The Cultivation of Compassion

August 17, 1986

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Scripture: Luke 10:25-37

I need your help! May I ask you for your help? I have the privilege...responsibility... 

of delivering 4 sermons next month to the national United Methodist Convocation of Adult Workers with You. It’s an honor, I suppose...28 people turned them down before they got down to me...but that’s all right. It’ll be fun and a nice trip. 

They’ve given me a theme, broad enough to hang myself with, and they’ve given me 4 sub-themes, which I am to develop. The overall theme is “Being There--For Youth”, and the sub-themes, each warranting a sermon, are Compassion, Confidence, Competence, and Commitment...now abideth these 4. I’m working on them now, and I need your help. I want to try ‘em out on you before I take ‘em on the road, as it were. 

Your part will be to exercise patience and understanding, and your reward will be that when I return you’ll all receive certificates of completion from the training course of Adult Workers With Youth. Furthermore, you’ll be eligible for employment in our Youth Department. 

Actually, this is not such a hare-brained scheme, practicing on you before inflicting 

them. They’re a more specialized group, of course, than a local church in all its 

diversity, but ministry is ministry, whatever the age involved, and that’s what we’re all 

engaged in. To be in ministry effectively on any level involves these qualities---Compassion, Confidence, Competence, and Commitment.  

 You can’t do the job unless you have these things. 

You can’t do the job unless you ARE these things. 

I’ve picked 4 Biblical models that correspond with the 4 qualities, and I’d like 

to develop them on 4 Sundays before I go. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t yet found the model I want for Competence. That’s been the tough one. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. 

But we’ll be better ministers, whatever our clientele, if we’ll allow these Biblical models to mold us and sharpen our skills for service. 

So we start with Compassion, because that’s where you have to start. You start with 

the heart. Jesus always did. “Out of the heart”, He said, “are the issues of life.” In 

ministry, if the heart isn’t there, nothing else much matters anyway. 

And as a model for Compassion, I couldn’t think of a better example than the wonderful story of the Good Samaritan.... Remember that guy from the New Testament? 

He’s a character in a parable Jesus told. Did you learn any story before you learned 

this one? I didn’t. I’ve known it all my life, I think, as far back as the Cradle Roll 

Department..... Some of you go back that far, don’t you? 

That far back they were teaching me this story, along with David and Goliath, and Moses and the bullrushes, and the 3 Little pigs.... I had trouble distinguishing what 

was Biblical and what wasn’t. 

But here was a story I could latch on to...it had everything--adventure, excitement, danger,   bad guys...and a HERO, straightened out a mess....It was a great story. 

I liked it even then, at that tender age, because I could understand it. It was sharp, 

vividly etched.... You could see the characters in your mind. The whole scene was laid out before you with clarity and precision. 

And, you know, it was, I think, the one story of the Bible, the one geographical setting of the Bible, which, when years later I got to the Holy Land was almost exactly as I had imagined it. 

Very little else was.... 

So much over there has changed.... They’ve built buildings, shrines over so many of 

the original sites. That was a mistake, probably. It was the big things, the outdoor things, the hills, the seas that remain unchanged. 

That’s what you want to visit, That’s where you get the real flavor of the Holy Land. 

This road Luke writes about.... By golly, it was just the way my Cradle Roll teacher 

described it. 

“A man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho....” It’s literally true. It drops 3400 feet in 17 miles. She didn’t tell me that, or if she did, I forgot it. I looked it up in the Bible Dictionary. 

But that’s a pretty hefty drop, at least for a  flatland Florida Cracker it is. It goes down...if it were smooth, it would be a wonderful place to skateboard. 

Along the sides of the road, most of the way, are rough hills, and steep cliffs, with caves where robbers could hide. They did in that era...maybe still do. 

And one day a band of them spotted a man walking alone, down the road. It didn’t take 

long...they swarmed over him, beat him, robbed him...we know something about mugging in our day...and then they left him, bleeding, in the ditch. 

