March 21, 2010

Clay Nelson

Lent 5     
John 12:1-8

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Today’s Gospel on the face of it is troubling. While at a “Back from the Dead” party for her brother Lazarus Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with a very expensive perfume and her tears. Judas expresses what everyone is thinking: her act is inappropriately extravagant. It would be like taking Mother Theresa an $800 bottle of wine. Then we are caught off-guard by the seeming callousness of Jesus’ response, “You will have the poor with you always, but not me.” 

While I can appreciate John’s literary genius of using this story to foreshadow Jesus’ washing of his disciples feet and Mary Magdalene’s failed attempt to anoint his body after his death, over the years I have struggled to make sense of how someone who identified with the marginalised could sound so indifferent to their needs.

A passage in a book I count in my top 100, To Kill a Mockingbird, offers some insight into what Jesus was getting at. The book tells of widower Atticus Finch, who is raising his young son and daughter amid the racism and classism of Depression-era Alabama. Jem and Scout face the taunting of neighbors and school peers when Atticus agrees to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. Mrs. Dubose, an elderly neighbor, sits on her front porch and torments the children with comments as they walk home from school. One day Jem takes his revenge by grabbing a baton and bashing all of Mrs. Dubose's prized camellia bushes. Atticus punishes the children by having them go to her home and read aloud to her for two hours every afternoon for a month. Scout remembers, "An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses... It always made me afraid, expectant, watchful."

Each afternoon, they read while Mrs. Dubose sleeps and drools until an alarm clock rings, and then the children run outside to breathe fresh air. Finally the month is up, and not long afterward, Mrs. Dubose dies. The children are surprised when Atticus tells them that she was addicted to morphine, and that their reading sessions helped her to wean herself so she could die in freedom. He says, "I wanted you to see what real courage is... It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." Incredible words. I wish I could say them like Gregory Peck, but they bear repeating anyway: "I wanted you to see what courage is... It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." Jesus couldn’t have said it better.

While Atticus’ explicit lesson was about courage, he was teaching his children an essential skill. He was teaching them empathy: How to see the world from the perspective of another by being fully present to them. And how losing our self in another, even those we might find disagreeable, can make a difference.

Empathy is a hot topic these days, ever since Obama said empathy was an important quality in a Supreme Court justice. Neuroscientists, educators, psychologists and a few theologians are exploring its importance to humanity. It used to be thought that empathy is what makes us human. But Frans de Waal, who has spent a lifetime studying primates, has published a book entitled The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society. Referring to numerous animal behaviour studies he makes the case that lab rats, chimpanzees and even elephants exhibit a capacity for empathy. Neuroscientists have even identified the part of the brain where our empathy is hardwired. But even though we have a capacity to empathize, we still have to learn to use it over a lifetime. It is a little like our computers at home. There are many things it can do, but if we don’t know how to use the software, it won’t do them.

Empathy is often misunderstood and confused for other things. So it might be easier to explain by explaining what it is not:

Empathy is not the same as Love. If love is the giving from our heart without expectation, empathy is a quality of being fully present to another person, focusing on the other, which often opens our hearts to such giving. Love is abstract without empathy. Empathy brings love to action.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy requires agreement with the other person’s views. Empathy means we fully let in what the other expresses, without agreeing or disagreeing with them. Empathy implies seeking to understand, not seeking agreement or disagreement. Empathy leads to unity; sympathy divides us.

Empathy is not being nice, but it is kind. If by being nice, we mean polite “proper” behavior, empathy can often be the opposite of “niceness.” Empathy calls for our authenticity and our honesty. Empathy acknowledges what is often kept hidden by the politeness and niceness, bringing uncomfortable issues to the forefront. Being nice can hide the seamier side of life. Empathy breaks through denial and tells it the way it is. For instance it is kinder to tell someone they have body odor, than to let them continue to offend unaware.

