Friday, August 23, 2013

Compassion

In Matthew 12:7 Jesus taught us something about worship and charity, love and compassion. "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent." I have been taught a lesson.  Yesterday, my heart sunk, and has been somewhat empty ever since.
I was raised attending every church function, every revival and even the "all the other" that my parents gave to the church as pastor and wife.  AND I do not regret that.  I love every memory.  I love the church, Christ's body of believers.  But yesterday's news does allow me to get a view of myself  that I had kept hidden from myself. For the first time I admit, rather reluctantly that I am religious.  I have often said to people, almost as if boasting, that I am not religious, I am relational.  Pushing on others that all of this "church" devotion that I have modeled all of my life is about my relationship with Jesus.  I am now humbled.  I am now more honest with myself. 
You see, yesterday--August 22, it was announced to me that a friend that I had not realized had taken my heart captive, was dead.  In fact, he had passed away August 9.  Upon receiving the news, I began to have a deep longing to speak with him just one more time.  To carry him from his house to his car, just one more time.  To clean his house or mow his yard for him just one last time.  To feed his bird and check his mail just one last time.  To visit him in the hospital or take care of his errands just one last time.  To push him in his wheel chair just one last time. To pray with him just one last time or laugh with him at the realities of this life here in the now. To drive him to pay his bill or deposit a check or just sit with him just one last time. To speak with him on the phone or listen to a voicemail or leave one.  To have him lend me his counsel from a life of struggle, pain, sickness, hardship, ridicule, abuse, neglect, handicap, loneliness and despair...just one last time. To hear him share insights God had given him in all these and from his reading of God's word...just one last time.  To cry with him just one last time. He was not my pet project.  He was a place where I could be a friend to "the least of these." I don't even like the sound of that, for he has become one of the many "mosts" in my life.  He allowed me to look in the mirror at my life, my religion or religiosity, my so often proclaimed "relationship" and see it not as an image or shadow, but for what it really is.
You see, Peter was handicapped from birth.  He was sexually and physically abused as a child.  He was picked on and thrown down in the streets. He had made a mistake in adulthood and paid dearly for owning up to it.  He was judged, persecuted, and basically thrown away.
I do not boast in any of this.  I boast solely in Christ.  I boast for my friend.  Peter has taught me much.  We all doubt ourselves.  We are often our own worst enemy.  We stupidly listen to that whisperer of deceit that suggests "I am not good enough." In this man, I gave.  I was a friend.  It started in obligation--That is just what a pastor should do. It continues in a wonderful and endearing friendship.  Peter, through his own suffering and exile, has taught me that true worship, true religion, true relationship with Christ Jesus my Lord, is in being like Christ not in my Sunday deal or my giving or service, but in my compassion, love and charity.  I hope I will not soon or ever forget the lesson of a year with Peter.  I will miss you brother!!! But, I shall soon walk with you.
Coach/PJ

1 comment:

  1. PTL! How He used my dog to wander into Peter's house…would bring Peter to Crosspoint and you, Pastor John. Peter longed for a chuch, love, and fellowship. If only Peter could have on this side read this blog. He would have POURED tears of joy. Thank you for providing him a home/church, fellowship, frienship, and love. Maybe this was God's purpose so Peter could go home.

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