Lenten Series on Spiritual Practice: Compassion 2/26/12

Lenten Spiritual Practice Series

Week One:  Compassion

Rev. Lee Ann Bryce

Community Christian Church

February 26, 2012

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.             Matthew 9:35-36

Christians are called to live in this world with broken open hearts.

Parker Palmer, Standing in the Tragic Gap

Today we begin a Lenten worship series on spiritual practice.  Our focus today is on the spiritual practice of compassion.  Compassion is a feeling deep within ourselves that the Buddhists call a “quivering of the heart.”  Compassion is also a way of acting, choosing to be affected by the suffering of others and moving on their behalf.  It can be said that compassion is the central ethical virtue in Christianity. 

In the video we just watched, Standing in the Tragic Gap, Parker Palmer says that Christians are called to live in this world with broken open hearts, feeling the suffering in the world, including our own.  To practice compassion means the willingness to bear witness to pain, to move toward it with caring, to go into situations where people are hurting.  To use Palmer’s language, Christians stand in the tragic gap between the difficult, horrible realities that are present in the world and our dream of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, where justice and shalom prevail.  As we stand in the “tragic gap”, the challenge, of course, is for your heart to be broken open by pain and therefore able to respond, rather than be paralyzed by a heart broken apart, unable to act with creativity or hope.

If you’ve tried to practice compassion on any serious or intentional level, you might realize that it’s not easy to do.  When you move toward others with compassion, you are likely to bump into your own judgments about them which can close your heart so quickly.  You become acutely aware that these “others” for whom you’re trying to have compassion don’t look like you do, don’t live like you do, don’t have the same values as you do or don’t act the way you think you would under similar circumstances. 

Practicing compassion is also hard because life is sure to present us with some new experience or encounter with pain we feel unprepared for.  Your partner betrays you, someone you admire disappoints you, some event of unimaginable cruelty happens in the world and compassion once again demands that you open your heart and receive it.  If we are to practice compassion we may count on the reality that over and over again we will be asked to meet change, loss, and injustice, by finding the strength to open our hearts when we are most inclined to close them off.

In his book Who Speaks for God?:  An Alternative To the Religious Right – A New Politics of Compassion, Community, and Civility Jim Wallis puts it like this:

Compassion has less to do with 'doing charity' than 'making connections.' The word compassion means literally 'to suffer with.' It means to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, try to understand their experience, or see the world through their eyes. That always changes our perspective. True compassion has less to do with sympathy than it does with empathy.

The call to compassion is not about somebody 'doing for' somebody else. Rather, its value is in the connection, the relationship, and the transaction in which everyone is changed. The Hebrew prophets say that we find our own good in seeking the common good. The prophet Isaiah says that when we feed the hungry, take in the homeless, and 'break the yoke' of oppression, then we find our own healing. 

Compassion doesn’t always call for grand or heroic gestures.  It asks you to find in your heart the simple but profound willingness to be present, with a commitment to end sorrow and contribute to the well-being and ease of all beings (when it is within your power to do so.)  A word of kindness, a loving touch, a patient presence, a willingness to step beyond your fears and reactions are all gestures of compassion that can transform a moment of fear or pain into a moment of connection and comfort. 

In our text from Matthew, Jesus finds himself in the midst of tremendous human suffering.  He traveled, he taught, he healed.  He saw crowds of people, lost and hungry, with overwhelming need, all of which he could not possibly alleviate.  Even though many were healed, there would still be poverty and exploitation which meant that he could not assure the end of suffering.  But Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds “he had compassion for them.”  That’s a different thing than all the things he did for them.  He chose to align himself with the path of understanding and compassion.  He learned to listen to the cries of the world. 

We mustn’t confuse compassion and pity.  They are very different.  Whereas compassion reflects the yearning of the heart to merge, to share in some way with the suffering of others, pity is a mindset designed to assure separateness.  “Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity, the involuntary reflex of fear.”  (Ram Dass in How Can I Help?)  Do you see the difference?  If I have pity for someone, I am separated from them.  If I have compassion for them, I am connected to them.  Compassion is the keen awareness that all things are interdependent.  I may wish to withdraw, to isolate myself, but it cannot be done.  And the illusion of my own separation only adds to the suffering. 

Have you been blessed to know someone who inspired you with the compassion you saw in him or her?  I’ll give you a moment to think about it, then turn to your neighbor and share.

Since we’re focusing on spiritual practices during Lent, each week we’ll explore specific ways we can nurture that day’s spiritual practice.  We’re going to close with a short time of silent meditation.  As you settle into a comfortable position, begin to follow your breath, breathing in, breathing out.  And as you breathe in, silently pray:  Be compassionate.  And as you breathe out:  as God is compassionate.   (Time for silent breathing meditation).

