For YOU or for Them?

"I do this because of what the Lord did for me..." Exodus 13:8

For YOU or for Them?
By Rev. William Dohle

I am a learner.  I love it.  When my kids complain about school, I just smile at them.  I love to learn new things.  It's why I love what I do.  As a pastor I am constantly learning, constantly trying to understand my world.

I study with a group of Methodists down the street to learn more about how they see the world.  I hope to one day study with a rabbi and others of different faiths to understand the world from their point of view.  I love to learn!

But despite all my learning I know... there are some things I will never understand.

I will never understand how it is to go hungry day after day.  I have enough to eat.
I will never understand what it's like to see my baby starve to death.  Or watch a relative die from AIDS.
I will never understand the work it took to recover from Katrina.  Or from the earthquake in Haiti.
I will never understand living in a house as big as my garage with my entire family surrounding me.
I will never understand gathering firewood each day and praying its enough to keep warm.

Despite how much I learn, the one thing I you can't learn through a book is empathy.  You can learn sympathy, that is learning to feel sorry for the situation someone else is in.  But to learn empathy requires something more.

Maybe that is why God, as Moses is leading his people out of Egypt, says this:

"In days to come, when your son asks you 'What does this mean?' say to him, 'With a mighty hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.  When Pharaoh refused to let us go, the Lord killed every firstborn in Egypt, both man and animal.  This is why I sacrifice to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb and redeem each of my firstborn sons.  And it will be like a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead that the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his mighty hand." (Ex. 13:14-16)

These words, spoken by Moses, were not just spoken to the people leaving Egypt.  They were spoken and written for people who had long left.  They were spoken that they might have empathy for others.  These things happened to THEM!  Not just to their ancestors.  But to THEM.

That is the reason, Moses says, that we sacrifice the first-born and why we redeem our first-born sons.  Because God spared our firstborns at Passover, we redeem our firstborns even today.

Empathic understanding, the ability to understand what someone else is going through, comes only by experience.  When you go through what others went through, you gain empathy.  You understand and can relate to their experience.  In commanding his people to tell these things happened to them, God is commanding them to be empathic.  He's commanding them to remember that is was FOR THEM that all of this happened.
In Christian churches today, we celebrate this empathy.  At communion we hear, "Body of Christ, given FOR YOU."  Those two words "FOR YOU" mean that you (and I) are a part of this meal.  We sit with the disciples that night each and every time we eat and drink at the Lord's table.  We are the reason for Christ's suffering.  That your sin and pain(and mine) put Christ on the cross just as much as anyone else's.  It wasn't the disciples' failure...it was ours!

And because this meal is given FOR YOU...because Jews remember that God brought THEM out of slavery in Egypt and not just their ancestors, now we can have empathy, even for those we don't understand.  We can understand because our ancestors have gone through what they've gone through and we know how it feels.

We can say...
"We might not know what it means to go hungry day after day...but we know emptiness just the same and we can help fill that emptiness."
"We may not know what it means to have our home taken away, but we know the feeling of being homeless and we can find you a new home."
"We may not know your pain...but we know the one who bears all pain.  And his death was for you...as it was for me."

May you grow in empathy for one another as you experience anew the grace God has continued to give his people from the very beginning to today.

You instruct us, Lord, to internalize your actions to others and see ourselves through their eyes.  Give me empathy that I might love others as you love me.  Amen.