5 02 2006
Christ
Church
Morningside
A heart of Compassion
It was a sad headline. No, it was a tragic headline. There it was, in every newspaper across the country, announcing the grim tidings. We were told this last week that the 100th British soldier had been killed on active duty in Iraq (indeed the total has now risen to 101).
I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to loose a son or daughter in this way, or to be a child or young adult and loose a father or mother. But that’s the reality that lies behind the headlines. These are not just numbers in a statistical count – these one hundred are or rather were people; people with dreams and hopes and aspirations, people with loves and lives - now all gone, all thrown away, all blown to the wind.
And, as we know, these 100 represent just the tip, the tip of the iceberg so-to-speak. What isn’t accounted for in last week’s headlines are the 2243 American service personnel or the 103 soldiers from other countries that have been killed; which brings the grand total of so-called Coalition Forces fatalities to 2446.
And then there are the wounded. So far over 17,000 Coalition service personnel have been wounded in the war in Iraq – some of them very seriously indeed. Over 4000 Iraqi police have been killed since their ‘liberation’ in 2003. Since the outbreak of war over 300 civilian contractors have died as well as more than 80 journalists, most of them Iraqi. And then there are the civilians. There is no accurate count of how many ordinary Iraqis have been killed and injured since March 20th 2003. Conservative estimates put the total Iraqi civilian deaths at around 28,000 (not including the wounded) with nearly 600 fatalities this year, 600 this year alone! (Statistics from www.iraqbodycount.org & www.icacasualties.org) These are staggering figures. Staggering. Overwhelming.
And all these people were people. People with dreams and hopes and aspirations, people with loves and lives - now all gone, all thrown away, all blown to the wind.
Does the end justify the means?
I want us, if we can, to simply to hold all of this for the moment – there’ll be more to say about this…
At first glance the ministry of Jesus – as described in Mark’s Gospel (today even) – seems to be primarily concerned with exorcism – the casting out of demons, evil spirits. In our reading for this morning, for example, we have no fewer than three separate accounts of Jesus doing just that – casting out demons - and that’s in less than 10 verses! Now you could be forgiven for thinking that 1st Century Palestine must have been a very peculiar place indeed – a place riddled with the demon possessed or so-called – a scenario worse than all of the cheesy B rated horror films combined!
Of course, we now know that much of what was taken for demon possession in those days was in all probability various forms of mental illness – depression, anxiety complexes, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, dementia, drug and alcohol abuse and so on.
And so, as it turns out, Palestine in the time of Jesus was probably not that dissimilar from our own Britain of today. A Britain where at least 1 in 4 of us (figures from the SANE website) has or will be affected by some kind of mental illness or addiction in the course of our lifetimes – that translates to well over 15 million people. Clearly there is as much work for Jesus to do in 21st Century Britain as there was in 1st Century Palestine.
Having said that there are some who believe that demonic possession is not just accounted for by mental illness – that there are instances where people do seem to be oppressed by external forces of evil. This is a belief that is common outside of Europe. And who are we to say that there isn’t something to this.
I don’t want to dwell on this point, however, what I do want us to think about – which I believe it is one of the questions that is implied in the Gospel – is this: What was Jesus’ mission? What was his task, his job, his ministry? Was it simply casting out demons and healing people… or was there something else?
I think that there are two clues found in today’s reading from Mark that might help us answer this question. And after we’ve looked at this question we can think about at how and why this question is relevant in our lives now.
So what was Jesus’ task, his job, his mission?
- The first clue is found in what Jesus says:
“Let us go somewhere else [he says to Simon] – to the nearby villages – so that I can proclaim the message there also.”
Jesus had come to, in his own words, to proclaim the message. Actually the Greek original just says ‘proclaim’. Jesus had come to proclaim/preach (perhaps one might say using a more modern idiom). Jesus had come to proclaim that [again in his own words], “The Kingdom of God is near.”
Sounds great, but what on earth did/does this mean – the Kingdom of God is near? Well, I can tell you that lots and lots and lots of books have been written about what that phrase ‘the Kingdom of God’ has and does or possibly might mean. It is one of those enigmatic phrases that has been hotly debated ever since the moment it was uttered. Now, I am not going to pretend that I can summarize nearly two thousand years of scholarship in a couple of minutes – but what I can say is this…
That from my own very limited experience I think I can say with some degree of confidence that the Kingdom of God has something to do with love, with compassion.
God’s love and compassion for us – his beloved Creation. And God’s calling forth of our love and compassion for Him and each other.
- Which neatly brings me onto the second clue:
As we have seen Mark’s Gospel is crammed full – literally chock-a-block – with references to healings, exorcisms and the raising of the dead. Almost no paragraph goes by without the mention of someone who comes into contact with Jesus being physically healed, set free from disease or addiction or brought back to life.
Why?
Some people have said that this was a very good way to get attention. And they are right. You see someone, for example, who has been crippled from birth suddenly get up off their bed and start walking about you tend to sit up and take notice! But that wasn’t the only or I believe, main reason for all of these healings.
All of these so-called miraculous events were as a direct result of what we have just been talking about – Jesus’ heart of compassion; the heart of compassion that God has for us; the heart of compassion that God longs for us to have.
Jesus healed people because he loved them. Jesus healed people because his heart went out to them. Jesus healed people because that’s what you do for those who are closest to you – and we are! And Jesus’ outpouring of love and compassion was a visible sign and model for the very Kingdom and he was talking about.
In God’s Kingdom people are loved
And so in God’s Kingdom people are whole
And so in God’s Kingdom people are free
Which brings us full circle.
Which brings us sadly back to the War in Iraq.
Does the end justify the means?
What was/were our motives in taking this action – a heart of compassion…?
And as Christian I believe that in all of our actions and words the same one question and one question alone needs to be asked.
From what motive do they flow?
Do they flow from a heart full of compassion and love?
Or do they flow from some other motive – fear, pain, the desire to control, protect, manipulate, make a profit?
I suggest to you that only one of these motives reflects the Kingdom that we have had the temerity to speak of and that is the motive of love and compassion.
And this question can and should be applied not only to the big issues such as war and peace, but homely ones too – how we speak to other; how we treat others; how we regard others; what we demand of others…
St. Augustine is famous for many phrases that he gifted to the Christian tradition. One of my personal favourites is this:
“You may be the only Gospel your neighbour hears today.”
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5th February 2006