Empathy is not passivity. Being empathetic does not mean becoming a door mat without needs and expression, or indifferent to conflict. Empathy is an active process of presence, listening, observing and internally opening to someone other than our selves.

In fact, empathy moves us to the center of conflict. Human beings are always going to disagree, misunderstand, react and so forth. Our world is full of examples of this. Empathy works directly with this truth. By deeply understanding another, we can reduce misunderstanding. We can see clearly how our views differ. We build trust through the truly courageous act of letting another human being fully into our awareness and maybe even our hearts. It doesn’t mean we agree or disagree, sympathize, lie down, or be polite; we simply give another the gift of our presence and understanding.

Empathy isn’t naïve. Empathy is exactly the opposite of naiveté: Empathy ends naiveté. When we fully receive another person and seek to understand, the maximum amount of information is brought into the open. This doesn’t mean everything is rosy and now we’ll hold hands and sing Kumbaya. It means we are now aware of another’s needs giving us the maximum opportunity to act on accurate information and the deepest level of trust. What we have done is relieve ourselves of the naïve idea that some problems are unsolvable; that violent disagreement is absolutely inevitable.

Empathy isn’t selfless. It is the meeting ground where the needs of all are acknowledged and understood. Although empathy may seem like it is a selfless act, it is not. When I deeply understand another, it has been my experience time and again, that having been heard, the other person is now far more open to hearing and understanding me. Empathy gives me a much greater chance of bringing my own needs and values to actuality.

Scientists say we are hardwired to be empathetic. Clearly being empathetic benefits us personally. Thanks to global communications and commerce, what were once exotic cultures are now available to us in a few keystrokes. This week Glynn was blown away by a Pakistani he met this week who complimented “the billboard” telling him, that thanks to the internet, it was the talk of the town when he was home at Christmas. At staff meeting this week Glynn marveled that our billboard was being discussed over dinner tables in Karachi. Such a bridge across cultures allowing for greater understanding is still a very new phenomenon.

Yet in spite of the pluses of being empathetic and an environment increasingly conducive to it, polarization seems still to be the rule: Israel continuing their provocative housing projects on the West Bank. Republican opposition to anything and everything Obama does. Christian resistance to atheists exercising freedom of speech. Anglicans threatening schism – again – over American Anglicans approving the consecration of Mary Glasspool, a lesbian, as bishop. A colleague in the diocese sending me photos of Muslim fundamentalists protesting with hateful signs in response to our respectful attitude towards those of other faiths.

Yes, we may have the hardware for empathy but we need to learn the software that runs it. We still tend to see those that oppose us as the enemy. To see their humanity, to know they are pretty much like us seems naïve. To protect our own self-interest we must set ourselves a part. This may be the dominant view of reality, but it is still a false one. Today’s Gospel is the antidote.

Empathy is fully on display. Mary’s anointing of Jesus’ feet seems extravagant to Judas and perhaps to the others in attendance, but Jesus accepts it as an act of empathy on her part. She understands that Jesus’ ministry it reaching its climax and that he expects to pay the ultimate price for being the personification of God’s love. The anointing with expensive perfume is her recognition of the value of his life. The anointing with tears is recognition of his courage to carry on even though it seems he’s licked. To wipe his feet with her hair is to make herself one with his mission, even unto death. His commitment to the poor and the marginalised will live on in Mary. Because he knows the poor will be with us always, those who care about them need to be with us always as well. How?

By recognizing the love Jesus embodies is within each of us. By recognizing ourselves within him, his love for the poor, the oppressed, the sick; the marginalised lives on. 

Like Jem and Scout with Mrs. Dubose, spending time with Jesus will teach us that the stink of death, the odor of oppression; the reek of injustice does not have to defeat us. Spending time with Jesus will give us courage to anoint the afflicted with the perfume of love. It will open our eyes to knowing we are one with them. It may not always make the world a kinder, more loving place, but sometimes it will.