Along came some professional men.... I wish I could leave it at that. I’m embarrassed to 

have to be more specific. The truth is, they were ordained clergymen, under episcopal  

appointment...and they didn’t stop. 

Maybe they were late,  maybe they were busy.... I hope so....the victim continued to groan.  

Finally, a Samaritan came along. Incidentally, he’s not called a “good” Samaritan in the 

story. Did you notice? The adjective doesn’t appear in the Record. It’s a later, editorial 

comment. He’s just a Samaritan, but no Jew, hearing the story could miss the punch of 

that designation. Samaritans were nobodies... 

They weren’t kosher, and here one is a hero.           

He it is who stops, not only ministering on the spot, but taking the man to the hospital, and paying the bill out of his pocket. 

It’s a great story, simple, yet enormously encompassing..... Even a child can grasp it, 

yet the more you dig into it, the more you find. 

It’s like some other masterpieces...Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, for 

instance, or Handel’s Messiah....a work of art that at one and the same time is both popular and profound, both comprehensible and deep, both easily understood and extraordinarily incisive. 

THAT’S A RARE COMBINATION. 

Don’t even kid yourself about the genius of Jesus. He’s a brilliant Teacher...not 

just that, but He WAS that....flip-flopping the smart-aleck lawyer’s question and throwing 

it back in his face.... 

Remember how it had all started? He had asked, probably cynically, “who is my neighbor?”, just as Pilate later asked, “What is truth?” 

Neither had really wanted an answer. They were looking to make points.... 

“Who is my neighbor?”.... And Jesus turned it around on him, right there, as a 

good Teacher will, and made it into the much deeper and more personal question, “To whom am I a neighbor?”.....then laid it out for him, indelibly, with this priceless parable. 

Don’t you wish we knew what happened to the lawyer after this interchange? What do you suppose became of him? Maybe he went on to be elected President of the Jerusalem Bar Association. Maybe he ran for the Senate. We don’t know. He fades from the scene after Jesus said to him, “Go thou and do likewise”. 

I hope somewhere along the line, before the end of his life, the spirit of compassion overtook him. 

The Samaritan embodied it. Let him be our role model as we seek to sharpen our compassion skills. It’s a great story. 

Would you let me take some liberties with the simple narrative as it has come down to us? 

Is the Good Samaritan story history, or creative drama? What do you think? 

Did Jesus tell it as something that really happened, or did He make it up? 

Does it even matter? 

This is a profoundly true story, whether it’s factual or not. 

I’d like to use the three main groups of characters in the story to remind us of 

some important things about Compassion as we strive to better ministers. 

1. First, let’s look at the victim. Who is this man who went down from Jerusalem to 

Jericho and fell among thieves? 

Don’t you know him? Sure you do. Let him represent every person who has need. Let him symbolize universal need. Let him stand for all the hurting, bleeding, aching,  miserable people of the world, who, for whatever reason whether of their own doing or someone else’s, are caught in a crack. 

THERE ARE A LOT OF HURTING PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. I’ll not belabor it. I’m not telling 

you anything new. 

THERE ARE A LOT OF HURTING PEOPLE IN THIS COMMUNITY, verdant and lovely 

as it is.....              

Indeed, I suspect there are more hurting people in this room than any of you could 

imagine. Somebody has said that anybody who goes around today looking for trouble just isn’t paying attention. It’s everywhere. You can’t scratch the surface of a single family without finding it. 

Here is a disease that comes and sucks the vibrance out of a life, leaving only a shell.... We don’t know why. 

Here is a mental disorder, present from birth, and a family lives with that for the rest of its existence. 

Here is an automobile accident, from one second of carelessness, and a life is gone, and a lifetime of remorse remains, for friends and loved ones. We don’t know why. 

And it’s not all physical, is it? It’s not all external. 

Some hurt not because of what’s out there, but because of what’s in here.... 

Some hurt because of a son or a daughter who has wounded them. 

