Sermon

Mark 1:40-42

God’s Compassion

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Mark 1:40-42

God’s Compassion

By Dr. Jeffrey K. London

“Why wouldn’t Jesus just heal him!”  I may have only been 8 years old but I knew what the Bible said, it said that whenever Jesus touched people they would become healed.  I mean, after all, it was going to be Randy’s birthday soon.  Didn’t Jesus want to give Randy the best birthday present ever and heal him?  What had Randy done that would make Jesus not want to heal him?  Why did he have to stay in that wheelchair when Jesus could make him walk and run and play with the rest of us?

My Dad said those were all good questions, but he didn’t give me any answers.  Which made me wonder if my Dad knew the answer and was playing that game where I was supposed to figure it out for myself.  Or maybe, maybe even my Dad, the presbyterian minister, didn’t know the answer?

It was a confusing time.  There seemed to be so much going on that I didn’t understand.  Every night before we had dinner, my mother would listen to cheesy elevator music on the radio and watch the little black and white television  in the kitchen at the same time.  The news always had pictures of the war in Vietnam and the peace marchers and the civil rights marchers.  It almost felt like every night at the same time all the world’s problems invaded our little kitchen to the sound of “Danke Shane.”  I mean, didn’t we have enough problems of our own?  I couldn’t seem to get my times tables down and my math teacher said I should go to summer school.  My newborn sister, Susan, had never come home from the hospital.  She’d been there for a long time and they still didn’t know what was wrong with her.  Some people at church were mad at Dad because he was talking with young men at coffee houses; young men who didn’t want to go to Vietnam and fight in the war.  They were saying that Dad shouldn’t do that, that he was wrong for listening to hippies and talking to freaks.  Some other people in the church were mad because they found out Dad had taken us to a “Negro Church” for a wedding and that he had participated in the service.

And then there was the problem of…the powered milk.  I knew we didn’t have much money, but when we started having to drink that awful, awful powdered milk I just knew things had gone from bad to worse.

Why wouldn’t Jesus just touch my family, and Randy, and the whole world and make it better?  Why did there have to be little boys in wheelchairs, and little sisters in the hospital, and angry church people, and war, and hate, and powdered milk?

My 3rd Grade Sunday School teachers were Mr. And Mrs. Vananna.  Of course, we thought we were really smart and called them Mr. And Mrs. “Banana” (as if they’d never heard that one before).  Each Sunday morning we gathered for Sunday School in our room and joined hands around the table and said a prayer.  Most of the time Mr. and Mrs. Vananna did all the talking during the prayer, but sometimes one or two of us would speak up and say something.  On this particular Sunday, I prayed  out loud for Randy, for my sister Susan, for my family, for our church, for hippies and freaks, and
for all the men fighting in the war.  After the prayer, everyone just looked at me.  They just stared at me like I was from another planet.  And then a kid named John Mark pointed his finger at me and said, “Jeff just prayed for the gooks!”

“I did not!”  (I didn’t even know what he was talking about!)

“Yes you did,” said John Mark, “You prayed for ‘ALL’ the men fighting in the war and that means the bad guys too!”

Mr. And Mrs. Vananna were not much help.  They told us to stop fighting and to remember that war and violence have nothing to do with the Christian faith.  And then they quickly tried to change the subject by making us read the story of Herod killing all the children two years old and younger, and doing a worksheet.

After church, in the car ride home, I told my Dad that I had prayed for the “gooks” but I hadn’t meant to, I’d only meant to pray for our side.  My Dad asked me if I thought Jesus loved the Vietnamese too, and would Jesus call them names like that?  I didn’t know what to say, I hadn’t really had much time to think about all of it.

And then my Dad asked me if Jesus ever prayed for his enemies?  Well, I knew the answer to that one.

“Yes,” I told my Dad, “Jesus prayed for his enemies and Jesus said we should pray for our enemies too.” (I thought that last little piece of information oughta impress him.)

But then my Dad asked me, “But is praying for our enemies enough?  What about love?  Didn’t Jesus also say ‘love your enemies?’”

“Oh yeah,” I said, “I forgot about that part.”

Dad went on to say that, “Jesus loved his friends and his enemies.  Jesus had compassion for all kinds of people.”

“What’s ‘compassion?’” I asked.

“Compassion is being kind because you feel it in your stomach; it’s doing the right thing for the right reason; it’s feeling like you skinned your knee when you see someone else’s; it’s feeling love and anger at the same time; but most of all it’s not being afraid to touch someone who’s sad or lonely or hurting.”

“So if I have this compassion stuff I can help people, right?  I can just touch Randy and Susan and everything will be all right?”

My Dad smiled and said, “Compassion doesn’t make the world perfect, but it does let people know we love them and we care about them.  To have compassion doesn’t mean you have to do something gigantic, sometimes the greatest miracle of all is just to touch someone and tell them that you care.  And when we touch people like that, we’re like Jesus.  Do you understand that?”

“Not really,” I said. “I’m only 8 years old. The only thing I really understand is that somehow  it’s always about Jesus.”

“Yeah,” my Dad said, “I think you’ve got it.  It is all about Jesus.  Jesus is God’s compassion.”

That afternoon I went over to Randy’s house.  He said he was putting together his invitation list for his birthday party.   He didn’t have very many names on it.  He said he put my name first because I was his best friend; because I never called him a cripple or made fun of him; because I wasn’t afraid to play with him; and because I didn’t think I would catch his “disease” if I touched him.

I felt pretty good about what Randy said to me and I thought maybe I do have some of this compassion stuff and don’t even know it.  But I wasn’t Randy’s friend because I was trying to be compassionate.  I was Randy’s friend because I liked him, and he was fun to play with, and he always had tons of silly putty.  Did that count?  Was I being like Jesus even if I wasn’t trying to be compassionate?

I thought long and hard all day about “compassion.”  By evening my little brain felt tired and worn out.  I thought I understood, but it was a lot to understand when you’re only 8 years old.  “Compassion” was a big word and an even bigger “thing.”  I wasn’t sure I had enough of it to make a difference, to touch people like my Dad was talking about, to be like Jesus.

Anyway, all of this thinking and learning had sure made me hungry and tired.  We always had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup on T.V. trays for Sunday evening supper while we watched Wild Kingdom and The Wonderful World of Disney.  But I was still hungry when it was time to go bed, so I ran into the kitchen and picked out a Fig Newton from the cookie tin and went to the refrigerator and there…

inside our old blue refrigerator,

on the top shelf,

at age 8 eye level,

was a pint of real milk

with a piece of masking tape on it that read,

“For Jeff.”

Amen.

Copyright 2003, Jeffrey K. London. Used by permission.