“A Passion For Caring”

“A Passion For Caring”

Text: Luke 6:17-26

© February 11, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen

As you are probably aware, the country of Haiti, down in the Caribbean, is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Well, a few years ago in the capital city of Port-au-Prince, they built a fabulously luxurious hotel. But the owners of the hotel soon found that there was a problem with it. The problem was that the view from that grand hotel was being spoiled, because looking out from the hotel windows the guests could see a nearby slum. But the owners of the hotel quickly figured out a solution to their problem. No, they didn’t go out and use some of their financial resources to clean up and improve that impoverished neighborhood. Instead, what they did was they built a wall around the hotel, so that the guests wouldn’t be able to see that slum anymore.

I started reading a book[1] this past week that suggests that the real divide in this country isn’t between Republicans and Democrats, or between conservatives and liberals, or even between religious people and non-religious people. No, according to that author the real divide that’s developing in our country is between those who care and those who don’t care. According to that author, the real divide that’s developing in our country is between those who genuinely care about other people and want to do what they can to help others, and those who quite simply don’t care about other people – those who focus almost exclusively on themselves, and do what they can to put up walls so that they don’t have to see or be bothered by the real needs that are all around them.

You see, I think we often operate under the mistaken assumption that everyone cares, that everyone wants to do what they can to help people who are hurting in some way. We might wish that was the case, but I believe the reality is that many people just aren’t willing to pay the price that’s involved when you care. After all, if you really care about other people, quite possibly it might cost you some of your money, as you realize that you need to share some of the wealth that you have so that others can get the help they need. If you really care about other people, it might cost you some of your time, as you realize that there are ways that you need to get personally involved. If you really care about other people, it might cost you emotionally, as you open your heart to what other people are facing and begin to share in the hurts and struggles that they’re dealing with.

And, as Jesus reminds us here in this passage that we listened to today in the Gospel of Luke, if you really care about other people, if you really stand up and do for other people what God is calling you to do, it might cost you in yet another way. Because, as Jesus reminds us here in this passage, sometimes when you stand up and do for other people what God is calling you to do, there are going to be people who are going to oppose you. There are going to be people who might get angry with you. There might even be people, Jesus says, who are going to hate you for what you’re doing.

For instance, when Martin Luther King first became a pastor in Montgomery, Alabama, about the last thing he wanted to do was get involved with the bus boycott that was just starting up. Montgomery was where Rosa Parks refused to move to back of the bus, and to express their anger at being treated like that, the black people in Montgomery came together and decided to stage a huge boycott of the bus company. But Martin Luther King found that he had enough work to do, with that being his first church right out of seminary, and so it was only after community leaders begged him to get involved that Martin Luther King reluctantly agreed to be their leader. And part of his reluctance was also probably due to the fact that he realized that if he did lead that boycott, if he made the effort to help the black people of Montgomery and make sure that they were treated the way that God would want them to be treated, there might be a price he’d have to pay.

And he was right. Among other things, King received dozens of telephone calls that threatened his life and the lives of his family. One night, around midnight the phone rang and a voice said, “We’re tired of you and your kind. If you aren’t out of town in three days, we’re going to blow your brains out and blow up your house.” After the person hung up, King remembered sitting at his kitchen table trembling with fear, with images flashing through his mind of his little baby girl being killed by the people who hated him. In desperation King prayed, “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right….But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage.”

But at that moment, King said that he could hear an inner voice saying to him, “Stand up for what’s right. Stand up for justice. Stand up for the truth. And lo, I will be with you even until the end of the world.” King said that he believed that was Jesus telling him to keep pressing on. And from that moment, King said that he trusted that no matter what challenges or hardships came his way, he was going to keep right on doing what he could to care for other people and to stand fast to what God wanted him to be doing, because Jesus was with him, and he believed that Jesus wouldn’t let him down.[2]

Here in the reading in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor…Blessed are you who are hungry…Blessed are you who weep now…Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you, when they revile you, and when they defame you on account of the Son of the Man.” If you take all those verses together, what you basically have is Jesus saying, “If you dare to care for other people, if you have the faith to stand up and do what God wants you to be doing for other people, you might suffer – it must cost you some money, it might cost you some comfort, it might cost you some emotional pain, and it might even cost you in terms of being hated and despised – but if you stick with what God wants you to be doing, then God’s going to bless you, God’s ultimately going to turn your sufferings and your hardships into great and wonderful victories.

But the thing is, in our world today there are many people who aren’t the least bit interested in caring for other people if that’s going to mean that some kind of suffering or cost might be involved. For many people today, they’re not interested in suffering; they’re only interested in looking out for themselves. For instance, being rich and having money isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But the question is: what do you do with that money? Do you use it to care for other people, or do you use it just for yourself? It’s like over around New York City where investment brokers and others have been making so much money in recent years that real estate agents say that homes that cost $20 million are being bought almost the moment they’re put up for sale. And a car dealer that sells Ferraris says that models that cost $250,000 are being purchased so fast, he keeps running out of them.[3]

For many people today, bigger and bigger houses and expensive cars are the kinds of things that they’re passionate about. But what are you passionate about? To really answer that question, we first need to understand what “passion” means. With Valentine’s Day coming up this week, many people think of “passion” in terms of love, or more specifically, in terms of intense romantic love.

But although it might come as a surprise to some people, the fact is that “passion” comes from a Latin word that means “to suffer.” What, you might wonder, do “passion” and “suffering” have to do with each other? Well, the answer is that if you have a real passion for something or if you have a real passion for someone, that means that you care about that person or that thing so much that you’d be willing to suffer to show how much you care. In your life, what are you passionate about? Who or what do you care so much about that you’d be willing to suffer for, that you’d be willing to pay a price for, to show how much you care?

As we’re all well aware, there are serious problems in the world around us. There are things in this world that are not the way that God wants them to be: from child abuse to hunger to drug addictions, from violence in the world to violence in our cities to violence in our own local schools. Do you care about those problems? I’m sure most of us do.

But the real question is: are you passionate when it comes to righting the wrongs that are out there in the world? Do you have a passion to do what it takes to care for the hurting people that are all around us? In order to do what it is that God wants you to do, are you willing to pay a price, are you willing to suffer? Because if we are to truly care for others the way that God wants us to, then no weak, half-hearted efforts are going to do. No, if we are to truly care for others the way that God wants us to, then what we need is passion, a passion to do what’s right.