Compassion means trying to see the world through God’s eyes.  Through these eyes we look at our families and feel compassion for them, and our hearts expand.  And if we keep looking through those eyes of compassion, perhaps we can see the world, with all its people, with all its pain, trusting that somehow everything that is is held in holy hands - and our hearts expand.  And perhaps most difficult of all, we see even ourselves through the eyes of compassion.  And our hearts expand. 

A Prayer of Compassion

By Henri Nouwen

Dear God,

As you draw me ever deeper into your heart,

I discover that my companions on the journey

are women and men

loved by you as fully and as intimately as I am.

In your compassionate heart,

there is a place for all of them.

No one is excluded.

Give me a share in your compassion, dear God

so that your unlimited love may become visible

in the way I love my brothers and sisters.

Amen.

Thin Places 2/19/12

Thin Places

Rev. Lee Ann Bryce

Community Christian Church

February 19, 2012

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them.  ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus.  ⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.”  ⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.  ⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”  ⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.                                         Mark 9:2-9

There are moments in life when we move closer to the God we seek; when we leave that which is familiar and we get an unexpected glimpse of the divine; flashes when we are given pause to wonder

about a reality that lies beyond the mundane rituals, the grief, trials and boredom of our day-to-day life.  To be human means to possess a hunger to be connected, to be a part of something greater,

to be loved, to find peace.

Have you ever heard the expression “thin place”?  The term comes from the Celtic tradition and it describes those moments in time when the veil between this world that we know and the other world is thin; when the usual barriers that exists at the edge of what we know to be human, finite, mortal is almost transparent.  There are physical places in the world that some have called thin, places to which people make pilgrimage like Iona off the coast of Scotland or Rome or Jerusalem or Mecca.  A thin place can happen unexpectedly anywhere, anytime really.  Some experience a thin place while keeping vigil with someone who is dying.  Some might call the other world heaven, to others it may be the abyss of the unknown.   Whatever you perceive the other world to be, a thin place is a place where connection to that world seems effortless and signs of its existence are palpable.

Mahatma Gandhi speaks of this in his Spiritual Message to the World:

There is an undefinable, mysterious power that pervades everything.  I feel it, though I do not see it.  It is this unseen power that makes itself felt and yet defies all proof, because it is so unlike all that I perceive through my senses.  It transcends the senses.

Simply put, a thin place is a place where you can feel that mysterious power that Gandhi refers to.  For Gandhi, that mysterious power was God.  A thin place calls you, draws you into itself, transports you into the presence of the world beyond this world. 

If you have ever encountered a thin place in space or time, you know how deep the experience is and how difficult it is to describe without sounding crazy.  Most of our lives are lived in the thicker places, places where we feel the illusion of separation and the desire for certainty and predictability.  But from the those thicker places, we can seek out the thin ones because it is thin places that give depth and substance and meaning to our lives. 

Our text today is about one of those thin places, this one on a mountaintop long ago.  While the disciples watched, Jesus’ face and his clothes changed.  They became “dazzling white.”  Elijah and Moses show up to talk with Jesus.  A cloud overshadowed them and a voice from heaven is described as saying, “This is my Son, the beloved.  Listen to him!”  In the Bible, the divine presence is often described as being in clouds and speaking from clouds.  And the language used, the voice speaking from the sky, no doubt references Jesus’ baptism when a similar voice spoke from the clouds to declare Jesus God’s beloved son.

Peter - impetuous, befuddled, terrified Peter cannot remain silent.  He speaks up, offering to build three shelters, perhaps in an attempt to preserve the magic moment.  He had not yet learned that you can’t preserve a thin place.  It mysteriously vanishes as quickly as it appears.

Last week, Lisa and I had the joy of spending the week in Puerto Rico.  And though Puerto Rico is home to beautiful beaches and interesting history, you may not realize that it is also home to El Yunque, a cool, mountainous, sub-tropical rain forest.  We’d heard about how beautiful El Yunque was so we took our own pilgrimage there.  As we drove away from the hustle and bustle of the city of San Juan, the terrain became more and more green, the hills rose, and the temperature cooled as we gained in elevation.  We turned off the main highway on a small road that leads to the visitor’s center at the entrance to the rain forest.  We picked up a map that marked the various trails and outlooks on the way to the highest peak, each stop filled with such beauty – waterfalls big and small and thousands of native plants including 150 different types of ferns, 240 tree species, 88 of them rare and 23 species of trees found nowhere else on Earth but El Yunque.  It is a magical place. 

