Leviticus 19:9-17
Matthew 15:21-28
Early in August, the magazine Science broke the news that the neuroscientist and lab director at the Max Plank Insitute, Tania Singer, allegedly bullied and intimidated her colleagues, particularly pregnant women. I doubt that Singer is the first lab director to exhibit such behavior, but Singer is one of the world’s most respected empathy researchers, best known for her groundbreaking work on feeling others’ pain and the impact of meditation. And so we have it: The empathy authority who brought her colleagues to tears with her cruelty.
On the other hand, in one of his last acts this past June, Senator John McCain urged the President to withdraw Ronald Mortensen’s nomination for a position in the State Department that oversees our nations Refugee Admissions Program and assistance for refugees and migration, calling Mortensen a “virulent opponent of immigration” who has “displayed a lack of empathy” for people fleeing oppression.
And in his memoir published last May, McCain wrote of the President himself: “His lack of empathy for refugees, innocent, persecuted, desperate men, women and children is disturbing. The way he speaks about them is appalling.”
Last Sunday I told those who were here for worship that I want to spend these late summer, early fall weeks exploring virtue at a time when many suggest that moral rot is all around us—and growing. Both our faith and our citizenship in this nation call us to exhibit basic goodness and integrity at a time when they seem to be vanishing. Democracy dies and tyranny gains a foothold, we are told, not in one fell swoop but through the gradual erosion of norms and basic human decency.
One philosopher has suggested ten virtues for our time: resilience, empathy, patience, sacrifice, politeness, humor, self-awareness, forgiveness, hope, and confidence. Last Sunday I spoke about resilience.
This morning, let’s begin to think about empathy, what has been described as “the capacity to connect imaginatively with the suffering and unique experiences of another person.” Like all virtues, empathy is a common good available to human beings—and also a virtue that we can choose to exercise or not.
The good news is that in the United States, we tend to be empathetic. A 2016 study of empathy in 63 nations listed our nation as seventh in empathy. One report about this study said: “If those results didn’t ring true to you, perhaps you’re just not aware of how caring your friends and neighbors really are…Or,” it continued, you live in Alabama, Delaware, Kentucky”—or Iowa. Yes, our state made the list of the top ten least empathetic states.
So listen up! You might need a sermon like this—our entire state might.
Maybe the internet is to blame.
Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality and advocate for humanism in our digital age recently wrote a book with the wonderfully provocative title: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. In it he says that “Empathy—an ability to understand what other people are experiencing and why; imagining one being in another’s place—is the fuel that runs a decent society.” And this is a time when it seems that we are running low on fuel.
Among other things, Lanier makes the case that “Social Media Is Undermining Truth, …Making What You Say Meaningless, … and Making You Unhappy”—which all make me wonder what we’re doing with a church Facebook page and Twitter account, but that’s another sermon.
And then there’s “Argument Six: Social Media Is Destroying Your Capacity for Empathy.” He writes about the “digitally imposed social numbness” that plagues us.
Here’s how it used to work. We noticed the reactions of people around us and used them to help get our own bearings. If everyone around you is nervous, you get nervous. When everyone is relaxed, you tend to relax. If people are looking up, you look up.
But, Lanier asserts: “When everyone is on their phone, you have less of a feeling for what’s going on with them. Their experiences are curated by faraway algorithms.”
How do we fill up on the fuel that runs a decent society? How do we develop and exercise the virtue of empathy?
Turning to scripture, the first thing that strikes me is how difficult empathy can be—even for Jesus.
Perhaps you couldn’t believe what you were hearing in this morning’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew: A desperate woman pleads with Jesus for his mercy and Jesus doesn’t even turn to look at her.
Rembrandt made a simple drawing of this scene. Jesus walks along the road, wrapped up in conversation with his disciples. The Canaanite woman approaches the group but is noticed only by one disciple who obviously wasn’t keeping up with the conversation.
Jesus? In Rembrandt’s drawing, he doesn’t notice the woman. Matthew tells us, “He did not answer her at all.”
We’re left wondering: why can’t Jesus be a little more “Christian” in his actions? Doesn’t he care? Is he unable or simply unwilling to imagine what it is like to be in this woman’s place and act accordingly?
Or why can’t Jesus be a little more “Jewish” in his actions? Certainly he knew of God’s Way given to Moses, to care for the poor and the alien, not to slander another, to love your neighbor as yourself.
