The Threat of Empathy
Luke 13:31-35
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox for me, “Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed away from Jerusalem.” Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.” ’
Last week we read about Jesus’ 40 days in the desert and his temptation by devil. We talked about the fact that Jesus refused to give into the devil’s offers, and those offers were essentially, taking the easy way out. He was offering him, not just food to satiate his hunger, but also power over all kingdoms, and the opportunity to test God’s love once and for all. He was offering Jesus the chance to avoid the pain and struggle that awaits him as he begins his ministry and his march towards death and ultimately, resurrection. This week, we find ourselves jumping ahead to the middle-end of his ministry, just before he is going to make is entry into Jerusalem—what we celebrate on Palm Sunday. Jesus has been making waves by preaching the good news and healing common folks of their ailments and troubles—so much so, that he receives news that Herod, the Roman figurehead/puppet leader of this area of Judea, is decreeing that he needs to be killed.
And like last week, Jesus is faced with a decision—he’s warned by some Pharisees (whether this is a benevolent warning or a pernicious one, is unclear), that he should get out of because Herod is looking to kill him. He could leave and protect himself. But just as he scoffed at the devil’s attempts to convince him to take the easy way out, he scoffs at the Pharisees supposedly advising him to leave the area. In fact, he’s so confident that he can continue his work and his call from God that he tells the Pharisees to send an insult back to Herod and that he can’t stop him from healing and helping people until he comes to the end…
Now, this short passage may seem a bit disjointed—as Cordie immediately and deftly pointed out at Bible study on Monday—and that’s because it is. Chronologically, it doesn’t make a ton of sense (Jesus is lamenting over Jerusalem before he has even begun his ministry in Jerusalem), so it was probably cobbled together by Luke; we can speculate and theorize and guess what his reasons may have been for putting this lament where he did; whatever the reason, I’m grateful for it, and upon my first reading, it felt a little more natural and sensical than my commentaries made it out to be. This beautiful maternal imagery of Jesus as a mother hen gathering her chicks, protecting them from the destructive, predatory, and cunning fox is a welcome respite from death threats. And despite the fact that in Luke, he hasn’t yet started his ministry in Jerusalem, let’s not forget—Jesus knew what awaited him. While he certainly will make a waves and gain new followers in Jerusalem, he knows that he will also make enemies that will lead to his arrest and crucifixion; so to me, it doesn’t seem all that far-fetched that he would preemptively lament over “the city that kills prophets.”
When I hear this passage, I hear so much frustration and despair—imagine you had the power to miraculously heal people and you were making the lives of the poor and sick so much better; imagine you were preaching love and forgiveness and salvation for all people, and you’re told not only to stop, but that if you don’t stop and leave, you’ll be killed. That would surely cause me to cry out in emotional pain. That would surely cause me to lament the fact that I was trying to help in the most basic and necessary ways, and was told it was wrong.
For the past few years, there’s been a troubling fringe theology that’s now creeping its way into the mainstream, and it’s one that claims empathy is a sin. And it’s not only creeping its way into certain Christian sects and churches; the idea seems to be creeping its way into mainstream societal thought. Just a couple weeks ago, the man who seems to be our de-facto co-president went on a wildly problematic but popular podcast and claimed that “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.” He said this in defense of his cutting USAID, and other humanitarian aid and parts of our already struggling welfare state.
What is so threatening about empathy? What is so threatening about attempting to feel what other people are feeling? What is so threatening about putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes? What is so threatening about loving our neighbor as ourselves? Because that’s what empathy is. And it claim that it’s a bad thing for society, to claim that it’s a sin in the context of our Christian faith, is utter blasphemy, Church. There is no other word for it.
So what is this deeply troubling shift within the Christian faith and within our society that looks negatively on loving our neighbor? Where does it come from? Who does it serve? I would say that the same is true now that was true in Jesus’ day. It serves the powerful. And they are threatened. When we think deeply about one another, and what it must feel like, for instance, to be a trans person, an already tiny subset of people with virtually no power, scared to be themselves in the open, we might start to think they need a little help, a little freedom. When we put ourselves in the place of Palestinian and legal immigrant students at Columbia University, who are locking themselves in their campus housing, terrified to go to classes for fear of being abducted by ICE for exercising their right of free speech, we might realize that no one should live in fear of state violence. When we put ourselves in the place of a single parent working 50 hours a week at a dead-end job who is scared to death of losing her SNAP benefits and wondering how he or she is going to feed their children, we might start to think that maybe all people deserve food in their bellies… and when we start to think like this, we start to get mad. We start to wonder how anyone who purports to be a Christian could promote cuts to life-saving care and sustenance; we start to wonder how anyone who considers themselves a proponent of freedom could ever support arrest without due process. And we start to think that maybe… just maybe those in power do not have our best interest in mind. And we wonder how we got here. And we lament.
I hear a lot of lamenting these days—from friends, from family, of course from church folks, from community members—which is one of the reasons, with Caroline’s inspiration, we decided to start that community support group that will be meeting again next Thursday. It’s a way to begin moving beyond the lament. It’s a way to first lament in solidarity, realizing we are not alone in our anxiety, our fear, our anger; and then it’s a way, with support from each other, to figure how we can move beyond those negative feelings and turn them into a positive, turn them into something that helps all people.
Because that’s what Jesus did. He pushed through. You can hear the pain in his voice when he cries, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” He knows, he knows he’s walking into the lion’s den, and yet— but he’s going to go on. He’s going to go on whether or not the brood accepts his protective wings. He’s going to go on whether or not Herod makes good on his threats. He’s going to go on whether or not the Pharisees try to shoo him out of their town.
I often use the Rev. Peter Gomes quotes, “What would Jesus have us do?” rather than what would Jesus do— I’ve talked about this before. We’re not Jesus. We’re not perfect. We can’t expect to live up to those standards. And that remains true. And now, let me pause to thank you all for a second. This is my first church, and while I’ve been doing this for a few years now, I have not been doing this long enough that my theology is set in stone. Truth be told, I think it’s a red flag when someone’s theology is set in stone—but let me thank you for allowing my theology to evolve in front of you. Because I’ve gone from putting a lot of emphasis behind What would Jesus have us do to, to let’s strive for perfection. Let’s do our best to strive the way Jesus strived. It was when I preached on the book of James this past Fall that my theology really began to evolve in this way— James asks us to strive towards perfection, to obey the perfect law, which is—act with love and compassion towards others, always, and he asks us to do this by prioritizing doing good works above all, because faith without works, James said, is dead. In my sermon from September, and I’m going to quote myself now, I said,
We don’t achieve any [real change or progress] by [by either violence and revenge, or by capitulating to the an oppressive regime] . We achieve it by being doers. We achieve it by forcing those in power to be doers, to make changes that will actually result in something as simple as less lives [destroyed] and more lives [lifted up].
You see, empathy and compassion scare the powerful. Because when we practice empathy and compassion, we are driven to do. We are first driven to lament that there is so much hate and cruelty in this world, that this place, like the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time, is a place that would kill and chase away prophets, a place in which people are not willing to protect themselves or others against the oppression of a fascist regime. But then, we are driven to be like Jesus—to push through. “Go and tell that fox…” Jesus says, “…I am casting out demons and performing cures today, and tomorrow, and on the third day, I finish my work.” This angry and righteous retort by Jesus to the Pharisees is meant to be both literal and symbolic. For the next few days, we will be doing the work he is called to do whether or not “that fox” Herod approves. But it is also representative of what awaits Jesus. “…today, and tomorrow, and on the third day, I finish my work.” This is immediately followed by “…today, tomorrow, and the next day, I must be on my way…” an awkward and strange phrase; but it’s there because it is symbolic of the three days Jesus will be gone from this world. The three days he mentions represent the days of grief and lament after Jesus is crucified. It’s foreshadowing the despair that waits.
But remember, from the end of our prayer of invocation this morning—“honestly about hopelessness precedes resurrection." In spite of Jesus’ deeply emotional lament, in spite of the pain he knows he will experience, he also knows that goodness and new life await. It may be overshadowed by the threats he’s currently getting and what comes after those threats and before he rises again, but he refuses to let his faith be shaken. He refuses to stop trying to be that mother hen gathering her vulnerable chicks. He will continue to do the good works he is called to do regardless of the pain and cruelty in his future.
This is what we must strive for. We can lament together, we can be angry and overwhelmed; but then we push forward. We use those feelings to continue work we are called to do, the work of Jesus that we are called to imitate.
Last week, Jesus had a decision to make—give into the devil by taking the easy way out, or remaining firm in faith in God and in a truly better world; he chooses the latter. This week, he’s given another choice—listen to the Pharisees and flee from the city and cease all the good works he is doing, or stay and continue on his path of helping and healing regardless of threats. He again, chooses the latter.
This Lent, let’s continue to take the long way by practicing the empathy and the compassion that we are called to practice as perfectly as we can by holding each other during difficult times and finding ways we can hold the community as a whole. Let’s take the long way by refusing to give into the cynicism and cruelty coming from the powerful that’s trying to infect us all.
“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” laments Jesus— let’s answer that lament together, and accept that protection of that unconditional love with our faith; and then we will push through, knowing that new life, that resurrection awaits us one the other side. Amen.
