A Posture of Empathy

Beloved in Christ,

The fact that, in Jesus, God chose to become one of us means that God always meets us where we are, engages us on our own terms, enters into the fullness and particularity of our human experience. God disrupts the sinful cycle of human violence and oppression not by beating it back with brute force but through pure empathy, entering fully into the experience of the other without losing God’s self. Divine empathy is the instrument of human liberation. 

So Christian prayer and the Christian life are about allowing the Spirit to mold us into the empathetic shape of God’s heart. In a culture caught in an ever-escalating cycle of reactive scorn toward the one who differs from us, God longs to enlist us in God’s project of disrupting human enmity with empathy, delight, and love. 

A spiritual practice that has the power to change your life, and that has the power to transform whole communities, is to engage those with whom you disagree, those who have a different perspective, those with whom you are in conflict, not as combatants to be defeated, but complex and beloved children of God worthy of love. Make no mistake, this is not about saying all perspectives are equally valid, and it’s not a suggestion to work toward some cheap and superficial truce. The stakes in the world, and in this season of our national life, are very real and of critical importance. 

But if what we profess to believe is true, then love, justice, and human community aren’t the zero sum game we often make them out to be. My values, my commitments, what I’m advocating for aren’t made any less valuable because I take a posture of curiosity and compassion toward the one who differs from me. And, in fact, the posture of empathy is the only thing that has the power to end the world’s engine of madness, which simply continues to generate winners and losers. 

The voices of those who are using the name of Jesus as a weapon to bludgeon those who differ are loud indeed in these days. This is a moment when we are invited not to shout louder and fight harder but to join the incarnation insurrection, to enlist in God’s revolution of love. And the savior born in a stable for livestock in an unimportant backwater reminds us we need not worry about how small or insignificant we might be. In every moment, we face the next decision, the next encounter, the next small step, with the death-conquering power of love.

Grace and peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya