In Your Image
March 13, 2005
Mark 8:1-10
2 Corinthians 3:17-18
This church season that leads up to the Holiday of Easter is known as Lent. This Lenten season we’ve been challenging this figure of Jesus and comparing it to the Jesus that has been promoted today. We’ve been considering who he is for us as an historical figure and who he is as a Post Easter reality in our lives. We began meeting Jesus again through the work of theologian Marcus Borg. We talked about Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. A subversive wisdom that turned the wisdom everyone knew on its head. We talked about Jesus as embodiment of God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom that brooded over the deep, helped design all of Creation, broke into our world in the flesh of Jesus. We spoke about the wisdom of Sophia. God’s wisdom that is not just reason but heart as well. And today we talk about how he embodied this heart wisdom. It is known to us as compassion.
Compassion in Latin is derived from Com which means together and Pati which means to suffer…Compassion then means Together with the suffering. Jesus taught that Compassion is the central quality in God. That God’s compassion, God’s unity is with the suffering. Jesus taught that if we are to have lives centered in God they would be lives centered in compassion. And, when we grow, when our inner selves are transformed through experiencing and expressing compassion, we grow in the Spirit of God.
Jesus had compassion and was moved by compassion. The parable today is of the feeding of the 4,000. The story begins, Jesus has compassion…Remember, this is the Gospel of Mark. It’s written like an eyewitness account. But, CNN isn’t there, it’s actually being written 70 years after the birth of Jesus. It’s being written for the poor. The poor who are still hungry, suffering under the political leadership, and ache to be fed. They are reminded of the Good News of Jesus. That they are also God’s chosen people. That Jesus came and had compassion for them and out of that compassion fed them when they were hungry. Jesus suffered with them in their hunger and then was moved to do something about it after being transformed through suffering with them.
This was a new concept in ancient times. People weren’t guided by anything but holiness. And holiness was completely wrapped up in Purity codes. The Purity codes were what structured the entire society. Basically, the code went something like this: Priests and Levites which were hereditary positions were first. Israelites second. Converts to Judaism. Bastards. Those with damaged testicles. Those without a penis.
It was a ladder of purity, holiness and acceptance. If you associated with someone under your station you were considered defiled or impure, dirty. Then, you had to go through a purification ritual in order to get right with holiness. Jesus came along and said that God wasn’t holiness but God was compassion. This shattered the political, social, economic, religious structures of the time. Every time Jesus ate, healed, touched he was transforming the code of holiness to compassion.
It’s hard to understand how subversive this teaching was and the conflict it brought up in the culture. A very tiny comparison would be the conflict and passion people have about this table. We have some churches that dictate who can preside at this table: you must be ordained, male, single, heterosexual. We have churches that dictate who can come to this table: only the confirmed, only the forgiven, only those from our denomination. And, if you challenge any of the religious leaders or even the members about these qualities a lot of passion will boil over and everyone becomes extremely uncomfortable. This is what Jesus did with this subversive wisdom of compassion. Because all of a sudden everyone was welcome and everyone was able to be at the table. And purity became living in the Spirit of God about compassion.
An ancient example was the Eunich. A eunich was a man who had been castrated. They were in big demand as guards for the royal harems. Eunichs no longer having a penis are at the bottom of the purity ladder. They were not allowed to participate in any of the Spiritual Teaching or religious ceremonies. They were outcast and any dealings with them made you impure. So, a eunich encounters Philip, a disciple and teacher of the Jesus community, and asks him, what prevents me from being baptized? And, Philip baptizes him on the spot. It reminds me of the voice I hear from all people who’ve been excluded. No, I’m divorced are you sure I can come here? No, I’m gay are you sure I can be part of this church? No, I’m a single parent are you sure I can be part of this church? And Jesus' answer was yes. Yes. Because purity and holiness is centered in the Compassion of God. In being together with those in their struggles.
Our call today is to live in your Image with all who struggle. To live, connect, empathize with those who struggle. And then be moved to do something out of this compassion. This is the true meaning of compassion. To live in the spirit of God, in God’s image, transforming ourselves, our lives, our community, our world through compassion. So this is the day we must begin talking about our struggles with one another. This is the day we must begin sharing where it is we need support. For this is the community where we can bring these things and find God in the midst of them. And, as we share our struggles of grief, loss, transition, hatred, fear, position, economics we will find the places our ministry must go. We are the real presence of Jesus today, let’s make sure we are focused on being compassionate. We must speak, listen and love from a position of compassion. And we must do it today.