Learning About Compassion

I’ve been thinking about the meaning of “compassion” this past week. It’s a word that shows up a lot in the gospels, describing something Jesus felt or experienced. A passage I read in Mark a few days ago is a great example. Jesus had sent the 12 out to heal and preach and cast out demons. They came back some time later with a report of all that had happened. They must have been pretty tired because after hearing their description, Jesus invited them to a retreat- to get away to a quiet place to get some rest. Mark adds the detail in this account that they had so much going on that they couldn’t even break for lunch. So Jesus leads them to a boat to escape the hectic pace of life and recover. They push off shore heading to a remote destination away from people so they can get refreshed. But things didn’t work out as planned. When they hit the shore, this is the scene that Mark describes:

When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.


Instead of a break from people, the crowd had figured out where he was heading, and they ran ahead and were there waiting for him. Notice what Jesus experienced when he saw the crowd. I know myself well enough to know that I would have been ticked off, frustrated, and would have shoved off shore again looking for a place to anchor out in the lake away from all the needy people. I would have seen the people as a barrier, separating me from my plans. Jesus saw them differently. As much as they all experienced hunger pangs and the need for rest, there was something they, (well at least Jesus,) experienced that was more powerful and compelling…Compassion

I once heard compassion defined as feeling someone else’s pain in my heart. It is perhaps similar to the experience of empathy- the capacity to know at a deep level, an experiential level, what another is going through. Rather than responding to someone’s misery or suffering with the attitude (acknowledged or not) “I am glad I am not you”, I feel as though I am that person.

I am coming to see that compassion is simply another word, actually a really good word, for love. Love is not love unless it encompasses compassion. Jesus taught us that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. When we are hungry, tired, thirsty…whatever we experience, we naturally and automatically take action to meet our needs. To love our neighbor as ourselves, then, means that we do the same when we are not the one in need, but we encounter someone who is. We relate to their need, their suffering, and we embrace it as if it were our own, and take action. Love, as defined and exemplified by Jesus, is an identification with the suffering of others, embracing it to an extent that we are compelled to act. Without compassion, it seems love is a lofty ideal with no power.

This week New York City experienced some uncharacteristic winter weather, especially for March. After 12 inches of snow fell, the temperatures dropped into single digits at night. In a place like New York, you really experience the weather. I no longer own a car. I get around using subways and busses. This means walking a lot (about 5 miles a day) and waiting for busses and trains in the cold. I was glad for my winter coat and gloves and hat and a warm apartment and a hot meal, and the prospect of a good night sleep in my warm bed. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a homeless person in weather like this. But I should. I should try to imagine. It should matter. It should bother me. What if that was my mom, my son or daughter, hungry and out in the cold. What if that was me? Can I push such thoughts out of my mind, or, as the boat hits the shore, will I look at the crowds and feel compassion?

On Tuesday night, 10 of us put together meals and placed them in plastic bags. This was our second Tuesday evening venture to Penn Station this winter. With the bitter cold we figured there would be more homeless men and women wandering the halls of the train station, thankful at least for a break from the biting wind.



Our experience was identical to what I reported in a previous blog- in minutes the fifty meals we had prepared were given out. As I walked the corridors carrying my last bag looking for someone who might be hiding from the cold, Dave, who was with me, spotted a woman tucked away in a corner. She was dark-skinned wearing dark clothing, hiding in the dark shadows. As we approached her, she became fearful. I do not think that she understood much English and I know she did not understand what we wanted with her. When she understood we meant no harm but were offering her food, she received it. She told us her name was Yvonne. I know nothing about her except that unlike me, she has no warm apartment to go to, no warm bed or warm supper waiting for her.

A few minutes later as we stood in the cold on 34th Street waiting for the bus, I kept picturing Yvonne. What if that was my mom, or my daughter? What would I feel? What would I do? I had to admit that what I had felt was much less that what I would have if the woman had turned to be my mom or daughter. She would be waiting for the bus with me heading for the warmth of my apartment.

I don’t honestly know if I have much of a clue yet about true compassion. In the account in Mark 6 cited above, at the end of the day when they all would have been even more tired and more hungry than they were when they got in the boat to take a break that never came, there was still more compassion needed. Jesus knew the people were hungry and he was concerned about them. Rather than sending the people away to get supper (I would have been the one of the 12 making that suggestion to Jesus), he asked the 12 to bring them their food to feed the thousands. As the disciples did what Jesus asked, taking inventory of their few loaves of bread and fish, and bringing it to him, I am sure they imagined that they were not going to get anything. Instead, they became a part of a miracle.

It seems against the tremendous need in this city, what we did Tuesday was not enough. But I have to trust that Jesus can still do something with a few loaves of bread offered to him.