We headed up the road, stopping along the way at the various observation points until we wound up as far as the road would take us in our car then we parked to take the foot trail towards the top of the mountain.  As we set out on the hiking trail we naturally assumed a hushed silence upon encountering such beauty; lush green vegetation, brightly colored flowers, the brook rushing by the trail.  Looking up, we saw a dense canopy of trees overhead.

What I have not yet told you is that as we looked up we could see enough of the sky through that dense canopy of trees to realize the clouds were getting darker.  Apparently we didn’t really understand that it actually rained in the rain forest because we didn’t have a pancho or an umbrella.  (That’s why they sold panchos at the gift shop!)  A gentle rain began to fall though we could hear it rather than feel it since the trees were so dense.  We kept walking, the rain kept falling, louder now, definitely feeling the rain on my skin now, hair soaking wet, water dripping into my eyes.  As we walked, I realized that the funny sound I was hearing was actually the squishing of my shoes.  At one point, the rain was particularly heavy and we took shelter under a tree with these wide palm like branches.  It provided enough relief that I could take my camera out of its case and  take the panoramic video I’ll show you now.

You might think that just being in that beautiful forest was my thin moment, but that’s not entirely true.  As I stood in the rain, soaking wet, at the beginning of a long trail I had hoped to hike for an hour but now realized I would be unable to, I had a choice.  I could choose to be disappointed, even miserable.  I could choose to dwell on the fact that the rain was not letting up, that there was a chill in the air that made me shiver, that my shoes were squishing and I was soaked and it was time to go back to the car.  Or I could simply accept that that was how it was going to be that day and instead take in the rightness of pouring rain in the rain forest.

Isn’t that how life works?  There are things and circumstances, like rain and dripping hair and soggy clothes and squishy shoes that can distract us from really living life fully.  The circumstances of our lives can make us feel miserable but we can always choose – we can choose to accept those things we cannot change, those circumstances for what they are, and instead focus on discovering the good, the true, and the beautiful, in each moment of this precious gift called life. 

It’s true that we traveled thousands of miles for the magic of El Yunque.  But you and I both know that you don’t have to take a plane and then a car and wind your way up a mountain in Puerto Rico to find heaven.  It fact, you need look no further than your own home or office or church.  For the truth of the matter is this:  in the end, all places are thin places if we are only willing to pay attention.  For as surely as the disciples experienced a divine moment on top of a mountain long ago, so too God is always present for you, and for me.  Rain or shine.

Please join me in our prayer of transformation printed in your bulletin.  Let us pray responsively.

Prayer of Transformation

One:      We climb mountains seeking you, God,

                but not knowing quite what we are looking for.

Many:   Your presence appears as a voice from the clouds,

                bright as dazzling light,

                as incomprehensible mystery,

                the extraordinary breaking through into the ordinary,

                and we are touched by the holy.

One:      In these high places,

                in the thin places,

                we see, we hear, we know you, God –

                closer, deeper, beyond imagining, beyond expressing.

Many:   Take us to the thin places.

                Lead us to moment of epiphany and revelation.

                Guide us to thin places where holiness touches ordinariness,  

                and where we long to see you face to face. 

ALL:        Amen.

Pray Without Ceasing 2/5/12

Pray Without Ceasing

Rev. Lee Ann Bryce

Community Christian Church

February 5, 2012

29            As soon as they^* left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.  ³⁰Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once.  ³¹He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

32            That evening, at sunset, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons.  ³³And the whole city was gathered around the door.  ³⁴And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

35            In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.  ³⁶And Simon and his companions hunted for him.  ³⁷When they found him, they said to him, ‘Everyone is searching for you.’  ³⁸He answered, ‘Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.’  ³⁹And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.                                                         -Mark 1:29-39

Every morning my alarm goes off at 5 AM.  I get up, get dressed and head to the gym to work out for an hour.  I come home, eat a nutritious breakfast, and head to the meditation room in our house for a full hour of quiet prayer.  Then I shower and am in the office by 8:30.

Or I should say that is what I dream my life could be like(!) especially when I read today’s scripture text about busy, exhausted Jesus who wakes before sunrise and goes to a deserted place to pray.  My real life is nothing like that.  My real life is more along the lines of – church meeting at night, home by 9 or so, have dinner, do the dishes, wind down in front of the TV, go to bed around 11, lay in bed playing Words With Friends on my iphone, fall asleep after midnight, and getting a late start on the next day.  That is my real life.