Some hurt because of a failure that has never been accepted or dealt with. 

Some hurt because of a moral lapse, maybe way back there, that’s been covered up, all this time.... 

Some hurt because of a slight, or because of jealously, or because of a sense of inferiority that nags away at the psyche. 

How many young people inwardly feel pulled in two directions at once, expected to act 

maturely, but without the tools of maturity. 

Is anyone exempt? The Church itself, I guess, like any other collection of people, 

could almost be categorized as a Jericho Road, couldn’t it? MAYBE WE ALL HURT, to some extent, even the strongest, even the most vigorous, even those with the best defense mechanisms. 

Sure we know that Road, whether we’ve been there geographically or not. We can 

identify with this victim Jesus talked about, for we, too, in some way, have fallen among 

thieves. 

 2. But let’s go on. May I tell you what bothers me? I can identify easily with the 

victim in the story. What bothers me even more is that I can also identify easily with  

the SECOND group of characters, namely, that priest and Levite, who “passed by on the  

other side.” 

That right there, represents the most damning indictment the Scripture makes. 

Where do we get the idea that doing bad things is the worst human activity? We often 

say that, or imply it....You’d better watch what you do.

You better do better, or you’ll be in big trouble. 

THAT ISN’T THE EMPHASIS THE BIBLE PLACES AT ALL. 

The Bible’s harshest judgement doesn’t fall on misdeeds, it falls on inaction. Jesus Himself was remarkably gentle in His dealings with the unethical people of His day, the BAD people...they, in fact, come off pretty well---prostitutes, tax collectors---These are the people Jesus seemed to enjoy hanging around with. Someone has said, “Thank goodness Jesus never lost His taste for bad company.” 

No, it wasn’t misconduct that made Jesus mad. What made Him mad was APATHY. That 

riled Him. The harshest indictments Jesus ever leveled, where He said there’d be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, were against the man who was given a talent, an opportunity, and never used it, and against the “goats”, as He called them, who could have visited, and given, and shared, and cared, BUT DIDN’T. It was FAILING to do, the sin of OMISSION, that made Jesus mad. 

And here it is...THEY WALKED ON BY...and what is really important is laid bare for 

all to see. 

At least they had the decency to go around. The detour at least suggests a twinge of conscience. 

I think they knew they should have helped. I think they felt remorse later. After all, they weren’t BAD men--that’s the tragedy---they were busy, they were preoccupied, they were “doing good things for the Kingdom”. I understand how they felt. 

And besides, the robbers might come back. 

They might be right over there. I’ll call the Salvation Army when I get to Jericho... I’ll notify the Christian Service Center..... -.... It’s all very modern. 

Did you hear the story? Some students at one of our United Methodist seminaries 

recently planned and carried out an elaborate practical joke. They knew that a homiletics class--that’s a class on preaching---was having an assignment in which each member of the class was to preach a practice sermon on the Good Samaritan...this parable. 

The class was held in the Chapel, and a schedule had been set up with each class member to appear at a designated time to preach his sermon. 

The students planted a fake victim, complete with ketchup for blood and groaning and the whole bit...it was wonderfully realistic, they said.... 

They planted this fake victim at a strategic point along the walk the class members had to traverse to get to the Chapel.... They couldn’t miss seeing the victim. 

And of the dozen members of the class who came by, only 3 stopped to see what had 

happened. 9...3/4 of the class, glanced...and kept going. THESE WERE THEOLOGY STUDENTS...MINISTERIAL STUDENTS, ON THEIR WAY TO PREACH A SERMON ON THE GOOD SMARITAN.

When they were asked about it later, some said, “I was running late, I didn’t have time.”                                                                                                                                                             

Some said, “I don’t know first aid. What could I have done?” 

One even said, “I was afraid I’d be sued.” 

Most were embarrassed, and had the grace to admit their misplaced priority. 

