Culpable Compassion

While surfing TV channels recently, Tamara came across CBC (Christian Broadcasting Corporation), which was highlighting the plight of the victims of the crisis in Darfur.  The shock from the horrid images streaming into her spacious, air conditioned family room was such that her finger froze on the remote buttons, ending her channel surfing.  Within a few split seconds, she was being drawn deeper into their world…the girls who had been ravaged, families that had walked for days and hundreds of kilometers to reach IDP (internally-displaced persons) camps, and men telling unimaginable tales of their escape from the jaws of death at the hands of the attacking militia. 

All of this was worlds away from Tamara’s calm and easy life in sunny Tucson.  She was vaguely aware of the crisis, but had not taken time from her busy schedule to read the newspapers or magazines, let along surf the net to learn the facts of the situation.  By the time she came out of the shock, flashing across the screen was the usual plea for financial support, with all the normal blah blah guarantees that all donations will be for the direct support of those in need. 

“Yeah, right,” she thought, “after you deduct a hefty share for your private jets, mansions, high salaries, and who knows what else!”  She became increasingly tense as she realized that she could not tear herself away from the channel, but at the same time was fighting within herself the way this station was using yet another crisis in the world to add to its broadcast pleas for more and more money.  Her compassionate heart strings were steadily pulling her to find some way to support people caught up in such a horrible situation, but, having seen too many similar pleas for cash support from this and other stations as well as international humanitarian charities, she wondered how much of the support raised ever got to the people who needed it. 

Compassion gripped her heart tighter and tighter, and she recognized that all-to-familiar feeling and gnawing sense that she would not be able to sleep or do anything well until she found some way to contribute.  Looking at the clock, it was time for the local news, following which she would need to make a dash for the bed in order to get enough sleep for a busy day ahead.  Determined not to repeat some of her previous negative experiences, this time she decided to make an efficient decision… and take a short cut.  She reached for her purse, fumbled for a pen and her checkbook, and wrote out a check for $75 to CBC.  She quickly stuffed it into an envelope which she would address, stamp and mail the following day.

The rest of that week, Tamara felt a bit comfortable, having taken “a step of faith” to respond to the plea for help and to believe that the station would indeed ensure that all donations would directly benefit the intended beneficiaries.  She slept well every night that week.

Her comfortable feeling abruptly changed Sunday morning, however, as Pastor Henry methodically worked his way through his sermon … on love and compassion.  His texts were John 11:35, Jesus wept, and 1 Cor. 13:3 and 13:13, And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing….And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  As he spoke, she reflected on the compassion that she felt for the Darfurians caught up in the crisis in Sudan, and felt a bit proud of her small but efficient step of faith. 

She was jolted out of her reflections as Pastor Henry wove his texts together into a beautiful illustration of the love and compassion that Jesus showed towards those who mourned Lazarus.  Love and compassion moved him to weep for these people who were lost in their sin and disbelief, and who were blind to Him, their only hope of salvation and resurrection.  

“Without fervent prayer that leads to the shedding of tears within your spirit, which often stream down your face, there is no real compassion!,” the pastor stated in a strong, clear voice as he looked steadfastly in Tamara’s direction.  Those were the last words of his sermon that she heard that hot but beautiful Sunday morning.  Those clear words pierced through her mind to the core of her soul, seemingly cutting deeply into the marrow of her bones.  For the rest of the sermon, her mind raced through a flashback of the CBC incident earlier that week, and of her supposed “step of faith and love.”  Instantly she knew that there was not the sense of even one “tear of compassion” within her spirit or on her face as she pondered the images of horror from Darfur.  Over the years, she had simply seen too many similar scenes and heard too many similar pleas for help, that perhaps she responded more out of habit or, worse yet, to get those conscious-searing images out of her mind so she could get enough sleep for work the next day. 

Tamara was shocked out of her flashback as she suddenly realized that she had not prayed at all for those hurting souls in or outside the IDP and refugee camps.  She only recalled fixating on CBC’s pleas for help streaming across her brand new Panasonic flat panel, 52 inch TV screen, and then debating in her mind how much of the possibly zillions of dollars collected would really reach the people in need.  Not one prayer, let alone a prayer of compassion and love to the point of tears within her spirit or anywhere else for that matter.

With absolutely no recollection of how and when, Tamara found herself kneeling … alone at the altar of her mega church, as Pastor Henry slowly worked his way through his altar call.  There she knelt, praying, sobbing, asking for God’s forgiveness for her callousness and total lack of compassion on this and so many other occasions in which she responded generously to pleas for humanitarian assistance.  She asked for a true heart of compassion to the point that she would pray earnestly, even to the point of tears, for the lost, the hurting and needful of our world, and not glibly respond with a “check and a stamp” to help drive uncomfortable images out of her mind.

Tamara drove home from church that morning with a refreshing appreciation of the Love of Christ, and a far deeper understanding of the shortest verse of the Bible, Jesus wept.  As she turned into her expansive three-car garage, out of the blistering Tucson heat, she sighed, “Never has so much been said in so few words.”