A young boy was once walking down a country road on his way home from school. As he passed a neighboring farmhouse he saw the farmer nailing up a sign: Puppies for Sale. He walked over to the man who stood admiring his handiwork and tugged at his pants. “Whattaya want, kid?” the man asked.
“I want to buy one of your puppies, mister” the boy replied.
“Boy,” he said, “these are working dogs. They cost way more than you can afford.” The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coins. All told, he had fifty-six cents. He held out his hand.
“Is this enough to buy one of your puppies?” Well, the farmer scratched his chin and thought about it. He could tell by the way the child was dressed that his folks must be barely getting by. Looking toward the barn, he gave a whistle. A beautiful border collie trotted out the door followed by four identical looking puppies.
Moments later a fifth puppy tumbled out the barn door and clumsily stumbled toward them, its crippled back legs causing it to wobble from side to side. The boy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s the one I want,” he said excitedly. The farmer looked at the puppy hobbling toward them, then back at the boy.
“Kid,” he said “you don’t want that one. He won’t be able to play with you or run alongside when you learn to ride a bike. Why don’t you pick one of the healthy ones?” The boy reached down to the cuff of his overalls and rolled it up, revealing a metal brace that stretched from his knee to a specially made orthopedic shoe.
“Sir,” he said, “I don’t run too well myself. I think that puppy can use a friend like me who understands.”
Frederick Buechner, one of the great theologians of our time, writes that “Compassion is the capacity for feeling what it’s like to live inside someone else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy for you, too.”
In other words, having true compassion requires forging personal connections that make the suffering of others real to us. Like a crippled child who can imagine the joy of sharing himself with a crippled puppy, having compassion toward another stems from a place of shared experience.
For those of us who identify as Christians, our model for this is Jesus, who stepped directly into the lives of the most broken. He met those who were hurting right where they were. He listened to the stories of the oppressed and the disregarded, and then shared his own life with them without precondition.
So, how do we experience the kind of compassion for our neighbor that will compel us to love as Christ loves? This is an important question to ponder, especially today, in a world where technology increasingly isolates us from one another and where social media reinforces our tribal instincts.
In order to answer this, we’ll want to take note that Jesus interacted with people regardless of whether they were a devoted follower, an anonymous face in the crowd, washing their hands of him, or dying on a cross at his side. Jesus had compassion for all these people because he chose to journey beside them in the midst of the pain and the turmoil of their lives. He saw with his own eyes what their needs were. They could personally share their life stories with him because he wasn’t hidden away in a church somewhere, pronouncing God’s judgment on those who fail to live perfect lives.
Living as the presence of Christ is an invitation to go out and personally witness to the fears and the insecurities of our neighbors. If someone in our community is struggling with addiction, we are called to be the ones to physically hold them.
If our elderly neighbor is isolated and lonely, we are called to be their companion. If LGBTQ kids are being bullied in our school, we are called to encourage and protect them. If a veteran is struggling to cope following active duty, we are called to become his or her personal advocate.
We are invited … no … we are commanded to be disciples who serve others with compassion, especially those whom this world disregards; whether it’s because of their religious beliefs, immigration status, poverty, dependency, gender identity, disability… whatever.
Living compassionately isn’t just life-changing for those whom we reach out to in love. It’s life-altering for us as well. It breathes new life to our own little community here on the shore. It inspires the world that we are called to serve. It bends the arc of history toward justice and righteousness.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Tom Murray of the Lutsen Lutheran Church and Baptism River Community Church of Finland.
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