March 15, 2009

Dr. Ron Sumners

Empathy

Matthew 14: 1-14

Max Lucado tells the story of Theresa Briones. She is a tender, loving mother. She also has a stout left hook that she used to punch a lady in a coin laundry. Why did she do that?

Some kids were making fun of Theresa’s daughter, Alicia. Alicia is bald. Her knees are arthritic. Her nose is pinched. Her hips are creaky. Her hearing is bad. She has the stamina of a seventy-year-old. She is only ten.

“Mom,” the kids taunted, “come and look at the monster!”

Alicia weighs only twenty-two pounds and is shorter than most preschoolers. She suffers from progeria, a genetic aging disease that strikes one child in eight million. The life expectancy of progeria victims is twenty years. There are only fifteen known cases of the disease in the world.

“She is not an alien. She is not a monster,” Theresa defended. “She is just like you and me.”

Mentally, Alicia is a bubbly, fun-loving third grader. She has a long list of friends. She watches television in a toddler-sized rocking chair. She plays with Barbie dolls and teases her younger brother.

Theresa has grown accustomed to the glances and questions. She is patient with the constant curiosity. Genuine inquiries she accepts. Insensitive slanders she does not.

The mother of the finger-pointing child came to investigate. “I see ‘it’,” she told the kids.

“My child is not an ‘it’,” Theresa stated. Then she decked the woman!

Who could blame her? Such is the nature of parental love. Mothers and fathers have a God-given ability to love their children regardless of imperfections. Not because the parents are blind. Just the opposite. They see clearly.

Theresa sees Alicia’s inability as clearly as anyone. But she also sees Alicia’s value

So does God!

God sees us with the eyes of a Father. He sees our defects, errors, and blemishes. But He also sees our value. Jesus knew the value of people. He knew that each human being is a treasure. And because he did, people were not a source of stress, but a source of joy.

When Jesus lands on the shore of Bethsaida, He leaves the Sea of Galilee and steps into a sea of humanity. Keep in mind, he has crossed the sea to get away from the crowds. He needs to grieve over the loss of John the Baptist. He longs to relax with His followers. He needs anything but another crowd of thousands to teach and heal. But His love for people overcomes his need for rest. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick. It is doubtful that anyone in the crowd thought to ask Jesus how He was doing. There is no indication that anyone is concerned with how Jesus is feeling. No one has to come “to give”; all have come to take. In churches all across this land, people come to worship today. Most, like those by the sea, have come to take.

In South America there is a fish whose name strikes fear into every heart. They are carnivorous fish with a voracious appetite. They are called piranha. Max Lucado talks about “the piranha hour”. It is that time when everyone seems to want a piece of you.

Every boss has had a day in which the requests outnumber the results. There’s not a businessperson alive who hasn’t groaned as an armada of assignments docks at the desk. For the teacher, piranha hour often begins when the first student enters and ends when the last student leaves.

Piranha hours: parents have them, bosses endure them, secretaries dread them, teachers are besieged by them, and Jesus taught us how to live through them successfully.

When hands extended and voices demanded, Jesus responded with love. He did so because the code within Him disarmed the alarm caused by all those grasping at Him. The code is worth noting: “People are precious.”

I can hear somebody raising an objection at this point. “Yes, but it was easier for Jesus. He was God. He could do more than I can. After all, He was divine.”

Consider that, along with His holy strength, He also had a holy awareness. There were no secrets on the mountain that day; Jesus knew the heart of each person. He knew why they were there and what they would do.

Matthew writes that Jesus “healed their sick.” Not some of their sick. He did not limit His healing to the righteous among the sick. He did not limit it to the deserving among the sick. He healed “the sick.”

Surely, among the thousands, there were a few people unworthy of the healing touch of Jesus!

The same divinity that gave Jesus the power to heal also gave Him the power to perceive. I wonder if Jesus was tempted to say to those people, “Heal you? After what you’ve done?”

And He could see not only their past, He could see their future.

Undoubtedly, there were those in the multitude who would use their newfound health to hurt others. Jesus released tongues that would someday curse. He gave sight to eyes that would lust. He healed hands that would kill.

Many of those that He healed would never say “thank you,” but He healed them anyway. Most would be more concerned with being healthy than being holy, but He healed them anyway. Some of those who asked for bread on that day would cry for His blood a few months later, but He fed and healed them anyway.

Jesus chose to do what you and I seldom, if ever, choose to do. He chose to give gifts to people, knowing full and well that those gifts could be used for evil.

