(These notes of sermons/studies originally commissioned by World Vision are not copyright. They may be adapted by preachers or small group leaders and used with or without acknowledgment).

Shalom! Rowland Croucher

Healthy churches are concerned not only about ‘saving souls’ — evangelism — but helping others deprived of necessary daily needs. Unfortunately Christians have sometimes emphasized one or the other of these two areas of essential ministry, rather than both.

Jim Wallis somewhere put it well: ‘The greatest need in our time is not simply for kerygma, the preaching of the gospel, nor for diakonia, service on behalf of justice, nor for charisma, the experience of the Spirit’s gifts, nor even for propheteia, the challenging of the king. The greatest need of our time is for koinonia, the call to simply be the church — to love one another, and to offer our life for the sake of the world.’

A theological understanding of Christian social concern begins with the character of God. He is a ‘social God’, relating within the community of the Trinity, and, in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, with his creatures on this planet. Jesus came with a mandate to preach, liberate and heal (Luke 4:18-19) and commissions his followers to do the same as he did (John 20:21). So the church, the body of Christ, does in its world what Jesus did in his: no more, no less. It adopts Jesus’ stance towards others: that of a servant. And it will be called to account at the Great Judgment relative to the presence or absence of ministries of compassion to the poor (Matthew 25:31-46).

Who are the poor? They are people who have no ‘place’. The materially poor are deprived of a place within the bounty of the community; the lonely, the imprisoned, or the emotionally poor do not have a place within a loving family or community; the politically poor do not have a place in the decision-making processes of their government; refugees are ‘displaced’, without a part of the earth to call their own; the spiritually deprived do not have a place in the Kingdom. Our Christian compassion must address all these issues. The meaning of Christian ‘hospitality’ is simply our opening up our hearts, our lives, our homes, our commun- ities, to the ‘wretched of the earth’. Hospitality is providing a place for Jesus, who is still poor today.

I asked some very poor rural Brazilians what made them anxious or fearful. A sad-looking mother said, ‘I cannot warm my children with just one blanket.’ A man who had the face and hands of half a century’s hard labour said, ‘I toil and toil but have very little to show for it’.

I was very moved. What do I say to them? Maybe my tears spoke louder than any words. I felt helpless, but I also felt a solidarity with them in their despair.

‘Compassion’ comes from the Latin pati and cum – ‘to suffer with’. The church takes Jesus as its model for compassion. Twelve times in the Gospels Jesus or his Father- God are said to be ‘moved with compassion’ for worried and helpless people (e.g. Matthew 9:36). Our Lord sends us his followers into the world to ‘be compassionate as your Father is compassionate’ (Luke 6:36).

How does compassion work? In the same way God’s does: he sends Jesus into the world to be with us. He emptied himself and became a servant (Philippians 2). That gives us dignity: we must be worth a lot if he is willing to be our slave! He says to us: ‘I will be with you always until the end of the age’ (Matthew 28:20). We are not alone.

So compassion is more than sympathy — ‘feeling sorry’ for the poor. It’s not ‘pity’ for someone weak or inferior. Compassion is a ‘doing verb’ — relieving the pain of others, not just emoting about it. But it’s more than ‘helping the less fortunate’ — that’s elitist and paternalistic.

Compassion, says Matthew Fox, is the world’s richest energy source. A few days before his death, Rabbi Heschel said, ‘There is an old idea in Judaism that God suffers when we suffer… Even when a criminal is hanged on the gallows, God cries. God identifies himself with the misery on this earth. I can help God by reducing human suffering, human anguish and human misery.’

But there’s so much pain — where do I start? In the Matthew text describing Jesus’ compassion (9:35-38), our Lord then turns to his disciples and says ‘There’s so much to do, and so few to do it, PRAY!’ First, pray! Prayer tunes us in to the heart of God. Prayer helps us focus on others and their needs. Prayer turns frustration and anger into hope. A by-product of prayer is peace, without which we will never act appropriately in an unjust world.

I believe it is important for every wage or salary earner, with their family or community, to give a proportion away regularly to the poor — in one’s own country and overseas. You could sponsor a child, or give directly to projects among the poor (more of your dollar gets there that way). Choose an organization, preferably, that is committed to a ‘need not creed’ approach (as Jesus was, rather than giving to your kind of people only). Or you can give through your own denomination: whatever you do, try to be well informed about the situations you are supporting.

We are called, to use an image of Thomas Merton’s, motivated and empowered by the love of God to be involved in the sufferings of the world because it is the aim of God’s love to reset the broken bones of humanity.