21 April 2005

We continue to look at Jesus through the eyes of "The Prophetic Imagination" by Walter Brueggemann.

...the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context. Expires live by numbness. Empire, in their militarism, expect numbness about the human cost of war. Corporate economies expect blindness to the cost in terms of poverty and exploitation. Governments and societies of domination go to great lengths to keep the numbness intact. Jesus penetrates the numbness by his compassion and with his compassion takes the first step by making visible the odd abnormality that had become business as usual.

Unless we begin to see how our lives are meant to be connected, we will either construct walls to separate ourselves from others or we will simply turn our back and act as though we do not see the true condition of life around us. This is a part of the numbing that takes part in all of our lives. Being numb to the reality of life around us is to live as though the pain and suffer, joy and wonder of life is not as real as it is. The Good News never fears feeling, seeing, and touching the reality of life because it is all viewed as something less than the vision of what life is to be. Therefore, when there is brokenness, the Voice of the Resurrection is not afraid to step into it and be apart of a contrary existence in which we move more deeply into what is broken rather than run from it. When we are made numb to the world around us, we do not fear because we cannot be connected to the world. We stand away. When we live within the reality of the Good News, we do not fear because though we are afraid and anxious about the shape of the world, we stand with one another in the middle of all the dis-ease and continue to remind one another of another way to live.

Connection: Do not be afraid to face what is ugly and distorted and painful. Instead, be reminded that the one we call Lord, Jesus, is right there in the midst of it all and we can find life there - even in what seems to be something we would like to avoid. Compassion pulls us into the healing of our lives. Without it, we will be numb to our lives and the lives of others.

Lord of all Hopefulness, we are easily defeated and the potential for new life is often drained from us so that we dare not engage the world as your beloved people. Free us to see and feel and touch so that your Reign may be experienced by others. Amen.