Our Middle School students are currently entrenched in a series centered around Colossians 3, and putting on the clothes of Christ. Each week, we have looked at a different word/article of clothing that Paul describes for us to put on as followers of Christ. Two weeks ago, we focused on kindness, going beyond the obvious ways and thinking truly about what it means to put kindness first.
Yesterday, we focused on the words compassion and empathy. We talked about how the word "empathy" comes from two Greek words:
em: meaning alongside, with, or in
and
pathos: meaning to endure, to experience, or to suffer
So when we have empathy for another person, we endeavor to experience, endure, or suffer alongside or with someone else. We hear what they have experienced and we walk with them.
Jesus and his empathy
Jesus himself was a strong empathizer. Just about every story of healing helps us to understand that Jesus came to the places where people were suffering, enduring hardship, or experiencing challenges, and he gave name and value to their suffering, giving them the ability to overcome these challenges. We think of the paralytic brought to Jesus by his friends, and Jesus gives him the ability to walk and the forgiveness of his sins. We think of the many blind men who came to Jesus for sight. We think of men with leprosy, who were outcasted and shunned from the community because of their skin disease, and Jesus gave them healing both physically and socially.
Together with the Middle School youth, we shared a story from Mark 5.21-42. In the story Jesus is asked to save the life of a child who is about the die from illness. As he is walking toward the ailing child, he is followed and pressed in upon by a large crowd of people. A woman with hemorrhage bleeding, who could not find a cure, touched the cloak of his garment out of desperation to make herself well. This small act was enough to cure her, but Jesus did not simply keep walking.
Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, "Who touched my clothes?" And his disciples said to him, "You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, 'Who touched me?'" He looked around to see who had done it. But the woman knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed from your disease."
Jesus, as we see here, is not remote, sterile, or hands-off. Jesus was pleased that a healing had occurred, and felt the need to express his empathy for this woman. Healing, it seems, is sometimes more than just a physical action; healing is also about relationships and love, compassion and empathy.
Teenage empathy
It can be really hard to have empathy as a teenager. I can remember as a 6th grader, there was a boy in my class named Paul. I had had class with Paul since kindergarten, and I knew he was an odd duck. Paul picked his nose and ate his boogers (probably once in 3rd grade, but it was well known among our classmates that he did it regularly). He packed his lunch in a huge brown grocery bag, and he had an obsession with trains and trolleys. His clothes were always too tight and filthy. He kept his desk extremely messy, papers crumbled and sticky, protruding wildly from his book-slot. He didn't have many friends, and he was the favorite target of bullies and gaggles of newly boy-crazy girls. Paul was not cool at all.
Our sixth grade teacher really did not like Paul, and was especially appalled by his personal hygiene and absolutely filthy desk. I can remember her yelling at Paul about his mucus being everywhere, and then she flipped his desk, the contents scattering all across the floor, and telling him to clean up his mess. It was terrifying to watch; several of us were trying to stuff loose paper into books and folders so as not to be the next victim of the wrath of Mrs. P. At recess that day, Paul looked especially dejected. He usually spent recess reading on a bench, but today, he was just sitting on the blacktop in the shadows, his face screwed up with humiliation. I don't think there was anyone in my class who didn't feel bad for Paul. I can remember a chorus of "that sucked!" from my classmates, although a few of them did acknowledge how messy his desk was, and that Mrs. P should have told him to clean it up. "Still," many people reasoned, "she should have done it in a more polite way. That wasn't right."
Yet no one had the courage to go sit with Paul. It would have been social suicide, and perhaps some of us thought an association with Paul might incur some displeasure from Mrs. P. Plus, as I said, Paul had some hygiene issues. He smelled bad, and I didn't think we had anything in common.
I believe it is so difficult for teenagers to move from just feeling bad for someone to actually taking a stand on their behalf. It takes a herculean effort for a teenager to sacrifice their own social pride to stand on the side of someone who is disliked, unpopular, or strange. And part of that is not because they are mean-spirited or poorly raised; part of it is a natural part of development. In Middle School, youth are learning who they are and how they want to be known by others. Because of their hormones and brain development, they also focus on immediate consequences for their actions. So, when Paul was sitting in his misery and all kids considered being kind to him, their brains envisioned the scornful looks of their friends and the fear of being labeled a weirdo alongside of him. We hope as people of faith to lead our Middle Schoolers to think, "I want to be known as someone who is compassionate" and to say, "Sitting with Paul at recess while he is embarrassed will show my classmates that I am compassionate." It requires them to think more abstractly, and it requires them to think through the long-term consequences rather than the immediate lack of social approval which may or may not occur.
Results?
Over two weeks of talking about kindness and compassion, two related but separate concepts, it has been truly astounding to watch as kids open up about what they are seeing and experiencing in our schools and neighborhoods. Like many of us adults, our middle school youth are wrestle with the desire to say, "I'm doing the best I can do," and the desire to do more. As these wonderful youth enter their weeks today, I am grateful to know just exactly how tuned in their consciences are, and I pray that they become aware of opportunities for them to be empathetic, that they would trust in God and take a step forward in compassion, and that the Holy Spirit would move through them with peace, confidence, and courage.
High School
It is fitting that our High School youth went to hear Rev. Sam McGregor speak about the relationship between Christianity and Islam. Sam spoke with a lot of compassion and empathy for our Muslim neighbors, who endure unfair criticism and unjust prejudice as a result of the actions of a few extremists. I will be interested to hear about the perspectives of our youth as they contemplate this lecture and move forward from it. It seems a perfect opportunity for us to have compassion and empathy in a time of need.
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