“Compassion to Heal”

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany

February 12, 2006

Mark 1:40-45

Let us pray: Thank you, Lord Jesus, for entering in to our world with your healing power and for breaking the boundaries that keep us from you and one another. Make us compassionate as you were compassionate and give us the power to show it in lives lived for others. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

              When Jesus saw the leper, he was “moved with pity” and he healed him. This story is another manifestation of what Jesus proclaimed when he first stepped on to the scene to begin his ministry, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” For this man, Jesus was good news as his whole world was changed. Jesus created for him a new reality, a new existence, by restoring him to health and a place back into society.

              In Jesus’ day, lepers bore the responsibility to keep themselves separated from the rest of society. They were kept in isolation on the outskirts of town. When people would come near, they were required to cry out, “Unclean, unclean” so that people could keep their distance. Not only did a leper have to deal with the physical pain and inconvenience of their disease, they had to put up with the loneliness and shunning of society. How long had it been since someone had touched this untouchable? How long had it been since someone had spoken a kind word? When he saw Jesus, he crossed over the boundaries that kept him separated and came directly to Jesus, knowing that he had the power and ability to heal him and make him clean. As he crossed the boundary, so did Jesus as he came in contact with the leper, making him, according to the law, unclean. With no other options, the leper kneels and begs Jesus, “If you choose, you can make me clean. Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean.’ Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.”

              This story tells me that we have a God who is willing to get close to us, even in our uncleanness. God is compassionate toward those who suffer illness and who are outcasts of society. God is ready, able, and willing to enter into our situations and create for us a new existence that restores us to health and wholeness and moves us out to show compassion and care for the needs and  hurts of others. In an amazing reversal, by making the leper clean and restoring him back into society, Jesus is the one who is pushed out into the countryside, outside of society boundaries to continue caring for those in need. Yes, Jesus crosses boundaries for you and me, setting us free from all that afflicts us and holds us down, enabling us to go out and share in his compassion with others. 

              I looked in the dictionary for the meaning of compassion. It says that compassion is “the deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another in the inclination to give aid or support, or to show mercy.” For Jesus, his deep feeling for the suffering of the leper moved him to act, doing what he could to lend aid to his suffering. To have compassion is to have a passion to care for the pains and needs of others. We should care. We should respond. We should act upon our deep feeling for the suffering of others, just like Jesus did. The good news is that Jesus gives us that ability, the power to care. Jesus instills in us compassion, for his compassion led him to the cross where he crossed the ultimate boundary of death. He died on the outskirts of town, on the garbage heap of Golgotha, between two thieves. He took upon himself our sin in order to make us clean and whole. Through his forgiveness, he makes us new and different people, creating for us a new existence, giving to us a new life. By his resurrection, Jesus destroyed the boundaries that separate us from God once and for all, restoring to us our humanity and giving to us the promise and inheritance of eternal life. This is the good news of the kingdom of heaven that Jesus proclaimed. It is Jesus and the healing power of his death and resurrection that makes you new and gives to you the opportunity to share this good news with others.

              Where do you see the compassion of Jesus to heal and make clean at work in your life and the world? Jesus’ compassion was evident to me in a striking way in my friend Pete Velander. If you remember, Pete was our Consecration speaker during our stewardship emphasis last November. A couple of years ago, Pete did a most compassionate thing. His co-worker had been suffering from kidney failure for some time. She had to go into the clinic several times a week for dialysis as part of her treatment. She was on the donor list to receive a new kidney. Pete looked into it and decided to give her one of his kidneys. He went through all of the tests to make sure he was a match. Everything was moving forward toward the operation when she was notified that another kidney was available. She had to respond at that moment, so she had the operation and received her new kidney, restoring her to health and active participation in her daily life. You might think that the story was over, but Pete decided since he had made the decision to give up his kidney he would go ahead and give his kidney away to someone else, someone he didn’t even know. A match was found and Pete gave a woman in northern Minnesota another chance at life. His generous act was but an extension of his understanding of stewardship, a joyful response to all that God had given and done for him.

              Another example of great compassion is in what Gordon and Betty Olson did. In 1991, their son and his girl friend traveled to the Central African Republic to help build a church. While they were there, they were robbed and the Olson’s son was killed. It is hard to imagine the tremendous grief that they must have experienced. But instead of being bitter and filled with rage, they found compassion and formed an organization called Lutheran Partners in Global Mission. They have been helping Lutheran congregations get connected with other Lutheran congregations all around the world. It is their way of sharing the good news of the gospel and strengthening the Lutheran church around the world. In a few weeks, I will be going with a small group from United on a mission trip to make a connection with a Lutheran congregation in Bariloche, Argentina, called Congregacion Cruz del Sur, which means Southern Cross Congregation. Besides the regular ministry of worship, education, and fellowship, this congregation helps to collect and distribute food and fuel to people in poverty, they support a soup kitchen in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city where about 30 kids receive their daily meal, we will be raising money and helping to build new shelving for their kitchen, and they participate in a network of organizations and churches which support the work of small cooperatives trying to develop alternative models of production and commercialization. Quite an expansive ministry of compassion. We look forward to this experience and bringing back what we learn to all of you here at United.

              God can do amazing things in and through us, those called by Jesus to a new life of discipleship, of service, of compassion for the cares and needs of others. It is an invitation to get our hands dirty and work toward taking down the barriers that divide us from one another, the barriers that prohibit people from experiencing the new life that God offers to us all. To have compassion for other people is more than just a deep feeling of pity, but it is also the motivation to act, to enter into their suffering, to walk with them, to care for their needs, to be the good news of the kingdom that Jesus has brought to this earth. 

              A psychologist from the U. S. was present during the Nuremburg war-crime trials in Germany after WWII. After watching the proceedings, especially those centering around Hermann Goering, he concluded, “Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.” When we fail to put ourselves in the shoes of others, we lose our ability to feel and show compassion. There is so much need for compassion in our world, with the lives of so many people affected by the war in Iraq, with an increase in AIDS and more than half the world’s population hungry and in poverty, with many people still displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with legislation being proposed that actually is intended to hurt the lives of gays and lesbians, we should not and can not close our eyes to those who suffer. When Jesus saw the leper, he was “moved to pity,” and he healed him. Amen.