He had Compassion for Them

“God hates the world!” So proclaimed a poster that Noah Phelps-Roper, 12, held up, as he and family members from Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the U.S. Naval Academy. Brother Gabriel, 8, held up a poster declaring that “You’re going to Hell.”1 Do you remember these people? The Westboro Baptist Church was established in 1955 by lawyer Fred Phelps. It claims to be a Primitive Baptist Church, although it has been disowned by that denomination. The reason? Westboro boasts of having conducted over 47,000 demonstrations since 1991, most of them shouting out a gospel of hate. The church made international news when its pastor threatened to burn a Qur’an, and, to the sorrow of the families of soldiers, when the Supreme Court upheld its members’ right to picket military funerals. Holding to an extreme form of Calvinist theology, the members of Westboro believe that only a tiny percentage of people are saved, essentially themselves and others who agree with them, and that all others are damned to an eternity in Hell. Since they have no desire to evangelize or convert others, their principle work as a church is to support each other and witness to their beliefs by picketing and harassing others, especially lesbian and gay people.

Does our own view of God come anywhere close to that of the Westboro Baptist Church? Do any of us believe in an angry God, who damns us to eternal punishment if we don’t strictly toe the mark? If not, then we would do well to ask ourselves the two most important questions that any thinking person can ask. How do we see God? And, what do we think God expects us to do? The answer to the first question that orthodox Christians can – or ought to – give is embedded in our Gospel passage for today. Our answer stands in stark contrast to the view of God promulgated by the Westboro Baptist Church: “… he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd ….” Compassion, literally suffering with us. It’s a word used at least eight times in the Gospel, and it is implicit in Jesus’ entire life. We see Jesus’ compassion especially in all the healing stories in the Gospels. Indeed, one might say that the healing stories demonstrate not so much that Jesus was a medical magician, but that he cared deeply enough about people to attend even to their physical ills. We also see Jesus’ compassion in all the stories about people being fed. We see it in his willingness not only to heal and feed a person here or there but to minister to great crowds of people, seemingly never tiring. And of course we see Jesus’ compassion for humanity in his own Passion, his suffering on the Cross for our sake. Since we Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnate, God visible as a human being, it follows that the compassion for all that Jesus showed us is the essence of God, our creator and judge. As we watch Jesus relate to the people around him in the Gospels, we can be sure that not only does God not hate the world, but that God loved and continues to love the world that God has made.

Nor should we be surprised or shocked to be reminded that the God we trust is a God of compassion. All our Scripture bears witness to God’s compassion for humanity. Remember all those covenants with Israel that we talked about during Lent? All of them speak to God’s care and concern for Israel, God’s unfailing attempts to heal first Israel and then ultimately all humanity. The prophets witness to God’s compassion in even clearer tones. Almost all of the prophecy of Isaiah speaks to the return from Exile of the Jews and the re-establishment of Jerusalem. Ezekiel too speaks to God’s care for Israel, giving us that wonderful image of the dry bones of the House of Israel coming back to life through God’s breathing on them. God’s compassion shines through even in today’s reading from Jeremiah. Dismissing the bad shepherds, the stupid and venal religious and political leaders, who “destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” God promises restoration and return for his people. God promises to raise up new shepherds, so that the people will no longer be afraid and upset. Most important, God promises a new age of justice and righteousness, of safety and salvation.

And here’s the really good news. God’s compassion, especially as it is exemplified by Jesus, is extended to all, to people of all races, ethnicities, nationalities, and genders, to all of humanity. The prophetic tradition and Jesus’ own interaction with people bear witness to God’s ultimate desire to include all people in the salvation first extended to Israel. As Christians we believe that indeed in Jesus the inclusion of all in God’s promises has been accomplished. We hear that message clearly in the Letter to the Ephesians. Writing primarily to Gentiles, the writer reminds the new Christians at Ephesus that they “who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” Christ has broken down the wall separating Israel and other nations, “that he might create in himself one new humanity ….” If we were stand toe to toe with the Westboro Baptist folks, this would be our ringing claim, shouted and painted in letters a foot high: God’s compassion for the world is so deep that no one is excluded from God’s saving love.

Theologian Douglas John Hall asks us whether, as Christians, “We have grasped the full radicality of belief in a compassionate God. He reminds us of the warning in the first letter of Peter, “the time has come for the judgment to begin with the household of God (4:17), and asks us “whether as a church we are ready to live that compassion in our profoundly threatened world.”2 We who have committed ourselves to the Episcopal Church might particularly ask ourselves that question. In the wake of our just-completed General Convention, some national commentators took the Episcopal Church to task, either for dealing with what some deemed as trivial issues or for being too progressive and “liberal.” Some of you may have seen the most scurrilous of these articles, Jay Akasie’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which was nothing more than an opinionated diatribe, and Ross Douthat’s piece last Sunday in the New York Times, which suggested that liberal Christianity, epitomized by the Episcopal Church, was on its deathbed. Many far better writers than I have refuted both these pieces. However, as I look at all that General Convention accomplished in eight days, I see, rather, a church that is striving to live out its vision of God’s compassionate, inclusive love. We commended and continued our eleven-year relationship of full communion with the ELCA. We approved a provisional liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions. We created an “HIV Welcoming Parish Initiative.” We welcomed trans-gender people into the ordination process. We affirmed positive investment in the Palestinian Territories and in the peace process in the Middle East. We faced squarely the decline in membership in the Episcopal Church – a fact of life for all mainline denominations and the Roman Catholic Church – by agreeing to slim down our organization and restructure, so that we can more effectively live out our commission as evangelists, as those who are charged with proclaiming the good news.

Thank God for the Episcopal Church! Thank God we can offer a different view of God’s relationship with the world from that offered by the folks at Westboro. Yes, the church is changing. Yes, we are no longer the establishment church, whose membership represented the rich and powerful of most communities. But we are not done for! Pastor Robert LaRochelle reminds us that the mainline church “has the potential to be a voice for an inclusive, welcoming Christian vision in neighborhoods and towns.”3 Bishop Stacy Sauls gives us an even more empowering vision of the kind of church we strive to be. In his response to the Wall Street Journal article, Bishop Sauls says that,

"The Episcopal Church is on record as standing by those the culture marginalizes whether that be nonwhite people, female people or gay people. The author [of the Wall Street Journal article] calls that political correctness hostile to tradition.

I call it profoundly countercultural but hardly untraditional. In fact, it is deeply true to the tradition of Jesus, Jesus who offended the "traditionalists" of his own day, Jesus who was known to associate with the less than desirable, Jesus who told his followers to seek him among the poor. It is deeply true to the tradition of the Apostle Paul who decried human barriers of race, sex, or status (Galatians 3:28).

What ails the Episcopalians is that this once most-established class of American Christianity is taking the risk to be radically true to its tradition. There is a price to be paid for that. There is also a promise of abundant life in it."4

As we live out our lives here in this parish, may God enable us to welcome all and to live into that abundant life.

1. Joanie Eppinga, “The Face of Hate,” Sojourners (41,6, June 2012), 14ff.
2. Feasting on the Word (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 264.
3. Part-Time Pastor, Full Time Church (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2010), 35.
4. The Wall Street Journal, Letters, July 19, 2012, accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577534993658282250.html?KEYWORDS=episcopal