2 Kings 5:1-14; Galatians 6:1-16; Luke 1:1-11, 16-20
Two weeks ago, I talked about how the people of God are called to have one heart, rather than one mind, and about how we can have disagreements in church and still be one people, and I said that I would talk today about how we can do that. How can we be one people, how can we have peace amongst us, or peace in any of our relationships, if we have strong disagreements or strong differences? How can we cultivate one heart and still remain of different minds?
I know that in the church, largely speaking, we have come a long way in accepting difference. Even if we aren’t at the stage of embracing people with different opinions than us all the time, we at least tolerate them. We can all get along––we don’t literally kill like we’ve done in the past.
But here’s the thing: tolerance does not lead us to one heart. It just leads us to a tentative truce, where we put up with each other, and that’s not enough. Tolerance does not actually offer enough resistance to intolerance, tolerance does not make hate impossible. It’s too similar to indifference. Tolerance is not strong enough to stop disagreements from becoming arguments from becoming hate.
Jesus did not offer tolerance to those who came to him in need of healing. Instead, Jesus offered compassion. Compassion––to suffer with, if we break down the word––is what Jesus had for those he healed, and for us. Compassion is what gives us one heart and makes us one in Christ. Compassion and active love for those who disagree with us is how Christ makes us one. Compassion is how we get recover from church arguments, and, even more, make space for disagreements without having them become divisions in the first place. Compassion is what we have for those whom we love but with whom we disagree. Compassion for one another is what allows the church to disagree but not divide over things like women pastors, offering Communion to children, worship styles, or marrying LGBTQ+ couples. Compassion is what allows us to discuss difficult topics like immigration, climate change, pipelines, or federal elections without rancour. Compassion allows each of us to live out our faith in our own ways without judging or condemning others who do it differently. We can fundamentally disagree on certain issues if we have compassion for each other, if we remember that we share one heart.
God calls us to have compassion for one another, not just tolerance. God calls us to have a heart for others. The Israelite slave girl, in our Old Testament reading, tells her master, Naaman, where he can go for healing. Did you catch the significance of that? This enslaved girl, who has every right to ignore her master’s suffering, or at least to tolerate it, actively seeks to end it. She has compassion for her enemy, she has a heart for him. And then, when Naaman follows her advice, the prophet Elisha, too, shows compassion and tells him what to do to be healed. Elisha did not have to do that. Elisha is a prophet of God, called to serve the people of Israel. Naaman is an Aramean, a military enemy of Israel, who worships a God called Rim’mon or Ba’al, not in any way recognized as one of the people of Israel. And yet Elisha has compassion, and God heals Naaman. And when Naaman makes it clear to Elisha that he will continue to serve the king of the Arameans––not the king of Israel, and continue to visit the temple of Rim’mon, Elisha sends him on his way in peace. Elisha doesn’t take back the healing, or curse Naaman or his king, or harden his heart. Elisha allows their religious and geopolitical differences to remain and says, go in peace.
Jesus, too, calls his disciples to have compassion for those who are different from them. When he sends them out, he tells them that the first thing they are to do when they enter a village is to say, “Peace.” And he is very clear that these villagers are going to be different than them––they are the wolves who will not agree with the disciples, who might even want to hurt the disciples. And yet, the disciples are to say, “Peace.” They are to be active in their compassion, opening their hearts to others, saying peace first, not waiting for it to be said to them before they respond. And if the others respond with “peace,” great. And if they don’t, the disciples are to continue to respond with compassion––not to curse those who reject their peace, not to be stubbornly silent, but to say to them as well, “the kingdom of God has come near,” just as they say to those whom they have healed.
So what does this look like for us, in the here and now? How do we embody this compassion as we go about our lives this week? Well, here are some concrete suggestions, some of which might even sound familiar to you. First, pray for your “enemies.” Pray for those who strongly disagree with you, pray for those who have argued with you. But not that they will agree with you, that’s cheating. Pray for their well-being. Pray for their happiness. Pray that they will not experience suffering. Now, to do that, you might actually have to talk to them, and ask them why they are unhappy, or how they are suffering. You might have to open your hearts to them, which leads us to the second thing: offer to bear their burdens, as Paul said in our second reading. That is, ask them what’s overwhelming for them right now, listen to their complaints (keeping in mind that complaining is what we do when we’re feeling overwhelmed). Extend sympathy–– tell them you wish they didn’t have to feel that pain. You don’t have to agree with someone to say that. And third, wish them peace. As Paul says, we reap what we sow. Resist the temptation to treat them as they’ve treated you. Wish that they may experience love, and acceptance, and not just tolerance but compassion. Wish them healing.
Of course, like all worthwhile endeavours in our lives, this is easier said than done. It is not easy to walk into a room filled with people whom you know don’t want you there, who do not wish you well, and genuinely wish them peace. It’s not easy to hear that something bad has happened to someone who’s said hurtful things to you, and feel bad for them and actively try to help them. It’s not easy to welcome our “enemies” into our hearts, as people worthy of the same care and sympathy and understanding that we wish for ourselves. And yet, this is what we are called to do. We are called to have compassion and to wish peace and to think of ourselves as sharing one heart with those with whom we fundamentally disagree. I am called to have compassion and to share a heart with a certain world leader whose policies are deeply troubling, even abhorrent, to me. Really. To say it’s not easy is probably an understatement.
But it is not impossible. And I say that because of the source of this compassion. It’s important to be clear here that when I say compassion, I don’t mean our own personal compassion, I mean the compassion of God that flows through us. You see God is the one who truly has compassion for all, and God uses us to make that compassion real for others. Our role is simply to let that compassion flow. Our role is not to decide who should receive that compassion, or to restrict it, or to limit it to only the deserving. Our role is to be an open conduit through which God’s compassion can flow to others. You see, Naaman wasn’t healed by Elisha’s compassion, but by God’s compassion that flowed through Elisha. The people healed by the disciples of Jesus weren’t healed by the disciples, but by Jesus’, and God’s, compassion flowing through the disciples. Our compassion doesn’t bring us together so that we are of one heart. God’s compassion does that. God’s compassion comes to you, flows through you, and then leads you and those around you all back to God’s heart.
Which is where we are one. This is the key to all of this, to bringing us to one heart in our disagreements. The key is that it’s not about us, it’s about God’s actions in and through us. It’s what we call grace. Grace is God gathering all of our differences together into God’s generous embrace. Grace is how God heals us and brings us together in peace. Grace is God’s compassion for all of us.
We are called to allow ourselves to be of one heart, to allow ourselves to be one in God’s heart. We are called to allow God’s spirit––a spirit of gentleness––to move us beyond tolerating difference to being unblocked channels of God’s compassion for others, especially for those who disagree with us. We are called to be open so that God can bring us together in one heart, so that together we might know God’s love for us. But we are called to do this through God’s grace, through God’s Spirit, which God extends to us regardless of whether we are able to pass it on. And for this we say, thanks be to God, Amen.
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