Our passage from Mark says Jesus is driven to seek out a place of solitude after he has healed Simon’s mother-in-law. The day before he had been at the synagogue in Capernaum casting out the demon from the possessed man.  (That was last week’s text.)  As people learn that he speaks with authority, that he has the power to deal with their difficulties like this dramatic healing of Simon’s mother-in-law, people begin to bring to him everyone who is sick.  The entire city was gathered around his door, can you imagine?  They came one after another after another.  Dozens of people plagued with emotional, psychological, physical problems, all of them dumping their troubles on Jesus.  And Jesus dealt with them one by one.  Good Lord, Jesus must have been burned out at the end of that day.

And then the next day, he’s not lying in bed hitting the snooze button on his alarm.  No, he gets up early way before the sun is even up.  He probably hadn’t gotten much sleep.  You know how it is when you’re exhausted.  You have a few hours to rest but your head is still spinning and your body doesn’t respond well when you say, “Go to sleep NOW!”  Have you had those days when the work snowballs and the more you do the more it seems there is to be done.  Even Jesus needed to regenerate, to connect with the source of all life, healing, and strength so that he could go on to the next town and do it all over again.  And so Jesus slips away to a deserted place without human crowds or multitudes. 

It was for this reason that Jesus had come to earth, after all.  His mission was to meet the needs of humankind but there were so many of them.   Where would he get the strength to keep up the pace, to continually face the crowd with this fresh, new teaching that they so desperately needed, to keep on giving of himself in limitless ways?

Does this sound familiar to anyone?  There are such demands that are placed on our time, our energies, our resources.  Every day there are tasks to accomplish, needs to be met, decisions to be made, business to attend to.  Every day there are people to relate to, conflicts to be resolved, actions that require more than we in our strength alone can achieve. 

Let’s be honest, shall we?  Even though we all live busy and demanding lives, and even though many of us realize the need for prayer,  I doubt many of us observe a discipline of arising before sunrise each day in order to pray.  To be certain, some do and the practice adds much to their lives.  But I suspect far more of you are like me and tend not to withdraw for significant daily. 

Hopefully you are able to take blocks of time for rest and renewal with a vacation or sabbatical.  But as far as a daily prayer discipline, sometimes I wonder if our definition of prayer is too limiting.  We imagine a daily prayer would mean setting aside time only to pray, sitting or kneeling, folding our hands and closing our eyes and imagining words we want say to God or silence in which we listen for God.  That is prayer, of course, but is there something broader that is also prayer?  When Paul urged the Thessalonian church to “pray without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5:17) surely he didn’t mean that they should say prayers without ceasing.  Maybe Paul was talking about prayer in a broader sense.  If prayer is the way we regenerate and connect with the source of life there are many ways to do that that we don’t necessarily consider to be prayer. 

John Shelby Spong tells a story about his early days as an Episcopal priest.  He went to visit a young woman, a mother with three young children, who was dying of cancer.  They knew each other well and Bishop Spong describes a long conversation they shared one afternoon when her death was near, recalling her life experiences, facing the tragic reality that she would not see her children grow up, and speaking of the upcoming funeral arrangements.  He describes it as an intimate, expansive, holy conversation.  After two and a half hours as he prepared to leave, he shifted into his ordained capacity and asked if he could pray with her.  She didn’t object; her attitude seemed to say, “Well, if you need to do that, go ahead.”  He offered a prayer he described as typical for the situation, stringing together one pious cliché after another, trying to cover his own sense of sadness and awkwardness.  When he had finished, he felt diminished and he suspected that she had too.  And driving home that day he compared the two experiences – the long visit and the prayer.  He felt they were very different situations.  One expanded life and one contracted it.  One opened him to relationship to an intimate God and one closed him.  Which experience really was the prayer?  Sitting with her for two and a half hours sharing God’s presence in a very painful situation or the words he rattled off under the guise of praying?

Prayer is withdrawing with intention to meet God.  But prayer also can be doing anything that regenerates us and connects us with the source of life.  Spiritual Director Jane Vennard offers this illustration.  When she was a child, she often hiked the mountains of Colorado with her father.  With the exuberance of youth, Jane would set a fast pace, headed up the mountain, leaving her father behind.  Soon she would flop to the ground in exhaustion and here would come her father with his steady pace.  She asked, ‘How do you keep going?” and he replied, “Well, Jane, I rest as I walk.” 

Pray without ceasing.  It’s about living a life of prayer rather than doing the activity of prayer.  How do you channel God’s energy so that you can be in touch with it, live out of it, and become an agent of life and love?

Prayer can be folding your hands and bowing your head.  Prayer can also be taking a walk or eating good food.   Making love with your partner can be prayer or serving a meal at a soup kitchen.  Prayer can be reading poetry or listening to music.  The list is endless.

Pray without ceasing and the peace that passes all understanding will sustain all that you do.  Amen.