Virtue #4 – Reaching Out to Others – 4 Scripture Readings

Lectionary Readings for Feb. 6, 2022           5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C
Isaiah 6:1-8   v8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”
Psalm 138     v3 On the day I needed You, I called, and You responded and infused my soul with strength.
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 v3-4 For I passed down to you the crux of it all which I had also received from others, that the Anointed One, the Liberating King, died for our sins and was buried and raised from the dead on the third day. All this happened to fulfill the Scriptures; it was the perfect climax to God’s covenant story.
Luke 5:1-11  The Miraculous Catch v10b Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

But this week, we’re looking at Matthew 5:16, Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 5:1-11, and Matthew 5:1–12 as we continue an eight-part series looking at the virtues of flourishing churches.

Peace through Leadership Quotes

“Love is the outreach of self toward completion.”  ~ Ralph W. Sockman

“The most important thing in evangelism is the cause itself. It’s easy to evangelize something great. It’s very hard to evangelize mediocrity. What could be a better cause than eternal life?”  ~ Guy Kawasaki https://www.risenmagazine.com/guy-kawasaki/

Many people understand eternal life to be the ultimate experience of peace – being in harmonious union with God, with ourselves, and with others. Jews 2,000 years ago and still today refer to that holistic sense of peace as shalom. While we cannot solve all of the world’s problems – something God never asked us to do – we can work to create peace for ourselves and for others. In our desire for peace, when we reach out to others in love, we complete the cycle of the Great Commandments to love God, love ourselves, and love others.

Any time I preach or lead a group, regardless of age, I start the same way. I’m going to say three short sentences. Please repeat each sentence, with enthusiasm.
God made me. God loves me. God has plans for me.

Preface to Today’s Scripture Reading

We’re now five weeks into our eight-part series based on the book Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches by Matt Miofsky and Jason Byassee. As I’ve mentioned, I prefer the term “flourishing” to “rapidly growing.”

To recap, the first virtue focused on miracles. Flourishing churches believe that God has worked and will continue working in the life of their church in miraculous ways. The second virtue is that flourishing churches quickly integrate new people into the life of the church. The third virtue is that flourishing churches love everything local. Churches flourish when their members love the people who live in their community. The sixth virtue is that flourishing churches work as teams.

The fourth virtue is that flourishing churches relentlessly work to connect with and welcome others into their church families. They do this, not to benefit themselves, but as an effort to love God by loving others.

Historically, this has been referred to as evangelism, but that word has become so narrowly understood and so closely associated with a small sub-section of the Christian community that many of us find the word... unhelpful to say the least. Nevertheless, the idea behind it – sharing the Good News of God’s love with others so that they may live lives of peace and joy in loving relationships with God, themselves and others – that Good News... that GREAT News is as liberating, comforting, and encouraging today as it was 2,000 years ago.

Flourishing churches have rediscovered what’s great about the Good News of God’s love. Their personal experiences of that Good News in their own lives drives them, compels them to share their faith, hope, and love with others and invite others to experience God’s love for themselves.

Let’s open our ears, minds, and hearts as we hear four stories of God inviting us to work with God to reach others who need to be loved.

Read Matthew 5:16 and Isaiah 6:1-8 and Luke 5:1-11 and Matthew 5:1–12 this week.

Last week, I spoke about the importance of compassion – having a genuine concern for other people’s health and happiness. There are some important nuances to compassion that, I believe, help us see why reaching out to others through compassion may be the future of “evangelism.”

Compassion is part of a tightly interwoven mix of thoughts and feelings. Sympathy “means you are able to [intellectually] understand what another person is feeling. ... Empathy is viscerally feeling what another feels. Thanks to what researchers have deemed “mirror neurons,” ... Typically, people can sympathize much easier than they can empathize” (Sara Schairer; https://chopra.com/articles/whats-the-difference-between-empathy-sympathy-and-compassion. November 23, 2019). Compassion is a desire to assist someone in processing their experience.

Sympathetically, I understand your experience. Empathetically, I share your feelings, your joy or pain. Compassionately, I offer you my time, talents, and/or treasures to support you during this time in your life.

Here’s a happy example:
You just adopted a new puppy? Sympathetically, I understand your happiness. Empathetically, your happiness makes me feel happy and excited too! Compassionately, I buy you some dog food and a small toy your puppy can chew into bits. I’m not sharing ownership of the dog with you, but I am connecting with you in a meaningfully supportive way.

