Empathy is the heart of the Triune God, the heart that your heart beats in time with, and the heart that will save humanity and heal all things.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Lect. 13 A
Texts: Matthew 10:40-42; Romans 6:12-23 (ref. to Romans 5 and 7 as well)
Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
A cup of cold water is a simple thing. But why it is given is more complicated.
You can see someone thirsty and kindly give them some water. But the guts, the compassion of Christ we’ve been considering lately, goes deeper. Further.
Two weeks ago we heard “compassion” translate Greek derived from the word for guts, innards, bowels. But the Greeks had another word for it, “sympathy,” literally, “suffer with.” The Latin version is “compassion.” We took both without change into English. Now, sympathy is a good thing. To be with someone in their suffering is a blessing.
But in the early 20th century, an English psychologist took two Greek roots and coined a new word “empathy.” Empathy means to enter into another’s suffering, not simply be with them. To feel what they feel, know what they know, suffer what they suffer.
Sympathy is sharing a cup of cold water because you know someone is thirsty. Empathy is feeling their thirst in your own heart and body.
Empathy best describes the Triune God’s desire in coming as one of us.
We’ve been hearing Paul’s letter to the Romans since the beginning of June and a couple weeks ago we heard, from chapter 5, that God’s love for you and me and all people is known in one thing: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God’s love came to us before we repented, before we confessed, before we stopped doing wrong. God’s love doesn’t look at you and see a bad thing, a broken thing. God looks at you and sees beloved. Beloved enough to die for.
And that’s because God entered into our suffering. Sympathy is the Triune God seeing our suffering and life and feeling sorrow for it. Empathy is the Triune God entering into our suffering, our life. Feeling what we feel, knowing what we know, suffering what we suffer.
This is the depth of God’s love for you, the heart of the Triune God. God knows every joy, every pain, every temptation, every doubt, every bad or good motive, because God became like you, like me.
God’s empathy for humanity is what saves us at the cross. God’s willingness to enter into our pain and change it from the inside, enter into our sin and love us out of it from the inside.
It is empathy that is closest to the heart of God, the guts of Christ.
And it is our only hope for healing here, too. In Steven Spielberg’s latest movie, “Disclosure Day,” the heart of the movie is spoken by one of the lead characters. He says that empathy is the evolutionary advantage that will save humanity.
I would go so far as to say that empathy is the line that divides those in our world who inflict suffering, oppression, pain on the weak and the vulnerable from those who try to make the world better for all. And you and I best know that empathy as the heart of Christ.
It’s why you’re so shocked when people who call themselves Christian act abominably toward others, support policies not just of exclusion but of erasure, not just indifferent to suffering but causing it, even reveling in it. Our disagreements with such Christians are nearly impossible to argue out because it’s not about the policies or decisions. The real problem is we can’t recognize the heart of Christ in such people. We can’t imagine ever treating people the way even some of our nation’s most powerful officials do in the name of Christ because our heart is shaped enough like Christ’s that it’s incomprehensible.
When you share Christ’s heart, the empathy of the Triune God, deciding what to do is easy. Defend your neighbors. Feed them. Welcome them. Support policies that deal with homelessness and poverty and immigration and hunger with compassion and grace, always choosing ways that will heal and help and bless. And, as we remember again on this Pride weekend, just love people for who they are, full stop. Give all equal rights, full stop. The math is simple when you share God’s heart.
And if someone claims Christ’s name but not Christ’s heart, it’s nearly impossible to know what to say or do to them. Because no saying or doing will change their hearts of stone into hearts of Christ.
But remember this: you do share Christ’s heart, even if you doubt that sometimes.
We know that sometimes our hearts are stony and we take the easy path, the unloving path, simply because it’s more convenient. We know that as much as we hope otherwise, we’re not yet beating as one with Christ’s heart all the time.
And today it feels like Paul is saying it’s either or. Either you obey the old ways, the ways of the world, or you obey the new way, the way of God’s righteousness and grace.
But the “either-or” feeling of today’s words is out of context. Next week, from a little later in this letter, we’ll hear Paul’s true experience, one we know all too well. How he knows what the good is, and yet he keeps finding himself taking the wrong path, doing what is not good.
Hold on to the truth that you share enough of the heart of Christ to feel the pain of your neighbors, to have empathy for others, even those you don’t understand, those different from you. You may feel, like Paul, that you’re struggling with this. But Christ’s heart is there. You’re on the way.
And the grace Paul finds in his struggle is that it is God who breaks him free.
It is God who shapes his heart. Today we asked God in the Prayer of the Day to “mold us into a people who welcome your word and serve one another.” Mold us. Like clay in a potter’s hands. You might still be misshapen in places, not quite the jar or vase or bowl God is making for the world. You might need more time on the wheel, more time in the kiln.
But God is making you a new heart, right now. God’s Spirit is teaching your heart to beat as one with God’s. Opening your heart to deeper empathy and love for all God’s creatures, not just the people, but all the people for sure, and the whole creation.
And in that empathy, you will give a cup of cold water when you feel another’s thirst as if it is your own. And you’ll also ask, “why is everyone so thirsty all the time? Is there something wrong with the water supply?” And you will work with your neighbors, this community, this world, to figure that out and fix the water supply. And the food supply. And the wage supply. And the housing supply. And the justice supply.
We also prayed that God’s justice and mercy would reshape the world. That’s what your empathy can do, with mine, and with so many others. So let God keep molding you, give yourself a little grace when you’re not there yet, and watch as God brings healing and life through you and all whom God is molding.
In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
