Serving with Compassion: A Call to Follow Christ's Example

Introduction (5m)

How do you feel when you picture a crowd of people?

Picture yourself on the High Street in Maidenhead or wherever you live.

It’s the height of rush hour and the swarm of bodies pushes past you like a solid mass of humanity wearing a thousand different faces.

Some of the faces are expressionless. Most seem to project feelings of frustration, fatigue and above all, anxiety. That seems to be the lot of most people these days.

It’s almost impossible for you to stand still amidst the motion of the masses. You feel they could easily sweep you away but you hold your ground.

If you could rise above the crowd and look in any direction you’d see what appears to be an endless river of people.

What are you feeling right now? Overwhelmed? Perhaps threatened? Anxious to get away from the crowd?

If you’re not accustomed to being in a big crowd, then the throngs of people can be downright intimidating.

But ask yourself the question: How would Jesus feel?

Who are we supposed to be and what are we supposed to be doing? Serving suffering humanity

Victor Shepherd, pastor and theology professor:

Years ago in my seminary course with Dr. James Wilkes, a Toronto psychiatrist, one student lamented that in this age of agnosticism and secularism we were no longer sure of the church’s vocation.

Wilkes stared at the student for the longest time as if the student were half-deranged and then remarked, “Are you telling me that you can have a suffering human being in front of you and you don’t know what the church’s vocation is?”

Shepherd goes on to say:

There is a low-grade suffering that is simply part of the human condition; it never goes away. There is also high-grade suffering, intense pain, that can come upon us at any time for any reason and remain with us for any length of time.

To be sure, professional expertise is often needed for people unwell in both respects; but even as professional expertise is called for, we should never think our ministry isn’t.

Explanation (5m)

Jesus saw suffering humanity and his heart broke for them and he knew this was his ministry

Matthew 9:36 MSG

When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd.

Jesus went beyond his family and friends - people like him - and reached out to the masses

The great crowds of people who were confused and aimless.

They may have been weird. They may have been odd. They may have been on the margins of society.

But J doesn’t laugh at them, or reject them, or turn away from them. His heart breaks for them.

In this chapter alone, Jesus:

Restores a paralysed man from sickness, after his friends brought him to J on a mat. Not only that but J forgives the man his sins, bringing peace to his conscience.

Restores a broken home by raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead.

Restores the hope of a woman who was haemorrhaging and was therefore ceremonially unclean and rejected by her community. The doctors could not help her, but Jesus healed her.

Restores broken bodies by healing the sight of two blind men and then by ridding a mute man of a demon so that he could speak again.

Jesus went beyond his family and friends - people like him - and reached out to the crowds, because:

His heart was broken by the world’s pain. In all of our hurts, he is hurt like we are. He cannot see someone suffer without longing to ease their pain.

His heart was broken by the world’s sorrow. When he sees us upset because of the stress we’re under, when he sees us weep for the difficulties a loved one is in, when he sees us lay a loved one or friend to rest, his greatest desire is to wipe every tear from our eyes.

His heart was broken by the world’s hunger. When he saw a tired and hungry crowd, all he wanted to do was to use his power to feed them.

His heart was broken by the world’s loneliness. He reached out to those shunned by their communities. Those cast outside the towns and cities. Those on the margins of society. The sight of a leper for example, living the deathly life of loneliness and abandonment, pulled on his heart strings and caused him to reach out and heal.

His heart was broken by the crowd’s confusion and aimlessness. They were longing for God, but their religious leaders had nothing to offer them. They would not give them the guidance, comfort, or strength they needed. As a result, the crowds were tormented, exhausted, and led astray. Jesus longed to give them the encouragement, help, strength, and comfort they needed.

This is our primary motivation for mission. To see the need of those who are dying outside the Kingdom. When we see people harassed by the pressures of modern life, exhausted by the busyness of it all, going nowhere, treading water, and led astray by the false ideologies of the world.

With so many people like this around us, we dare not be weakly trying to carry out our mission in our own strength, or out only to entertain ourselves, or untrained, or unwilling to sacrifice for others, or powerless to share God’s story with others, or prayerless. Like J, we must see the needs of the people around us and act.

Application (5m)

In other words, if Jesus’ heart breaks for the great crowds, so should ours

His heart breaks for the confused and aimless crowd, and he comes to them as their Shepherd.

But he also sends his disciples out to join in the shepherding and to continue it.

That is our mission. That is our mandate.

Who are we supposed to be / what are we supposed to be doing in 21st century?

Matthew 9:37–38 NLT

He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”

But J expects us to do our part in being the answer to our own prayer!

We must be out working in the fields!

Why? Because the harvest is great, the needs are great.

Now apart from Peter K, I know that most of us haven’t been involved in harvesting.

But what little we know about it, we do know that harvest is a community affair — it takes more than a couple people running the machinery and the lorries and so on.