Here’s a sad example:
Your old dog just died? Sympathetically, I understand your sadness. Empathetically, my heart breaks for you; I feel your pain. Compassionately, I hug you, I cry with you, and I send you a “sympathy” card with a handwritten note recalling a fond memory.

WARNING: If you become excessively absorbed in the empathy part of this, you can totally stress out because you can never meet anyone’s every need – good or bad. Compassion maintains an appropriate, healthy separation between your life and the other person’s life.

Our church experienced this last summer when the wildfires burned or severely damaged so many people’s homes and cars. We sympathized for their loss, i.e. we understood what had happened and their sense of devastating loss. Many of us felt terrible as we empathetically connected with their feelings. And we wanted to compassionately respond, but we quickly realized that even a single family’s needs were greater than our ability to “fix.” The more we understood the scope of the needs, the more we felt our capacity to respond was inadequate.

But we did what we could. We gave away more food than ever before. We collected clothes, towels, blankets, and other items for families. We gave some families money and connected them with organizations that provided money and other services. And we gave away a stack of books to help young children understand what had happened. We did what we could, and that’s all God asks us to do.

I share all of this because, we can use the three elements of sympathy, empathy, and compassion to help us see who needs to experience God’s love (our sympathetic acknowledgement), how we can most meaningfully connect with their need (our empathetic connection), and what God may be calling us to do (our compassionate response).

In Mark 6:30-44, we read about Jesus going through this process. He and the disciples were tired and hungry after wrapping up a long day of sharing the Good News of God’s love with people who desperately needed to hear and feel love. But Jesus saw the thousands of people who had followed Him all day, many of whom were sick, all of whom were hungry, like Jesus.

In v34, many English translations say Jesus “was moved with compassion for them,” but according to modern Greek scholars, the word compassion here is woefully inadequate; the original Greek word graphically describes someone’s bowels churning – that’s an empathic response. You or I might say Jesus’ heart broke with empathy for the people He saw chasing them. Consequently, Jesus responded by compassionately healing many of the sick and feeding the 5,000+ men, women, and children who were there. He did not solve systemic cultural issues connected to widespread hunger. He did what He could that day.

Jesus sympathetically understood their pain and hunger. Jesus empathetically connected with those people. His compassionate response (heal the sick, feed the hungry) tangibly demonstrated His love for them. AND... for the disciples, being active participants with Jesus in this compassionate expression was a spiritually transformative moment for them. Do you see how all the dots are connecting?!?

People were drawn to... attracted to Jesus and His message because they saw it in action. By teaching their minds and feeding their bodies, Jesus nurtured their souls... which gave them peace, shalom.

I see this cycle happen in how people become engaged with our HOPE Food Pantry. First, they learn about the need – about 25% of the children in our community are food insecure; that’s sad (sympathy). Then some people remember a time when they were hungry; they feel the pain of an empty stomach (empathy). And some people compassionately respond by supporting our food pantry in one of a hundred different ways. Through our compassionate actions and words, we have developed relationships with hundreds of people in our community who now trust us and are drawn to us because they’ve seen our faith in action.

Whether you’ve lived in Susanville for 40 years or 40 days, when people are looking for a new church home, quite often “they don’t search for a church by brand. They search for a church that talks about God in ways that move [people to love themselves,] to love God and neighbor” (Miofsky, Matt; Byassee, Jason. Eight Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches. Abingdon Press. Kindle 844).

People want to know more than just what we believe. People want to know that our beliefs connect with and drive our actions. When people ask you, “Why does your church do this? Why do you do so much for people who don’t do anything for you?” you can tell them...

• We do this as an expression of God’s love for both me and you.

• We do this because we find joy in serving others.

• We do this because the people we serve give us the gift of their presence – which creates the opportunity for the God in us to connect with the God in them.

• I do this because... well, that’s where you can tell them what drives you.

When we reach out to others with sympathy rather than lectures... with empathy rather than judgement... with compassion rather than referrals... that’s when hearts and conversational doors open and we can most effectively share the joy of having a personal, loving relationship with God.

When we share the Good News, the GREAT News of God’s love in such a compassionate, personal way, people will feel genuinely welcomed into the Kingdom of God, a place of rest, healing, growth, and peace...  a place of shalom. People need to feel loved, and we have a lot of love to offer. Let’s make those connections happen.

Amen? Amen!