The Spirituality of compassion in the Christian perspective, where does it come from and how are we

This essay will explore the spirituality of compassion as understood and developed in the Christian context. I will endeavour to unpack the history of this notion in a Judeo-Christian perspective, examining how the tradition was originally understood and revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures. Then I shall determine how I think it reaches its apex and full meaning in the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ as told and taught by Jesus himself, which comes to us in the Gospel of Luke 10:25-37. The term ‘Good Samaritan’ has become synonymous with any person who does an act of kindness for none other than altruistic motives.

In line with this task I will examine how the early Church Fathers dealt with this topic and I highlight the contribution of Augustine of Hippo who somewhat obfuscated the true message in those verses of the ‘Good Samaritan’ parable by applying ‘allegory’ to its meaning. In order to support my conclusions, namely that this parable with the parable of the King in MATT 25:31-46 provides a solid framework for how any person, Christian or non can and will achieve salvation and redemption if its central messages are followed.

I will be providing provocative examples why I think Jesus spoke such a controversial parable and how the Church (the People of God) themselves have lived it throughout history to promote the true Christian message in the foundation of such institutions such as the Red Cross, St Vincent DePaul Society and many countless others. I will also expand upon how we can use this challenging parable[1] in the modern context to help us Christians get back to our core duty which of course is the salvation of souls by living the Gospel message.

This essay will be also be building further upon my earlier reflection on Christian Spirituality and will explain why I think this parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ should be the starting point for a true Christian Spirituality. In doing so I will show how observance of the ‘Law’ as understood in the Jewish perspective will only get an individual so far into a relationship with God, and that what’s essentially needed is a conversion of the ‘heart’ and Jesus bring this to the fore in this most powerful parable.

What is Compassion?

In order to cogently examine how the tradition of compassion has developed in the Judeo-Christian perspective we must first explain and understand the meaning and etymology of this word. The word is derived from the Latin word ‘compassio’ meaning sympathy or pity[2] and stems from ‘compati’ which means to feel pity. The ‘com’ in compassion also means together. The Greek word for compassion is eleos[3] and also stands for God’s loving kindness towards mankind, it therefore signifies the loving pity that wells up out of the sympathetic heart, and cannot seek advantage for itself. So to have compassion one must first and foremost feel together with those who are suffering.

Compassion in the modern context has come to be understood to be the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others. It has sometimes been regarded as a fundamental part of human love, and indeed the cornerstone of greater social interconnection. Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris says:

“We could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s “I” on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer”[4]

The Pope’s Apostolic Letter delves deeper into the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ to explain its true Christian significance and spirituality with beauty and clarity, linking it to MATT 25:31-46 “Come, you that is blessed by my father…” I shall return to this later in the paper.

Compassion as understood in the Hebrew/Jewish tradition

Compassion in the Jewish tradition is a name given to God and is invoked many times in the Old Testament as “Father of Compassion”[5] it can be found in Psalms 103:13 Deuteronomy 9:17, Exodus 43:6 and many more to enumerate, such a designation for God is also prevalent in the Islamic tradition by the use of the word Rahmana meaning compassionate one[6]. The Jewish concept of compassion though actually only extended to ‘one’s neighbour’. Perhaps this is why the ‘expert in the Law’ comes to Jesus in the first part of the parable to enquire “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (LK 10:25) and Jesus replies “What is written in the Law?” “How do you read it?” (10:26). Naturally knowing the Law he proceeded to say “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and ‘love your neighbour as yourself’” (10:27). Jesus commends him, but the interlocutor (whom we have no idea who he is, suffice to say that he was most probably a Levite) sought to justify himself and at this juncture quips “And who is my neighbour?” (10:29). This turns out to be the heart of the discourse for Jesus as the ‘expert in the Law’ would have known of the invocation in Lev 19:18 “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.” So who is my neighbour? To the Jews it was one of their own, not a gentile, certainly not a Samaritan and as this diagram below correctly depicts the social structure within 1st century Palestine, virtually no one outside their social comfort zone.

The Old Testament is riddled with invocations to be kind to strangers, orphans and widows but provided they are those contained within the first three circles of the indicated diagram and are considered Jews. This is why I posit that the Jewish/Hebrew laws as understood by them were actually defective, if not, why the need for Jesus’ clarification/and or refinement?

