There is a huge difference between sympathy and empathy.
Sympathy looks at somebody who is suffering and says,
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” And pities them.
Empathy sees somebody who is suffering and
enters into their suffering in some approximate way
and then says,
“Let me help you.
I have been somewhere like this before.
Let me suffer with you.”
It is hard sometimes to explain the difference
but Brene Brown has this colorful metaphor that is helpful.
Imagine your friend falls into a large hole.
Sympathy goes to the edge of the hole and says,
“Oh, you poor thing.
How did you get down there?
You should have known better.
Oh, dear oh, dear.
It must be hard being you.”
And they stay where they are at
and they walk away even sometimes.
Empathy comes along to the same person in the same hole
and they get down right into the hole.
Now they do not go down in it to stay down there.
They get down there and then listen to what happened.
And they suffer with them for a while.
They get down knowing that they have a way back up;
they have been in a similar situation to this before
and then they help that person up and out.
There is no point if you get into the hole and you have no way out
then two people enjoying misery together is no better than one.
This is not the case where more is better.
So empathy is not joining them in their suffering for suffering sake.
It is joining them and being with them;
suffering with them so that then we can help them out of their suffering.
Empathy is to suffer with somebody.
This is the story of God throughout all of humanity in all of scriptures.
God is constantly coming to his people
in this empathic way to suffer with his people over and over again.
We hear story after story about it.
And of course, ultimately, he comes into humanity itself
in the form of Jesus Christ and
jumps in with us, with a way out!
And today’s readings give us a particular insight in this
that is worth breaking open.
The first reading is from the Book of Job,
which is this parable about why bad things happen to good people.
Bear in mind at this point, Job has lost all his property;
has lost all his family;
and he is living in the city dump.
He went to his friends;
he was the one in the hole
and his friends, religious leaders, came to him and said “Oh no,
you must be a bad person.”
At that time, the people believed that
bad things happened to bad people and
good things happened to good people.
So therefore, if these bad things were happening to Job
then Job must be in fact bad
even though they knew him to be a good man.
They were sympathetic and walked away from him
leaving him to suffer alone.
Job could not understand it.
In fact, Job was a good man;
he did everything that the Lord had asked
and he could not understand why
the religious leaders would treat him like this.
Why his friends would treat him like this.
And now he is ultimately beginning to treat himself like this.
He is beginning to think,
“Well maybe I am bad
because all these bad things have happened.”
He starts to have a dialogue with God where he is mad;
we can understand why
and he is demanding an answer from God.
God does not give him an answer.
He just simply gets into his suffering with him.
Ultimately, when we are in a place of suffering and
somebody comes in to help you empathetically
then there is only one response that we need to have with them;
ultimately we need to trust them to help us out
because unless we trust them then they cannot help us out.
And that is ultimately what the story of Job is all about.
He eventually trusts God that God knows better than him
and that how he got into this problem only God will get him out of it.
He lets go and lets God help him and trusts God.
Today’s gospel is particularly interesting as well.
In Jesus Christ, we have the ultimate expression of God’s empathy.
God who suffers with us.
God in the form of Jesus Christ
becomes one of us and Jesus constantly shows
that God is a God who suffers with us.
Every time Jesus goes to do something
he does not associate with the wealthy or the rich.
He associates with the poor, the sick and the broken.
Look at what happens in the gospel;
he goes into Simon Peter’s house and
his mother-in-law is sick.
Jesus goes immediately and heals her.
Then she comes up out of bed.
Then he goes to all the synagogues and
he drives out the demons, healing people
and he does the same thing.
We are called to do that same thing.
We are called to stand with those who are suffering;
to enter into their suffering;
not to enjoy their suffering but to empathize;
to suffer with them and then come out of it;
help them out of that suffering; to walk with them.
The word we use in religious terms instead of empathy,
is the word “compassion” which means to suffer with.
Christ is constantly compassionate.
His heart is always with those in need.
The question is then how do we do this?
This is a really tall order.
How do we consistently stand with those who are in need?
How do we step out of our own suffering
and help people in their suffering, which is far worse than ours?
Again, scripture here today helps us.
Look at what Jesus does.
It is always a great way to figure out how to do it.
What does Jesus do? And I need to follow suit.
Jesus is constantly helping with compassion and empathy
those who are in need.
He gets up early in the morning before everyone else;
he goes to a deserted place and he prays.
The ultimate strength of Jesus is his relationship with God the Father
and when he is under this constant pressure
he digs deeper and goes deeper into his relationship with his Father.
His ultimate source of strength is God’s love.
And he knows that.
So every morning he goes to pray.
I know you have heard me say it a thousand times
and after six more years, you will be so tired of hearing me say it,
that Jesus was a man of prayer
and therefore if he was,
then you or I need to be men and women of deep prayer.
I do not say it because they are my words.
I say it because it is Jesus’ example of how to be a disciple;
that we become deeply immersed in listening to God.
Because you see only then can we see and hear those who suffer;
only then can we enter into and
be compassionate and empathetic with them.
Without first listening to God;
without first hearing the voice in the stillness of our heart,
we are never going to be able to change our perspective,
change our minds, our hearts
so that we can see the suffering.
If Jesus had to pray every day because he needed the strength to see
then let us not pretend that we don’t need to pray every day.
We do and we need to.
What is it that we are looking for?
We are looking and listening for God’s voice
in whom shall we serve;
to whom shall we go?
We are called to not just look upon those who are suffering and say,
“Oh you poor dear! Oh tsk-tsk, terrible. Terrible.
Those poor people. That’s terrible.”
That is not enough.
That is only going to the edge of the hole that people fall in.
We must be willing to get in; to help;
and then to bring them out of their suffering.
Empathy or as we say, compassion;
it first starts with a deep prayer life.
Let us go to the Lord;
let us listen to his call;
and let us be empathetic and compassionate to those in need.