Someone has to milk, feed the animals, change the irrigation, cultivate the crops, bale the hay and all the other work on a farm.

Someone has to prepare hearty and big meals that are brought to the field to be eaten quickly while the machinery and lorries are refuelled.

Someone has to work at the grain elevator to receive the grain and ship it to market.

Businesspeople are there to make sure repairs are available immediately, fuel is delivered and welding and other repairs can be done.

Family members may come home from the city to help out and grandchildren are there to enjoy the family rituals.

Everyone has a job to do and they are all important to support the ultimate goal of bringing in the harvest.

So when Jesus says — “The harvest is great, but the workers are few” our hearts should stop in their tracks.

Out there in our communities - in our neighbourhoods, in our schools and colleges, in our workplaces, in our social places, on our streets - there is a beautiful crop ready to be brought in to Jesus and no one to do it!

We should sense immediately the urgency for the call for workers.

Our society is sliding into oblivion. More and more people are moving away from God and living lives of confusion and aimlessness. They’re experiencing more and more pain.

They’re disconnected from God, and our hearts must break for them, we must help them and show them that we love them.

If you are unsure of the dire straits this world in, then Pastor Rick Warren has helpfully put together an alphabet of pain he sees in today’s world:

Abuse, addictions, ageing, anxiety, Alzheimers, abortion, bullying and cyber bullying, conflict, corruption, chronic pain, churches declining, disasters, discrimination, diseases, disabilities, debt, device dependency, economic and environmental issues, elderly long-term care, extremism, family disintegration, fatherless generation, grief.

Gangs, gambling, homelessness, hunger, HIV and AIDS, identity confusion, incivility, injustice, infertility. The jail and prison population is increasing, killings, the trauma of public killings on our streets, loneliness.

Long-term care of the elderly, mental illness, mental health, narcissism in our self-absorbed culture. The opioid epidemic, obesity, orphans, poverty, porn, polarisation, persecution, privacy loss. Quarrelsomeness and quick-temperedness in the age of outrage.

Racism, refugees, immigration, rudeness, sexual harassment, sexual assault, suicide, stress, the pressure of social media, truth and trust loss, terrorism, trauma, trafficking, sex trafficking, human trafficking. There are more slaves today in the world than ever before.

Unemployment, urban issues, violence at home, domestic violence, workplace violence, neighbourhood violence, widows, workaholism, work stress, xenophobia.

Youthquake - a hundred million street kids in the world right now, 100 million living on the streets. Zero options for former workers in the changing economy. The factory is gone and how am I going to retool for that?

So much pain. So much confusion. So much aimlessness. How can our hearts not break like Jesus’s?

On our own, Maidenhead Corps cannot meet all the needs of our community, but as we continue our Big Conversation, we do need to ensure we are fulfilling the mission and meeting the needs God wants and needs us to meet

And as we do so, then the cornerstone of our mission must be our compassion for the confused and aimless crowd. Christ’s compassion must been seen and felt in all the mission that we do.

We are called to offer hope and encouragement

We must go to them. We must care for them. We must pray for them. As we continue through this Big Conversation, I know in my guts that opportunity knocks. The Lord of the harvest wants and needs our cooperation.

We must be willing to say, here I am, send me! We must be prepared to go and serve with breaking hearts filled with compassion.

There are people hurting in the world out there.

They need you, they need me, they need Christ.

And if we are not willing for our hearts to break for them, if we are not willing to sacrifice and go to them, and give them hope and encouragement, and show Christ’s love to them, then they may well go away without Christ.

If you are willing to join the mission, if you are willing to serve the confused and aimless crowd in any way you can, then as we sing, I invite you stand as you sing a line that particularly breaks your heart this morning …

Next Steps

SB 935 - There are people hurting in the world out there

There are people hurting in the world out there. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. There are children crying and no one to care. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. And they?ll go on hurting in the world out there, And they?ll go on dying, drowning in despair, And they?ll go on crying, that?s unless we care! They need you, they need me, they need Christ. 2 There are people living who would rather die.  They need you, they need me, they need Christ. And their Christian neighbours simply pass them by! They need you, they need me, they need Christ. There are people sitting by a silent phone, People cold and hungry, people left alone, Suicides for reasons that remain unknown. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. 3 There?s the prostitute, and there?s the pris?ner too. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. There?s the skid row fella who won?t look at you. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. The compulsive gambler dreaming of his yacht, And the lad that?s stealing just to get his ?shot?, And the girl that?s pregnant and pretends she?s not. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. 4 There are runaways who want a place to go. They need you, they need me, they need Christ. There are alcoholics who don?t seem to know? They need you, they need me, they need Christ. There are godless people who have lost their way, And they need God?s love but they?re afraid to say. If we close our eyes perhaps they?ll go away Without you, without me, without Christ. John Gowans (1934-2012) © The General of The Salvation Army. Used By Permission. CCL Licence No. 135015 Copied from The Song Book of The Salvation Army Song Number 935