God’s Way, as Moses makes clear, is a Way of great inclusive love—it begins with one’s own people and then extends far beyond any one nation or group of people. God’s Way for us is a love that will gather in even those that many would seek to keep out. So Moses encourages the Hebrew people to think about others, even the strangers in their midst, and to connect imaginatively with their situation and act accordingly—that is, to show the love that grows from empathy.
Maybe Jesus was just having a bad day—as any of us can have. We know that we should love our neighbors, but too often we can be self-centered and cranky and short with others.
Look again as this woman comes up to Jesus.
When she first confronts Jesus, he responds in silence. We would expect something more, we would hope for something more. And Jesus disappoints us. But maybe a little more persistence will get his attention.
The silence of Jesus is not enough to silence this woman.
She keeps shouting. And the disciples—no paragons of empathy themselves—the disciples start to get annoyed. Listen to them. They are bothered by both this woman and Jesus. “Send her away,” they say to Jesus—meaning: “Do what she wants so that she’ll leave us alone.” This is not imagining what it is like to be in someone else’s place.
In response to the shouting of this woman and the complaining of these disciples, Jesus turns toward her.
Perhaps now Jesus will do what we think Jesus should do.
Instead he puts up a wall of exclusivity: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” Jesus says to this Canaanite woman.
At the beginning of this Gospel, Matthew takes the time to point out that Jesus’ ancestors were not just those of the “house of Israel.” At least three of his ancestors were Canaanite women—Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. But Jesus wants nothing to do with this branch of his family tree. Those on the outside will just have to wait.
Shouting gives way to begging as this woman kneels before Jesus and simply says: “Lord, help me.” You can almost feel the desperation. You probably know what it’s like to pray like this. Certainly Jesus will show some compassion now.
And once more Jesus responds—not as we would expect him to, not as we would like him to, not even as we would like to think we would respond. “It’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
To the injury of no compassion, Jesus adds the insult of a slur.
Alongside the empathy researcher who brings people to tears put the Messiah who mocks, the Savior who scorns.
And yet, this woman will have none of this. “Ah, but Lord,” she replies—“even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Call her a dog if he must. Just give her the healing that she seeks.
One person put it this way: Whatever led to Jesus’ original responses—perhaps his own unavoidable participation in the racism and sexism of his time—this Gentile woman calls his bluff. Her wit, her sharp retort was her gift to Jesus—a gift that opened his ministry beyond those people who were like him. Her gift was not submission or obedience but a gift of sharp insight and courage.[i]
We can imagine that the early Christians must have had as difficult time with this story as we do. To their credit and to our benefit, they kept this troubling account and tried to make the best of it. Perhaps better than anywhere else we see in this story a very human Jesus who is capable of repentance—of turning in a new direction.
And if this Jesus, this cranky, over-burdened, tired, human Jesus, can ultimately hear someone else and summon up a degree of empathy that allows him to act—well, may we can too. In faith we affirm that Jesus, having known this human condition is able to help us in our own weakness and weariness, that we too might be able to connect imaginatively with the suffering and unique experiences of other people.
When confronted with someone different from himself, Jesus was ultimately able to listen in a way that let his world view be altered. He let his fear of an outsider be transformed by his encounter with another human being. He opened himself to the possibility of becoming a different person. He let himself be changed and did something different because someone else had touched him even if only through a small hole in his wall of defenses.
And while we can’t always expect to act like Jesus, maybe we can do the same. We can listen to those whom we would rather ignore. We can turn and face the people from whom we would rather walk away. We can recognize that God is doing a new thing among and through people who are outsiders—outside the church, outside our small circles. We should look among such people for the kind of faith that Jesus calls great.
Sometimes we just have to walk along with Jesus, no matter how perplexing and shocking he may be. And maybe that’s the ultimate “end-of-summer-start-of-the-school- year” challenge that this story offers. Jesus keeps leading us down new roads—roads that we wouldn’t go down of our own choosing. Jesus keeps taking us in new directions—toward destinations we would never imagine on our own, giving us the new virtue that we need for a time like this.
Let’s walk along, with our eyes and hearts open.
Let’s walk along—and perhaps even you and I—along with Jesus—might discover new empathy for all those around us.
[i] Sharon Ringe, Feminist Interpretation of Scripture