May 31, 2009
with Matt Johnson
You ever have one of those days that it seems like nothing goes right? Days like the kids book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”… You wake up and step out of bed into a puddle of puppy pee. All the hot water is gone by the time you make it to the shower. The clothes you wanted to wear are still sitting in the dirty clothes pile next to the washing machine. The milk you poured on your cereal is spoiled. The car won’t start. Traffic is backed up for miles. The coffee machine at work is broken. It’s just one thing after another and it’s only 9 a.m. and you haven’t even touched the stacks of work on your desk.
Can you relate?
When I have days like this, all I want to do it go home and crawl back into bed and start over. The last thing I want is to deal with other people, let alone other people’s problems… and yet it seems like these are the days that the phone rings off the hook with people asking me stupid questions or asking for help in some way. Compassion does not tend to be my strong suite in these circumstances. My own frustrations, problems, and terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day tend to get in the way of my desire to alleviate the problems, pain, and suffering of others.
Jesus can relate to the bad day, but his reaction is very different.
Jesus and his disciples are weary and worn out. Jesus has just sent out the disciples on a missionary journey. They’ve been out doing ministry, healing sick and casting out demons, and return to Jesus exhausted, but excited to tell him all about their experiences. Jesus has just found out that his cousin and close friend, John the Baptist, has been beheaded. He and the disciples desperately need to get away and find some quiet peace to restore their spiritual and physical weariness. Jesus decides that they are going to get away from the crowds for a while to rest. One of the gospels gives the insight that there were so many people in the crowds around them that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have time to stop and eat before getting into a boat to cross over to a less populated area. The problem is, the people in the crowds are persistent, and rush ahead of them along the shore line, waiting for them to dock once again so that they can see Jesus. It’s likely around Passover time, so there is an influx of people in the region and they’re hungry for a savior. Jesus seems to fit the bill, so they’re following him around looking for an opportunity even now to push him into becoming an earthly king and restoring Israel to prominence once again.
It’s one of those days for Jesus. When they hit the shore again, there’s a giant crowd waiting for them. Most of us would find ourselves at our breaking point. We’d shout at the crowds, “Just leave me alone! It’s been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – can’t you see that?” When we’re stressed out, tired, and weary, we tend to not react well to others. It’s not our shining moment usually. But Jesus responds in his typical character, and completely out of character for us, by having compassion on these people. He’s not moved with anger, with pity, with obligation, but with compassion, and begins to take care of the people on the shoreline. He heals their sick. He teaches them about the kingdom. He meets their physical needs by feeding them in miraculous fashion.
At it’s root, compassion is seeing someone in need and being moved to action by love in order to meet those needs. We easily confuse it with having pity on someone, but pity is not motivated by love, but by judgment. We confuse it with sympathy, but compassion is not just feeling for someone, its action because of love. We confuse it with obligation, thinking that it’s simply our duty as a Christian, and make taking care of others just one more item on a checklist of faith. But compassion, true Christ-like compassion, is not any of those things. It’s motivated by nothing more than genuine love for others and a desire to take care of their needs because of that love. It’s not based on your own circumstances, but on those of others. Did you notice that it was in the middle of what would have been a bad day, that Jesus has compassion and performs one of the greatest miracles recorded in scripture? Did you notice that he did more than just say to them “go, and be fed. I’ll pray for you”, but he actually met their needs – all of their needs – their social needs, their spiritual needs, their physical needs. He healed, he taught, he fed. He had compassion for the entire person – body, mind, and spirit. Anything short fails to be Christ-like compassion.
We could look at the text, and walk away from it here, gaining a much better understanding of what Christ-like compassion looks like. But I think we miss the other half of the story if we do that. In the midst of all of this interaction between Jesus and the crowds, we get some great insight into Jesus teaching His disciples about the kingdom. They’ve been out “doing” the work of the kingdom, but now find themselves hungry and tired along with the rest of the crowd. They approach Jesus, asking him to end the revival so that they can all go get supper. He responds, don’t worry about it – you feed them.
It’s not about the crowds at this point – they seem more than willing to stick around despite the hunger. No, this is about the disciples, and an opportunity to teach them. Impossible, they say – it’d take nearly 8 months worth of income to feed these people. They didn’t have that – or if they did, it’d have wiped them out financially. They’ve taken the time to calculate the cost – they know they can’t afford it. Jesus asks another question – we’ll, what do you have then? They discuss among themselves what they have available, and they find a young boy with what would amount to a few crackers and some sardine relish. He’s willing to give it up, so they bring it to Jesus. They’re clearly defeated at such a small amount of food and no possibilities in mind. Jesus takes the small food, holds it up and blesses it, and then begins to distribute it to the disciples to feed the crowds. He kept giving and giving, until everyone had eaten their fill, and then some. Once everyone was done eating, Jesus sends the disciples out to gather the left-overs of the miracle.
I think there are some principles that we can learn from this that will help us greatly in being Jesus’ hands and feet to this world with compassion.
Realize that you can’t do it on your own…
As we try to serve Jesus and have compassion on this world, it quickly becomes apparent to us that there are needs out there that we are grossly unequipped to meet. Like the disciples, we’ve calculated the costs – time, resources, money, that we simply don’t have. Usually we end up in one of two places when we reach this realization. We pray, washing our hands of it and putting it all on Jesus to take care of, or we give up, overwhelmed at vastness of the need. When we pray for these great needs, often his response is “You take care of it…” We need to realize we can’t do this on our own, but that doesn’t mean that we should just give up either.
Take inventory of what you do have…
Jesus asks the disciples a pointed question. What do you have? It’s a question we must visit regularly as well. Overwhelmed with the vast need, it’s easy to diminish the resources we do have. We hold on to what little we have, because after all, it’s not enough anyway, so why give it up too? But Jesus wants us to be active participants in his interaction with the world, and that includes the resources he has already blessed us with. To be compassionate to this world, we must reach a point in our faith that we recognize that what little we do have is available for his purposes.
Put what you do have in Jesus’ hands…
The disciples talk amongst themselves, and they find the small sack lunch of a little boy, and bring it to Jesus. They reported back to Jesus, saying, “here’s what we’ve got… what can you do?” it’s amazing what can happen to limited resources when we release them into Jesus’ hands and say “what can you do?” The resources we have, as small as they may be, can multiply and grow in ways we’d never imagined if we can take our hands off of them long enough to give them to Jesus for his purposes.
Use what He gives back…
Jesus takes the loaves and the fish and prays over them and then begins to distribute them to the disciples. He gives back what resources they’ve released to him for them to use to meet needs. But now that he’s touched them, they’re different. There’s more than they could have ever imagined. So much so, that after feeding the crowds, some estimated at over 15,000 people with women and children, there are 12 baskets of leftovers. Can you image the amazement the disciples must have felt going back to Jesus over and over again to fill their baskets to distribute food and there being enough each time they went back? It’s amazing how our limited resources suddenly become enough once we’ve put them in Jesus’ hands. You’d be amazed at what you can do with what you have been blessed with when you release them to Jesus for his purposes.
Jesus teaches us a lot about the kingdom in this short passage. He gives us a great example of what compassion looks like as he meets their social, spiritual, and physical needs. He teaches us a great deal about our willingness to partner with him in showing compassion to this world. What little we have is more than enough to meet needs when put in his hands…
So, the question is, “What do you have?”
