What is the difference between Compassion, Care & Cure. Parker Palmer says, “Compassion means literally, the capacity to be with the suffering of another.” This means that compassion is often uncomfortable. It is rarely easy to enter into someone’s pain without doing something about it, but compassion doesn’t necessarily bring a cure to the ailment one faces. Compassion’s present (gift) is being present to the other. This is the one sense where, I suppose, it is realistic to view ourselves as “G*D’s gift” to someone.
To truly care for the other we must abandon our “Whatever” attitudes. Whatever is the care-free lifestyle, and we must be care-full. Doing so means to listen, be present, hear, and receive. Henri Nouwen says, “The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is the friend who cares.”
A second comparison is that of Fixing & Relationship. Our task is not to fix people. We may desire to pour out blessings and fixings on those who are suffering and broken but pouring is an act that can be done only from above. The posture of “above” is an arm’s-length posture, and “there is no arm’s-length ‘solution’ for suffering. People who offer such only add to the pain… We cannot do good by standing back and pulling levers that drop bounty on people who need it. Right action can be only and immersion of ourselves in reality, an immersion that involves us in RELATIONSHIP, that takes us to our place in the organic nature of things.”
(Palmer, The Active Life, 84).
A third comparison is that of Do & Be. Being there, not as cure but as companion to the person who suffers on his or her slow journey, is one of the best things we can “do”. Compassion & companionship is more about being that doing. Such being requires us to risk. We risk not curing, we risk rejection, and we risk inadequacy. But Love takes risking.
The Scriptures…
Jesus models a life of compassion and care. Mark 6 serves as a good example.
Mark 6:32-44 (NLT)
They left by boat for a quieter spot. [33] But many people saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and met them as they landed. [34] A vast crowd was there as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he taught them many things.
[35] Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, "This is a desolate place, and it is getting late. [36] Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy themselves some food."
[37] But Jesus said, "You feed them."
"With what?" they asked. "It would take a small fortune to buy food for all this crowd!"
[38] "How much food do you have?" he asked. "Go and find out."
They came back and reported, "We have five loaves of bread and two fish." [39] Then Jesus told the crowd to sit down in groups on the green grass. [40] So they sat in groups of fifty or a hundred.
[41] Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and asked God's blessing on the food. Breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples to give to the people. [42] They all ate as much as they wanted, [43] and they picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. [44] Five thousand men had eaten from those five loaves!
When Jesus had compassion on the crowds he offered them what he had; excellent teaching. Jesus was the “master teacher” and didn’t hesitate to give what he had when he saw people in need. The disciple’s saw the crowd too, but they saw the problem not the people, saying, “Send the crowds away so they can… buy themselves some food.” Here we see what Palmer calls, “The temptation to solve some problem on a level that does not solve it at all, and may even make things worse.” Can you imagine 5,000 people raiding the nearby farms and villages for bread and fish? I’m not sure Wal-Mart could handle that all at once.
Jesus response with the curious, “You feed them.”
“With what?" is the appropriate response. Here the disciple’s faith is being tested and it is in this same “With what?” attitude that we often respond to G*D’s calling in our own lives. How am I going to do this thing that G*D is asking me to do? “It would take a small fortune.” But in the story, Jesus simply responds with "How much food do you have?" He is less concerned with what it takes and more concerned with what is available. G*D is always more interested in availability than in ability. Making ourselves available to G*D is where we find ourselves risking. Opening our hands to God means releasing the death grip we have on all the stuff we are holding on to. But when we open our hands we find Jesus blessing our gift and G*D multiplying it.
Jesus’ solution to this need was not one of pulling levers, it was not an arms-length solution. It was a nitty-gritty, shoulder-to-shoulder, self-sacrificing, self-risking, solution that gave birth to a compassionate response… and a miracle of provision.
