The Ninth Sunday after Pentecost (Fr. Robinson)

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     I’m a Star Trek fan.  I’ve seen all of the original series several times and some of the movies. One of my goals is to watch all of the Star Trek episodes in every one of the 11 different spin-off TV series – Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Voyager, Discovery, and so on.  You may remember the mission statement at the beginning of the original series: “Space – the final frontier… These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
 
     One of my favorite episodes is actually one of the oldest. Captain Kirk has ended up somehow in a dark, empty room. He’s unconscious and injured. There is one other person in the room, who, we gradually discover, is from another world. She is in perfect condition when the captain first appears, she goes over to Kirk and begins to touch his wounds, which begin then to heal. But an even more amazing thing happens. As Kirk’s wounds disappear, the woman begins to be in pain, and then she becomes bruised herself. After Kirk is healed, then she begins to heal.
 
     As Kirk gains consciousness and strength, some unknown, unseen assailant, strikes him again, and the process begins all over. Their captors apparently are intrigued by this woman who is able literally to take on the suffering of others. In fact, not only is she able to take on that suffering, but she also appears to have a compulsion to do so.
 
     From my perspective, this episode of Star Trek is one of the most striking of all, because it’s a kind of parable or allegory. It’s a vivid portrayal of the meaning of compassion.  True compassion is so much more than simply feeling sorry for someone who is hurting. Compassion is an entering into the suffering of someone else. The word compassion comes from two Latin words, cum, which is the preposition with, and passio, which means to suffer — to suffer with.  Of course, compassion means even more than suffering with. It means to suffer with for the purpose of comforting and easing the pain of another person.
 
     St. Mark in today’s Gospel tells us that the disciples had returned from the mission on which Jesus had sent them. They had been on a mission of compassion, and upon hearing about all that they had done and taught, Jesus perceives that they all needed a little R and R.  So he took them off to a quiet place to rest, but the crowds followed them.  St. Mark tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.  He saw people who were sick, people who were having marital problems, people who were having financial difficulties, people who were out of work, people who were facing difficult decisions, people in need of God’s love and forgiveness.  Mark doesn’t tell us this about the crowd, but in any crowd of people, these are the kinds of things that are going on.  And so, as tired as they all were, Jesus felt that he could not turn his back on them.  So he taught them.
 
     Jesus had compassion on the crowds.  Just as he would one day take their sins and the sins of all on himself, he took upon himself their needs, and the needs of his disciples, their suffering and pain, ignoring his own needs, that he might bring to them the word of life. That’s one way we could describe his earthly ministry, isn’t it?   A ministry of compassion: the ministry of taking upon himself the suffering of humanity.
 
     The scriptures tell us that Jesus’ compassion in this instance issued in his teaching the people. What did he teach them?  We’re not told specifically, but we may suppose one thing he taught them was to be compassionate themselves. This might have been the time when he told the parable of the Good Samaritan, or of the Shepherd who left 99 sheep to go after the one lost sheep, or the saying about turning the other cheek. One thing is SURE. He showed by example what true compassion is. Not only did he ignore his own needs in order to teach them, but also, when they were hungry, he fed them, giving us the miracle known as the feeding of the 5000.
 
     There’s something deep within us that urges us to reach out to those who are hurting, much like the woman in Star Trek, but much more important, just like our Lord continually reached out to those around him. Some people are trained and actually get paid to be compassionate.  All of those in the healing professions come to mind.  You give your clergy a living wage so that we can devote ourselves full time to a ministry of compassion.  The Secret Service men who threw themselves over former President Trump when the first shot was fired last week, are trained literally to take the suffering of the person they’re protecting on themselves.  They’re trained to take the bullet instead of the actual targeted person.
 
     David Hume, the 18th century Scottish philosopher and historian, said, “There is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom, some spark of friendship for humankind, some particle of the dove kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent.”
 
     It’s that spark of compassion that’s part of what it means to have been created in the image of God. But when we were created, it was a flame, not just a spark. Human sin directed our gaze inward, blocking that connectedness with the whole human family, blinding us to our role in the process of healing and wholeness.  One way to put the purpose of the incarnation is that Jesus came in order to lead us back to being fully compassionate people. He came to fan that spark back into a flame, to give us a passion for compassion.
 
     The Church is the result of the incarnation, and by Church, I don’t mean an institution, I mean Christ living in each one of us.   Like Jesus Christ, in Christ we are to be passionate about compassion. Think about your relationships at home, at work, at church, wherever you spend your time, and seek by the grace of God to be compassionate.