The Cost of Compassion.

Conflict arises inside religious communities as well as between religious and secular communities and even within the secular world! We have all heard of the inevitable collision between two ships on the sea traveling the same course toward each other. There is no time to change direction. In Mark 1:40-45 Jesus’ action in showing compassion to an “outsider” and healing the leper puts him in great conflict with the ruling priests of the temple and the commandments of Moses. The authority of Jesus threatens the legitimacy of the scribes, and his concern for human need, tears at the traditions of the established church of his day. Jesus takes compassion on a leper and does what would have been a no-no in his time: he touches the diseased man - he makes human contact. Sound familiar. 

Many of the scribes were already unhappy with “this preacher” who seemed to be challenging the roots of their orthodox faith. This act of inappropriate behavior seemed to be the last straw.  A person who had leprosy in those early days of is not much different than the stigma AIDS had and still sometimes has in our society today. People with leprosy were grotesque, contagious and sent into exile. It was even customary for those with leprosy entering a community to cry out, “Unclean, unclean,” where they walked. Those with leprosy were condemned to die in isolation.

Yet what did Jesus do when this person with leprosy spoke to him and said, “If you choose, you can make me clean”? For Jesus this was a test of his relationship to those in deep need.  He will, through his ministry, meet the full range of physical needs: blindness, blood disorders, epilepsy, palsy, paralysis, and even insanity. Jesus does the same today, when we, in our own struggles of pain and disease cry out in hope that we will be healed.

We may not have leprosy, but in our circumstances, we too are led to say, “If you choose you can make me whole.” As Christians we are a people of faith and hope and compassion. We can never doubt that Jesus is working in our life and also through the gifts of others to touch us - each one of us. To touch us at whatever point of need will be best for us. Jesus responds with the deepest of human feelings to the person with leprosy and to us. Jesus knows our joy, feels our anger, senses our disappointments, and experiences our laughter. Jesus is with us in our impatience and endures our surprises; celebrates our exhilaration and is saddened by our times of depression. 

Of all these feelings, compassion stands out as the deepest of all emotions and is the truest expression of the heart of Jesus. When Jesus is moved with compassion, He feels so deeply the suffering of this person with leprosy that it is just as if Jesus himself is suffering as that person is suffering. Jesus was not moved with pity, sympathy, or empathy. No, each is too superficial or condescending. Jesus saw the need of this individual -- just as he sees the need of so many more -- with a hand-on-hand, heart-for-heart, and gut-for-gut reaction. He feels His way into the needs of this person with leprosy. 

Jesus goes beyond compassion: he reached out and touched the person with leprosy. He violated every medical warning and social taboo. By touching this person with leprosy Jesus lets that person know that he will take the mans place not just as a man with a contagious disease but as one who is socially contaminated as well. Could we stretch out our hand and do that for the man in the photo on this page. When we see people in such suffering and read this story we cannot help but feel how little we know of true compassion!

I still remember the first time that I faced someone with AIDS, who was dying. I had been asked to take the Hospital Communion round as part of my training at a CPE course in Auckland NZ and one of the people on the list was a frail, thin young man suffering the breakdown of his being that HIV-AIDS had bought to him. He was barely clinging to life. This was in the time when we did not know much about the disease and were fearful - sadly many cast these people out at that time. Upon entering the room my anxieties came up and I was struggling to bring myself to go near to him almost succumbing to the fears being propagated in the community. 

It was then that I watched his loving father take the young man in his arms and gently lift him so that he could receive communion with so much love and compassion. This scene deeply moved my soul and I was reminded of God’s love and the compassion of our Lord. In that scene before me I was reminded of the image of Jesus being held in the arms of his loving father, his parent – God. I also remembered that I had been called to this role by God through his son Jesus Christ. It was then an easy thing to share with these two people as we partook in the love feast of Communion. 

We, you and I are called to act with such compassion and we can do no less. We can be the hands that touch a wounded soul. We can express the words that soothe a wounded spirit. We can be the arms that hold and hug a person who may be dying. We can be the friend who sits and listens and loves another because we see a special child of God in need. We all have choices to make. Jesus had a choice to make. He could have conformed to the status quo of the temple or risk limiting his ministry by provoking the opposition.  The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

There is a cost for compassion! The people came to look for Jesus in their thousands to hear and to find healing of body, mind, and spirit. The person with leprosy, went out and proclaimed Jesus’ healing freely. This action of course escalated conflict in Jesus’ life. The more Jesus served God, the more he came into conflict with the authorities especially with the church. This conflict led Jesus to the cross where he showed compassion to those who drove the nails into his feet. “When have we reached out in prayer, in touch, in word, in that still small voice, and said to someone who is at the bottom of life, “I am here. How may I help you?” It is then that we to will feel the grace of God and share the love of Jesus!