This takes me to the actual parable and the characters Jesus uses to identify their unkind and un-Christian behaviour. The two individuals Jesus uses to tell the story are 1. A Priest and 2. A Levite. I posit that it is no co-incidence that Jesus uses these two characters to be held us as examples in this parable, after all it was a Priest (the Chief Priest Ciaphus) who drags Jesus before the Roman Governor at the time Pontius Pilate and demands his execution, the Governor is most reluctant and on no less than three occasions finds no reason for such a penalty. That aside, it could be argued that the Priest and Levite by not attending to the dying man would simply be following the dictates of the book of Leviticus chapter 21 to priests which states: “He shall not go where there is a dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother” (Lev 21:11). If this is correct, it takes me to the heart of my own discomfort with much of the Old Testament dictates, this is a Law purportedly part of the ‘divinely revealed truth’. If it was seen as such defective reasoning on the part of Jesus, how can it have been God (Jesus’ Father) who dictated such a Law? This is but one example of an inconsistency in ‘God’s’ word, there are many more…it’s dictates on clean and unclean foods/people? Its treatment of lepers, women, tax collectors and prostitutes, Jesus literally blows all these arguments out of the water. Perhaps it is food for thought and the product of another paper I shall write in the future, but one thing remains abundantly clear. I would posit that Jesus is using these characters for a very specific reason and that reason is this; those who should know better about mercy and kindness are in fact the one’s who let God down so dismally. I will not throw all ‘clergy’ into this same heap, a great many are kind, generous and merciful people who make God’s light shine through them, but there are those who have truly forgotten their vocation. The swathe of clergy abuse scandals engulfing our Church in the present time is evidence of this failure from top to bottom in the hierarchical structure.

The Early Church Fathers and their treatment of the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ in explaining compassion.

In keeping with the trajectory of this essay I have chosen St Augustine of Hippo as my example of an early Church Father who uses this parable in a spiritual manner to explain what he believes contains a deeper truth. Almost all biblical exegetes and scholars have identified that Augustine of Hippo following Ambrose of Milan, Origen and Irenaeus all interpreted this parable as ‘allegory’[8] which sees the Samaritan as Christ who in his mercy came down from heaven, became our neighbour and healed the wounds of our race that were inflicted by sin.[9] Each of these Fathers applies an elaborate schema to this somewhat obscure interpretation instead of reading it for what it was, a challenging parable that extends the notion of “who my neighbour is”. I cannot understand why they would each approach this parable in this way, suffice to say that perhaps, just perhaps because reading it on face value it opens the door wide open to everyone to get to heaven, instead of a selected, pious, self- righteous, separated ‘holy’ lot? I find myself in total agreement with Crossan who states:

“In his Questions on the Gospels, written between 399-400, Augustine takes the Good Samaritan as a riddle parable and provides one of the best-known allegorical readings given to any of Jesus’s parables. It has also become an (in)famous instance of an interpretation that is at once brilliantly clever, but also brilliantly – what do I say- inadequate or incomplete or incorrect?”[10]

But Crossan does not stop there in his research, further on in his book he says that Augustine when writing On Christian Doctrine interprets the parable not as allegory but rather as an ethical example parable[11] in identifying Augustine’s explanation of the term neighbour he quotes him saying:

“for the name neighbour is a relative [i.e., a bilateral one], and no one can be neighbour except to a neighbour….Every one to whom we ought to show, or who ought to show us, the offices of mercy is by right called neighbour. (1.31,33).

This is a much needed clarification of the true message contained in the parable and which links it to MATT 25:31-46. It becomes abundantly clear to me from Jesus’ instructions that our salvation is purchased by the deeds we do to others and not any ‘pious’ observance of any covenants or laws. Perhaps this is why God gave us the innate ability to ‘hear’ with the ear of our heart, sadly whilst we can all hear, not everyone will listen. People are not oblivious to others suffering, they simply choose to block it out. I reject out of hand the reasoning of those of Julian of Norwich and others of their era who posit such erroneous ideas such as “It is profitable for us to see, in truth, that, of ourselves, we are absolutely nothing except sin and wretchedness”.[12] I will posit that God has hard wired each and every one of us to be able to empathize and alleviate the suffering of others and that we are essentially good rather than evil, sinful or wretched as such Christian writers would have us believe. Jesus calls us always to gravitate to the good, the truthful and perfect, but he does not diminish our own freewill in getting there.

Some contemporary considerations on compassion and the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’

To continue my thesis that we are all not wretched sinners as many Christian writers have erroneously pontificated I cite just one example of the goodness being dispensed throughout the world in the establishment of the Red Cross and which now also conducts its works of mercy as the Red Crescent.

The relationship of the Red Cross to the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ is not only contained in the usual inference of assisting one in need as Max Huber then President of the International Red Cross said in 1945[13]. Their essential connection lies in the spontaneity with which the Samaritan hastened to the rescue, seeing distress and no one else relieving it. He is the man who goes himself to his neighbours aid, and goes at once. The Samaritan’s compassion is not because the man by the roadside is somebody he knows. Let’s not forget the story commences with “A certain man went down form Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves” It was most likely a Jew, who as a member of the chosen people would himself have spurned all contact with the despised Samaritan, outcast of the true faith. Therein lies the essence of the parable, that the question as to who or what the man might be is never asked. He is helped because he is, not because he is this or that. The Catholic Encyclopaedia online explains compassion as:

“Mercy as it is here contemplated is said to be a virtue influencing one's will to have compassion for, and, if possible, to alleviate another's misfortune.”[14]

Or perhaps to go a bit further in the philosophical understanding of compassion Davies says quite rightly in my view:

“The assumption of another’s suffering as one’s own entails a radical decentring of the self, and putting at risk of the self, in the free re-enactment of the dispossessed state of those who suffer. Compassion is the recognition of the otherness of the other, as an otherness which stands beyond our own world, beyond our own constructions of the otherness even”[15]

Herein lays the deep, powerful message and meaning of compassion as described and taught by Jesus himself. It is feeling (and alleviating) the pain and suffering of others at whatever cost it brings to us. A selflessness that we are all capable of, if we attune our hearts to listen to the music. I mentioned earlier about everyone being able to hear, but not being able to listen and the metaphor I would use is a radio. We can all hear the static of the tuning between stations but we must try a little harder to hear the soothing music when we actually hit the station that plays music to our hearts.

Conclusion

Having discussed the various ways in which this parable opens our view to listen with the ear of our heart “Ausculta”[16] I am inclined to accept the more contemporary interpretation of this parable which is a two pronged approach. Whilst it provides a powerful lesson about mercy toward those in need, it also proclaims that non-Jews can still observe the law and thus enter into eternal life.[17] It also highlights as I mentioned earlier that those who SHOULD know better and do better often do not. Hence Jesus’ great love for the poor, they are all heart. If you really needed help, financial or moral or even physical help, its more than likely the poor person who will extend whatever little they have because the rich would be too concerned with what they may lose by actually helping. Jesus was the champion of the downtrodden, non-priveledged, the poor of whom he spoke so tenderly. As in Jesus’ time there were luxurious buildings in the cities, misery in the villages; wealth and ostentation among the urban elites, debt and hunger amongst the rural people[18]. The growing enrichment of the large land owners only further compounded the grief of the ‘these simple poor people’ those of whom Jesus loved and wished to assure that God was with them, hence his acclimation of the poor inheriting the Kingdom of God in the beatitudes. We are all aware of the statistics that say “99% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of just 1% of the earth’s population” hence we can clearly see why Jesus points his soothing love at the 99% of the population. Not much at all has changed in 20 centuries.

We are all called to be that Samaritan in that parable as Jesus instructs us to “go and do the same” as he did to his interlocutor the ‘expert in the law’. I go somewhat further and replace the term Samaritan with the word ‘Muslim’ as the Muslims could be considered the one’s within our modern society that are being the most despised at the present time. They are the new Samaritans and in many ways they are closely related, as are the Jews and Christians, we all have differing theological views about God although we all actually worship the SAME God.

To conclude this paper I would like to echo this magnificent quote of our late Great John Paul II who says so eloquently towards the end of his Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris :

“In the messianic programme of Christ, which at the same time the programme of the Kingdom of God, suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbour, in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a “civilization of love””[19]

REFERENCES

[1] Crossan, John Domenic, The Power of Parable, Harper Collins Publishers (New York 2012) 47

[2] www.etymonline.com “Compassion” accessed 1 May 2012

[3] Huber, Max, The Good Samaritan (Camelot Press, London 1945) 40

[4] John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, on the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, St Paul’s Publications (Homebush NSW 1984) 73

[5] www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4576-compassion accessed 24 April 2012

[6] www.wikipedia.org/compassion accessed 24 April 2012

[7] Lampert K, Traditions of Compassion: From Religious Duty to Social Activism (Palgrave-Macmillan, New York, 2006) 27

[8] Schnaubelt, Joseph & Van Fleteren Fredrick, Augustine: Biblical Exegete (Peter Lang Publishing, New York 2004) 347

[9] For Irenaeus’s, Origen’s and Ambrose’s treatments of the parable, see respectively Adversus haereses III, xvii,2: SC 34,307-08; Homilia Lucam XXXIV: SC 87,400-11, and Expositio Evangelii secundam Lucam VII, 71-84: CC XIV, 237-41

[10] Crossan, John Domenic, The Power of Parable (Harper Collins Publishers New York 2012) 49

[11] Crossan, John Domenic, The Power of Parable (Harper Collins Publishers New York 2012) 51

[12] Class Readings Foundations of Christian Spirituality, Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, 224

[13] Huber, Max, The Good Samaritan (Camelot Press, London 1945) 39

[14] http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10198d.htm accessed 13 May 2012

[15] Davies, Oliver, A Theology of Compassion, Metaphysics of Difference and the Renewal of Tradition (Eerdmans Publishing Co. Michigan, 2003) 17

[16] Class Notes Lecture 1 Introduction and Definition “Ausculta” “Prologue, Rule of St Benedict (6th Century)

[17] The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, eds. R. Brown,J. Fitzmyer, and R.Murphy (Englewood Cliffs 1990) 70

[18] Pagola. A. Jose, Jesus An Historical Approximation, Convivium Press (Miami 2009) 180

[19] John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Salvifici Doloris, on the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, St Paul’s Publications (Homebush NSW 1984) 78