Compelled by Compassion, Motivated by Mercy

I was thinking about divorce recently.  Not to worry, I wasn’t thinking of it in direct relation to my current marriage to my first wife (unpick the faux pas from that!)

I was thinking of it in terms of what a tragedy and a trauma it is on so many different levels.  Even in the most amicable and agreeable arrangements what is done in divorce is a fairly significant admission of failure.  Failure on arguably the most important level as it revolves around the most intimate and sacred of human agreements open to us as consenting adults.  I am still haunted at times by the thought that the best way I show what a loving caring father I am to my children is how I display what a loving husband I am to their mother.  If I don’t show that, there’s a big disconnect going on in the hearts and minds of my children.

Of course this is another element of divorce that can bring sadness, because again, however effectively it is communicated to the children, at whatever age, those children will still somehow have to work out, what went wrong.  Understandably some will blame themselves.  Worse still, however, is if the process of divorce is explained, rationalised and justified as something that is good.  As though it is acceptable.  As though it is just a part of life that adults go through from time to time when things are not going so well.  Thus embedded into the mind of the child is a loose understanding of the sanctity of marriage, the importance of commitment and intimacy in relationships and unsurprisingly a tendency to repeat a pattern set before them and thus engaging themselves in further destabilising society whilst promoting a selfish view of love.

I understand that divorce is sometimes necessary and I’m not condoning those who persist in lifeless marriages for the sake of keeping up appearances or failing to address what the real issues are in the relationship.  What is at stake though is a true understanding of the tragedy and trauma of what happens when divorce takes place.

Yet – for all that, in as much as it is important to highlight the tragic nature of the issue, it is equally tragic to then alienate and demonise those who have gone through it.  Even if they have brazenly gone through marriages and proven themselves to be hopeless at commitment and thus marriages appear cheap and cheerless, there is still no reason to castigate and condemn.

It was whilst contemplating these things that I again ran into the heart of Jesus’ ministry.  The deal is not to shame and disgrace sinners, the deal is to invite sinners to the Saviour who has died to wipe away their sins.  For that to happen two things must take place – there has to be an acknowledgement of the nature of sin.  Then there has to be a realisation of the God who forgives and cleanses.  These things happen by the Holy Spirit and our role in that is to be available to be expressions of either of those elements.

That requires us to be compelled by compassion not condemnation.  It should break our hearts and move us to reach out to people in love rather than get on the high horse and criticise, stick our noses up and generally bad-mouth the sinners around us.  After all, it’s not as though we were guilt-free before we met Jesus.  It is not as though we have lived blameless lives. If all sin is sin and Jesus breaks us free from that, the debt of gratitude should allow us to empathise with people in sin.  That empathy cannot afford to express itself in the hostile and antagonistic ways in which sadly some elements of Christianity are presented.  (By the way, this should not be construed as the ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ argument – there are serious problems with those sentiments.  This is rather love the sinner in the hope that they will hate the sin.)

Take some of the key moral issues on which Christians take a stance – abortion and homosexuality.  It is sad and misleading to see some representations of the faith being all about blowing up clinics, pestering doctors, aggravating those who are homosexuals and raising a stink about the issues.  It is sad to read and hear some using rhetoric that in other scenarios would incite violence and hatred in a bid to claim moral superiority.

Likewise it is sad that some have capitulated on the issue partly because of the extreme responses and partly to cosy up to cultural standards and not want to appear to be out of touch, behind the times or irrelevant.

It does not have to be about a debate about right and wrong because Jesus hardly focussed His ministry on debating.  His ministry was hardly a model for people to be able to argue the toss about the moral and social implications of personal and corporate decisions.  Rather His ministry as echoed by that of those that followed Him was being light in dark situations.  Bringing healing to the sick, restoration to the lost, hope to those in despair and peace to those ridden with external and internal conflict.

Now this ministry didn’t endear Him to everyone.  Even some of those who were the recipients of His ministry were hardly grateful or truly understanding and accepting of what had been done for them.  That didn’t deter Him from what He did.  Being socially relevant wasn’t His key driver, neither was it the quest to be right in debate.  Rather, motivated by mercy, He showed that to others evidently in need of it.

Whether it’s divorce, homosexuality or abortion, whether it is the mistreatment of strangers or the betrayal of friends, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit convicts us again not to take it upon ourselves to harbour hatred and hostility.  He convicts us rather to show deep-hearted compassion – one that only God Himself can induce.

The extreme portrayals of acts that bring Christianity into disrepute will continue and there will be those only to eager to jump on it to batter those in the faith and argue how redundant and offensive it is.  Yet that should propel the believer more into moving in the light of God’s mercy on us and conveying the compassion that sent Jesus to the cross and saw Him rise triumphantly from the grave to offer those who would see and hear Him that same fullness of life.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd