This recent election brought so many complex issues and raw emotions to the surface. I have friends who are dishing out homemade justice, while others are shielding themselves from pure hatred. As far as the media is concerned, it is difficult to separate exaggerated truth from hyperbolical lies. What now, America? Where do we turn for truth?
The Bible says, “The Lord is compassionate, abounding in love.”[1] The Koran calls God the merciful and the compassionate.[2] We are called to be followers and imitators of Compassion.[3] Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God and love our neighbors (albeit an expanded definition of neighbor!)[4] It is a call to live compassionately, to empathize with sufferers, to be caretakers of those unable to care for themselves, to go the extra mile. It comes from a transformed heart: one full of compassion. If you want to know how to change the world, scripture makes it perfectly clear: “Love never fails.”[5]
To seek the truth is to be filled with compassion. The Dalai Lama understands this. In his book The Art of Happiness, he says, “I would regard a compassionate, warm, kindhearted person as healthy. If you maintain a feeling of compassionate loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door.” Such behavior creates openness and facilitates communication, enabling us to relate to each other more easily.[6] This is how we are to live. When we have and express compassion toward all beings, then, and only then, is God fully expressed in us. There is no greater truth than compassion.
It is also through compassion that we extend truth in grace to others. Karl Barth said, ”By this we shall be judged, about this the Judge will one day put the question, ‘Did you live by grace, or did you set up gods for yourself and perhaps want to become one yourself?’”[7] Living by grace means more than accepting it. Compassion opens the valve for grace to flow to others.
What does compassion look like? Perhaps we need to start by looking at Jesus’ description of what it does not look like. In a paraphrase by Richard Stearns, in his book The Hole in Our Gospel, Jesus said, “For I was hungry, while you had all you needed. I was thirsty, but you drank bottled water. I was a stranger, and you wanted me deported. I needed clothes, but you needed more clothes. I was sick, and you pointed out the behaviors that lead to my sickness. I was in prison, and you said I was getting what I deserved.”[8]
Conversely, the following Levitical text affirms that compassion welcomes strangers and foreigners wholeheartedly . . .
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself . . .[9]
Our focus has turned on itself. We have lost sight of the two greatest commandments: love God and others. Without compassionate living we are chaos to God. When we ignore the needs that surround us, we ignore God. When we ignore God, we ignore our own souls.
God is love.[10] In a very real sense, theology is the study of love. If our theology is built on compassionate truth, it is true theology. If we love all humankind in word and deed, we are a part of God and his domain.
All the theological debates may be waged, all the academics may argue and publish, all the strange, dimensional, and fractal books may be sold, but if none of it is filled with compassion, it is nothing. Theology that is of God is not complex; it is simple: love God and love all humankind. That is it. If you want to be sure your theology never fails you: be compassionate. The details will take care of themselves.
-Sam Augsburger
[1] Psalm 103:8.
[2] Sura II:158.
[3] Ephesians 5:1.
[4] Mark 12:29-31.
[5] 1 Corinthians 13:8.
[6] Lama, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, 40.
[7] Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, 152.
[8] Matthew 25:42-43; Richard Stearns, The Hole in Our Gospel (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 59.
[9] Leviticus 19:33-34
[10] 1 John 4:8.