Don’t be too quick to attribute Jesus’ compassion to His divinity. Remember both sides. For each time Jesus healed, He had to overlook the future and the past. Something, by the way, that he still does.

Have you noticed that God doesn’t ask you to prove that you will put your salary to good use? Have you noticed that God doesn’t turn off the oxygen supply when you misuse your gifts? Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t give you only that which you remember to thank Him for? Has it been a while since you thanked God for your spleen? Me too, but I still have one.

God’s goodness is spurred by His nature, not by our worthiness! Jesus knew the value of people.

Interestingly, the stress seen that day is not on Jesus’ face, but on the faces of the disciples. “Send the crowds away,” they demanded. Fair request. Jesus had taught them, healed them and if they stayed, he would have to feed them too!

I wish I could have seen the expression on the disciples’ faces when they heard the master’s response, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

I used to think that this was a rhetorical request. I used to think that Jesus knew the disciples couldn’t feed the crowd, but He asked them anyway. I used to think that it was a “test” to teach them to rely on God for what they couldn’t do.

I don’t see it like that anymore.

I still think it was a test; not a test to show them what they couldn’t do, but a test to demonstrate what they could do.

I wish I could tell you that the disciples did it. I wish I could say that they knew God wouldn’t ask them to do something that He would not empower them to do, so they fed the crowd. I wish I could tell you that the disciples miraculously fed the 5,000 men plus women and children. But I can’t. . . because they didn’t.

Rather than look to God, they looked in their wallets. “That would take eight months of wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

Don’t miss the contrasting views. When Jesus saw the people, He saw an opportunity to love and affirm value. When the disciples saw the people, they saw thousands of problems.

Also don’t miss the irony. In the presence of the Eternal Baker, they tell the “Bread of Life” that there is no bread!

How silly we must appear to God.

Jesus remained calm. The alarm never sounded. He knew the value of people. As a result, He didn’t stamp His feet and demand His own way. He didn’t tell the disciples to find another beach where there were no people. He didn’t ask the crowds why they hadn’t brought their own food. He didn’t send the apostles back into the fields for more training. He stayed calm in the midst of chaos. He even paused, in the midst of it all, to pray a prayer of thanks.

A boy went into a pet shop, looking for a puppy. The store owner showed him a litter of puppies in a box. The boy looked at the puppies. He picked each one up, examined it, and put it back in the box.

After several minutes, he walked back to the owner and said, “I picked one out. How much will it cost?”

The man gave the price, and the boy promised to be back in a few days with the money. “Don’t take too long,” the owner cautioned. “Puppies like these will sell quickly.”

The boy turned and smiled knowingly, “I’m not worried,” he said. “Mine will still be here.”

The boy went to work, weeding, washing windows, cleaning yards. He worked hard and saved his money. When he had enough for the puppy, he returned to the store.

He walked up to the counter and laid a pocketful of wadded bills. The store owner sorted and counted the cash. After verifying the amount, he smiled at the boy and said, “All right, son, you can go get your puppy.” The boy reached into the back of the box, pulled out a skinny dog with a limp leg and started to leave.

The owner stopped him.

“Don’t take that puppy,” he objected. “He’s crippled. He can’t play. He’ll never run with you. He can’t fetch. Get one of the healthy pups.”

“No thank you sir,” the boy replied. “This is exactly the kind of dog I’ve been looking for.”

As the boy turned to leave, the store owner started to speak but remained silent. Suddenly he understood. For extending from the bottom of the boy’s trousers was a brace; a brace for a crippled leg.

Why did the boy want the dog? Because he knew how it felt. And he knew it was very special.

What did Jesus know that enabled him to do what He did? He knew how the people felt and He knew that they were special.

I hope you never forget that!

Jesus knows how you feel. You’re under the gun at work? Jesus knows how you feel. You’ve got more to do than is humanly possible? So did He. People take more from you than they give? Jesus understands. Your teenagers won’t listen? Your students won’t try? Your employees give you blank stares when you assign tasks? Believe me, Jesus knows how you feel.

You are precious to Him. So precious that he became like you so that you would come to Him.

When you struggle, He listens. When you yearn, He responds. When you question, He hears. He has been there. You’ve heard that before, but you need to hear it again.

He loves you with the love of Theresa Briones!

He understands you with the compassion of the crippled boy.

Like Theresa, He battles with hell itself to protect you.

And, like the boy, he paid a great price to take you home.