I have an idea we’re living in a time when the sheer volume of human need has almost 

numbed our sensitivity. There are so many needs, so many problems. 

But if there is any unchanging mandate laid on the Church of Jesus Christ surely it is 

the requirement to be open and sensitive and responsive to the hurts of human beings. That’s our business. 

We don’t always know what to do, We can’t always be wise..... But we betray our most basic calling as Christians when we do not display simple compassion. 

“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Simon Peter.... Do you really love me? Feed my sheep. 

Feed my lambs. Take care of my people. 

Nothing is more fundamental, more easily understood, or more needed in our battered, bleeding world than this. 

3. Now that leads quickly to the 3rd character of the story, the hero, the Samaritan himself. I don’t want to overdramatize, or over sentimentalize his role...what he did, his attitude, his spirit all speak for themselves. Let me, instead, as very practical exposition, simply suggest some corollaries out of his experience which can help us all if we want to be more serious about this business of cultivating a sense of compassion. 

Corollary Number ONE. If you want to be more caring, more loving, more useful to God, then you must always be ready to have your plans interrupted. YOU MUST ALWAYS BE READY TO BE SURPRISED BY TASKS GOD SETS IN FRONT OF YOU TODAY. 

That doesn’t mean organization is bad....It doesn’t mean being methodical is madness...but it does mean that a genuine discipleship involved a willingness and a readiness to improvise. I suspect most of us could tell a story about the person, or problem, or opportunity which appeared on our doorstep, just as we were getting 

ready to do something else.... AND WHICH, in retrospect, we realize was the most important thing we could have done at that moment. 

I believe God senses those opportunities, and wants us to respond. That’s Corollary Number ONE...Hang Loose! 

Corollary Number TWO. As with the Samaritan, the greatest number of opportunities for exercising your compassion are likely to come out there on the road. This is not to 

minimize CHURCH...it’s to say that Church isn’t where it ends, it’s where it BEGINS. 

God doesn’t call us to Christian service in a vacuum. Anybody can be spiritual and loving 

in Church.... Well, almost anybody. The nitty gritty is out there on the road out there in the world, where the robbers are real, and the rocks hard. 

But that’s where the hurt is. 

That’s the arena the Church is called to act in. How will they believe in our Jesus if they see His people shielding their eyes? That’s Corollary Number TWO... WHERE CARING IS REALLY NEEDED IS OUT THERE ON THE ROAD. 

Corollary Number THREE. It’s precisely through our identifying response to the hurt and 

misery of others that we come to the deepest knowledge of who Jesus is. 

I believe this: If you want to understand Christianity, don’t start at the top, start at the 

bottom. You don’t learn who Jesus is first by worrying about such things as sonship, and incarnation, and virgin birth, and miracle.... 

Those things can come later. You learn who Jesus is by going to work for Him.... 

WHO HE IS, FOR YOU, YOU LEARN FIRST FROM YOUR HUNGRY, DISTRESSED, BLEEDING brothers and sisters.... 

Care for them, even if you have to make yourself do it in the beginning... and Jesus meets you. That’s Corollary Number THREE...Good caring is the key to good theology. 

And finally this and we are done. The most important thing of all about this parable 

is to remember who’s telling it. This really is what makes it Gospel, and the injunction 

to be compassionate more than fussiness. We hear the story from the lips of Him who is the Good Samaritan of us all, who Himself went down the road to bind the wounds of humankind. 

That means, and what a wonderful thing to be able to say... That means that no matter what we do, no matter where we go, no matter how desperate the plight in which we find ourselves... JESUS HIMSELF CAN UNDERSTAND, because He, too, has walked the road, and knows the anguish of the estrangement. 

Not even the experience of death itself, the last thief, is foreign to Him....HE’S BEEN 

THERE----and in the promise of His companionship through it all is our peace for then, 

and our power for now. 

This is the real secret of the cultivation of Compassion. We can be a neighbor, because 

we HAVE a Neighbor. In His healing we are set free to care.