Compassion and Action

Scripture — Luke 15:20 (NRSV)

So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Devotion

Yesterday, we looked at the importance of the Christian virtue of compassion seen in the character of God and the teachings of Paul. Like gentleness and sympathy, compassion is often dismissed by our culture. This is unsurprising. Imitating the compassion of Jesus can be challenging and costly. Yet, as we saw yesterday, those striving to live as disciples of Christ are called to be compassionate; it should be part of our inward being that moves and shapes our actions. Today I will share some of my own challenges in trying to live into this, both from home and from work.

My sons are now grown up, married, and out of the home. Though my day-to-day parenting interactions are long past, I still remember times when a young child came to me with a broken toy, a hurt finger, or some other physical or emotional pain. This was often shortly after ignoring my instructions to them: “You should put away that toy before it’s stepped on”; “Don’t jump up and down on that”; etc. Later in their lives, the stakes were sometimes higher, such as an important opportunity missed after they had ignored parental promptings to get an earlier start on preparations.

I’d like to say that I always responded with compassion. And sometimes I did. But other times, grumpy Dad won the battle, and I would decide it was time for my child to learn some important lesson, not just from the consequences of their actions, but by having me lecture at them in my no-compassion-stern-instructor voice and let them suffer the results of whatever I perceived to have been their wrongdoings.

Thankfully, one of the lessons God slowly taught me—which sometimes led me to a different and better response, especially as I matured in my parenting—was about God’s compassion toward his children. One of the places we see this most clearly is in Jesus’ parable of Two Sons and their Compassionate Father, recounted in Luke 15:11-32. Most readers know the story of the younger “prodigal son” who asks for his inheritance early, runs off with it, and “squander[s] his wealth in dissolute living.” Then famine hits, and life becomes awful for him. That’s where it gets interesting, because those hearing the story know that this profligate son had nobody but himself to blame for his suffering. We might expect that when he returns home, his father will give him a stern lesson about his evil ways, and how he deserved what he got, and needs to make better decisions in the future. The father might even (justifiably!) devise some additional punishment or other means to make sure the son learns the lesson and experiences even more consequences of his bad actions.

What we read instead is that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” Compassion is at the core of the father’s response. The father is filled with it. No angry words. No attempt to make the son experience his sorrow even more deeply. Not even a stern I-hope-you-learned-your-lesson lecture. Indeed, it is quite the opposite. The father does what he can to alleviate the son’s sorrow and pain—well-deserved though it was. Everything the father does here is an affirmation, through a beautiful and profound gentleness, of his love toward the younger son.

And though the word “compassion” is not used again in the final part of the parable, we see a similar compassion toward his older son who comes in from the field in an angry, stubborn mood. Although the older son’s self-righteous pride and condemnation of his younger brother might also have deserved a harsh response, the father instead reaffirms his love toward that son as well. We see a sharp contrast between the compassion of the father and the lack thereof in the older son. I believe Jesus left no doubt that it is the father we are called to imitate.

Now that my wife and I are empty nesters, and have passed our sons off to their spouses, those sorts of interactions come mostly with my college students: a plea for me to accept a late assignment because (despite warnings that it would be difficult and time-consuming) they had not started early enough; or perhaps they were simply going through a difficult personal time and hoped to postpone an exam. Often, it is clear to me what it means to show compassion. Though being compassionate might cost me some extra time and labor, I know what I would be hoping for if I were in the shoes of the student.

Which brings me, finally, to another way I could approach these situations. How often have I made mistakes, or done wrong, and come face to face with potentially painful consequences of my own actions—and then I turn to God in prayer. And what do I ask? One thing I never ask is that God would help me suffer the consequences of what I have done wrong. Not that I don’t want to continue to learn and grow. But by that point I’m generally quite aware of what I did wrong and how I want to change (or be changed.) What I usually do is plead for mercy: that God will help save me from something I surely deserved. Isn’t that what salvation and the Gospel story is about?

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: The Shrewd Manager and the Prodigal Son (Luke 16:1-13; 15:11-32).