Empathy

Introduction

Transition

Illumination

Empathy Defined

How do you define empathy?

The definition of empathy

The ability to understand another person’s state of being.

Empathy is inherently selfless as we seek to truly understand other people along with their how’s and why’s.

The danger of empathy

The ability to ascribe your state of being onto another person.

Empathy can be a two-way street and this is going the wrong way. This is inherently selfish as keeps us from understanding other people. This is really the opposite of empathy but in our own heart and mind may feel the same.

The relative of empathy

Sympathy is often mistaken for, and used interchangeably with, empathy but they are subtly different. Sympathy is having compassion for another persons state of being, but does not require understanding it.

Sympathy desires action be taken to help another person.

Empathy compels us to take action to help another person.

Empathy Modelled

When thinking of biblical models of empathy, we can find several examples, but one clear and notable example is the time when Jesus fed a crowd in Luke 9.

Luke 9:12–17 NKJV

12 When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, “Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here.” 13 But He said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people.” 14 For there were about five thousand men. Then He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.” 15 And they did so, and made them all sit down. 16 Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. 17 So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them.

Jesus’ disciples exhibited sympathy: they exhibited compassion and a desire for something to be done.

Jesus exhibited empathy: He exhibited understanding and a determination to do something.

Do we know that Jesus understood hunger?

Luke 4:1–2 NKJV

1 Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.

Empathy Received

Hebrews 4:15 NKJV

15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

We know that Jesus understands suffering and temptation because we read about Him experiencing them. He has compassion on us, so sympathy is correct. His compassion is rooted in experience and understanding so empathy is understood too.

Most of us would agree that being the recipient of empathetic action is important.

Empathy Extended

Matthew 7:1–5 NKJV

1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Perhaps the greatest impact empathy has on us and those around us is that by seeking to understand someone’s state, we are less likely to judge them for it. That is a gift to them, to be sure.

In 1963, Willie Nelson wrote a song which was recorded and popularized by Roy Orbison entitled Pretty Paper, and recorded by our own Mark 209. A casual listen seems to tell the story of a beggar on the sidewalk being ignored by holiday shoppers. That’s sad and the song captures how many people who encounter such a person react.

The song is actually about a real person, Frankie Brierton, in a real place, Fort Worth, Texas. Frankie suffered from meningitis as a child and both his legs were atrophied below the knee. He moved about on rollers and sold paper and pencils in front of Leonard’s Department Store in Fort Worth to make a living.

That is tragic. But what is most tragic is our initial, ignorant reaction. Our understanding of Frankie’s state dramatically changes how we react to him, even as we encounter him in a song.

Conclusion

Empathy is a gift to us: we don’t want to be judgy and we certainly don’t want God to use the superficial standards of judgment that we sometimes use. We do, however, want to act compassionately and genuinely with other people.