She was a warm, friendly,
generous compassionate woman who shared her love of God withus in her tangible generosity of what she had and who she
was. We found the people of
Charlotte to be warm, friendly and outgoing to strangers. It was a lesson in passionate generosity
just being there!
Thomas Merton has said that "Compassion is the keen
awareness of the interdependence of all things."
I think that this is part of what Matthew conveys to us
through his story of the meeting between Jesus and the Canaanite woman who comes to him seeking healing for her daughter. She comes to Jesus and says, " Have
mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon". Jesus does not answer her. The disciples ask Jesus to send her
away because she is following them. I sense an inner struggle going on within
Jesus when he tells the disciples, " I was sent only to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel." Jesus believes
that his ministry is first of all to his own people. This woman is a foreigner
and a woman—2 strikes against her. To talk to her, to touch her would make Jesus unclean and give the
Pharisees more things to be offended about and to find fault with Jesus. Jesus thinks that his ministry is to
the lost sheep – the Hebrew people - his own people alone. But this woman is persistent. She has
faith in God and believes that Jesus can heal her daughter. She comes and kneels at Jesus' feet and
says, " Lord, help me." Jesus replies to her request for help
with the words, "It is not fair to take the children¹s food and throw it to the dogs." The Canaanite woman knows her place in society. In the eyes of the Hebrew people, she
may be no more than a dog. But this Canaanite woman helps Jesus to see that
God¹s love and generosity are for all people when she replies, " Yes,
Lord, yet even the dogs eat the
crumbs that fall from their master's table". She recognizes that God is her master
and she is willing to accept even the crumbs of God¹s love and generosity for
her. But God does not
give out crumbs – God is a generous and loving God who gives out generous
portions of love to all people. Jesus realizes that this woman has
great faith in a God of generous love and a God of justice. To refuse her request would be unjust
and cruel. Jesus grants her
request and her daughter is healed.
This story is a great example of compassionate generosity
and acting with justice and mercy towards those who on the surface may appear
to be different from us, but underneath, we are all God's children. Matthew Fox defines
compassion this way. "Compassion
is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy." This is what Jesus did. Our children often act compassionately from an inner sense of what is
right and what is merciful.
My dentist told me a story about what his son did at summer
camp this year.
His son's school and another school here in San Jose spent a
week together at camp. His
son is small for his age. During
the first days at camp, a big boy from the other school started picking on a
girl in the same class with my dentist¹s son. Finally, my dentist¹s son could not stand watching this. So, he placed himself between his
classmate and the bully and said, "If you want to pick on someone, pick on
me." Immediately, the bully hit
him and they started fighting. The
counselors broke up the fight and sent the bully home from camp. My dentist¹s son was given an award for
standing up for his classmate and protecting her. My dentist does not approve of his son fighting, but is
proud of him for standing up for what he believes is right. I believe that his son acted with
compassion to stop an injustice being done to his classmate. His son acted with mercy. To act with compassion often takes
strength for compassion means ³with suffering²—to bear another¹s pain
with a desire to alleviate it. Underlying compassion is a deep feeling and
understanding of what is right and what is not right and a desire for justice
and mercy and protection for all of God¹s children.
I read a story in the paper of a soldier in Iraq who saved a
girl in Baghdad from being killed by an unexploded explosive device the girl
was playing with. When the soldier saw the child playing with this device, he
pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family at home grieving his
death and a little girl alive in Baghdad. As a father, he must have acted instinctively with compassion to save a
child. The sadness is that
it cost him his life.
Yet, God is
able to transform and redeem suffering. As Desmond Tutu writes in his book God has a Dream, "There is no
such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all
the worst that we can imagine. God
created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always,
can do so now – in our personal lives and in our lives as nations,
globally. The most unlikely person
( like the request of the Canaanite woman), the most improbable
situation—these are all Œtransfigurable¹ – they can be turned into
their glorious opposites. Indeed,
God is transforming the world now – through us – because God loves
us.²
We show God¹s love in our world when we act with
compassion. God's compassion has
no boundaries, no limits. God is
calling us to release the compassion for others that is within us. Today, I invite you to think about a time
when someone showed you compassion and give thanks to God for that person. Also, I invite you to be open for opportunities that come your way
to show compassion to others.
Practice compassion daily and you will find that you will
experience
God¹s abundant love in the process. And God's love and compassion will
be released into our world.
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