This Gaze Of Compassion
LUKE
There was a faithful
Priest who had never had any real religious experience in his life.
He told how he went to
visit the community of sisters who worked with Mother Teresa of
On his first Sunday
there he was invited to take the early morning service for the nuns.
They came forward to
receive the bread and wine just as we would.
Mother Teresa herself
was at the back of the line.
Suddenly she was there
in front of the Priest as he held out the bread to her.
He told of how a look
came over her face.
A look of love and
adoration, and how, in his words, her whole head now tilted to one side,
seemingly displaced by love as she received the sacrament.
He said he would never
forget the look on her face in that moment.
But this was not the
end of the story.
Later that day, Mother
Teresa volunteered to show the Priest round the hospice.
She saved her own
little ward till last, the place for those nearest to death and in the greatest
pain.
One of the patients
cried out suddenly in anguish.
Mother Teresa went
over to him and took him in her arms.
At that moment, said
the priest, that same look swept over her face as I had seen in the chapel
earlier.
Once again her head
went over to one side, as if displaced by love.
It was the same look
because it was the same Jesus.
Worshipping
him in the service of the sacrament in the morning and worshipping him in the
sick and the dying in the afternoon.
When Jesus passed
through the city of
He sees a woman who
now has nothing, for she is a widow burying her only son.
And Jesus is displaced
by love.
He is moved to
compassion for her.
He touches the place
of uncleanness.
He tells her to weep
no more.
He commands the boy to
rise.
Compassion: an inner
feeling of love and sympathy which is expressed outwardly in helpful action. Dictionary definition.
Or
as the Priest saw in Mother Teresa – when a life is suddenly displaced by love.
This sort of
compassion moved our Lord at Nain.
He was not out to
startle people, convince people or to amaze them.
He just felt His life
– displaced by love in that moment.
Only on two other
occasions is the term compassion used throughout Luke’s Gospel and with a
little prompting, you would probably remember where.
A man was going down
from
Priest and Levite pass
by on the other side of the road.
But a Samaritan
journeyed that way and when he saw him he had compassion.
And
went to bind up his wounds.
A son had taken his
share of the inheritance and squandered it in reckless living.
It’s the Prodigal and
he’s coming home with his tail between his legs.
His Father sees Him
and has compassion.
He runs to embrace him
and calls for a party.
In each instant the gaze
of compassion leads to few words but a dangerous action.
Do not touch that
coffin, Teacher – don’t you know the dead are unclean.
Don’t touch that
traveller in the gutter – remember you are a Samaritan and not one of us.
Don’t embrace your
son, for heavens sake, he has taken half your fortune and squandered it.
In each instant the
gaze of compassion is towards someone who finally knows they have nothing.
The widow bereft of
family.
The traveller robbed
and left for dead.
The
son without a penny to his name.
And Mother Teresa –
with the poor who cry out with a pain that con’t be
cured.
The teaching on the
mount comes home to roost in this moment:
“Blessed are the poor
in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”
Here is a sermon which
is not calling you to do anything.
Rather to realise a
truth – that God’s compassionate is upon you.
He is displaced by
love because of you.
You will know the
truth of that when finally you accept that you have nothing.
He does not hang
behind some cloud in the sky, face like thunder at all
our shortcomings.
He surely sees in us
the same struggles as in the widow, the prodigal and the robbed man.
His expression for us
is one that is displaced by love.
Once we know this for
ourselves, then it will grow in us.
To become the
Samaritan, the forgiving Father and even the Christ who hovered on the
outskirts of Nain and then moved so gracefully in.
The
gaze of compassion – as if displaced by love.
See the reality of
that look piercing the clouds of your life today.
And know that in that
gaze, we who are nothing, are given everything we
need.
R 10.6.07