Empathy / Enabling

We've been reading about "empathy" for my Personal and Spiritual Formation class.

One idea that has challenged me is the idea of empathy sometimes being the worst thing that we can do for someone. That in our desire to be merciful repeatedly we end up enabling destructive behaviors by constantly coming to the rescue.

As Christians we are called to show mercy to the hurting, and we believe that it is not our job to judge but God's.

Yet we need boundaries in our life. Being taken advantage of stinks. Plus, coming to the rescue can teach patterns of irresponsibility and does not create long term transformation, but rather short term satisfaction.

But aren't we supposed to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and give to everyone who asks?

Why aren't answers easier?

Bart Campolo* told a story on the God's Politics blog today - he describes the struggle of loving a neighbor who knows how to manipulate him:

Lately I find myself wondering about that bargain, about whether the ‘grace’ my friends and I give our neighbors here is anything like the real thing. I mean, on one level offering our love without condition to broken people in a hard place sounds like a righteous thing to do. Moving into this neighborhood to establish genuine friendships across seemingly insurmountable barriers of race, class, and culture sounds more authentic than just dropping in to establish food, clothing, medical care, education, or housing programs. . .

. . . Giving grace? Maybe. But if it is grace at all, it certainly isn’t the same kind that God gives. God, after all, is no sucker. He may make all the goodness in the world available to anyone who wants it, but as far as I can tell, you have to actually want that goodness in order to actualize it. God makes the first move, over and over until you respond, but it takes two to tango. The gift is being shown the way, and being allowed to learn how to dance in good company, so you show up in shape for the party.

I don't know how to resolve this tension, maybe you do.

I think though, that it's like the Donald Miller book Blue Like Jazz says, "I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. . . . I used to not like God because God didn't resolve."

Sometimes we are invited to live in the place of the unresolved.






*Bart gets a star because:
1- He used to work at Park Avenue;
2 - He wrote a chapter in one of his books about a friend of mine;
3- I hear that when he led 6th Grade Traveling Camp he lit his chest hair on fire on the beach on Madeline Island (This is something that I never did when I was leading the trip.) ;o)


**if you google image search "empathy" you get really weird things, try it