In this sermon, Dan Kent challenges us to enter into the way of empathy, which he says is crucial to our ability to connect with others by sharing in their feelings. It is a way exemplified by Jesus as he entered into the common human condition so that he might know what we experience from the inside.
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The Way of Empathy
• Dan Kent
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This sermon by Dan Kent explores the virtue of empathy, setting it in contrast to apathy. We experience empathy when we enter into the feelings of another. This is different from sympathy, where we feel for someone as we recognize their feelings as valid. And it’s the antithesis of apathy, which is the lack of concern or interest in what the other is feeling. The way of empathy is woven throughout the Bible as a virtue. Paul writes about it in 1 Corinthians 12:26, where he speaks about the experience of one part of the body suffering when another part of the body suffers. And in Romans 12:15, Paul wrote about rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. This is a relational experience, where one enters into the experience of another with whom they share life.
The way of empathy lies at the heart of who God is. Hebrews 2:17 says that Jesus became human in every way. He entered into our real life experience. He did not remain at a distance from the human condition. We read about how Jesus did this in John 11, as Jesus wept when he saw his friends mourning over the death of Lazarus. He was connected to the experience of his friends to such a degree that their emotions affected him.
Jesus shows us that we are made for connections. However, our culture shapes us to live in disconnected ways. Larry Crabb wrote that “The problem beneath our struggles is the disconnected soul.” Alienation and isolation is the pattern of this world that shapes our common lives. Empathy creates a pathway for reconnecting our lives so that we might live in the way that we are designed to live.
This way of empathy forms us to treat each other as equals, as opposed to ranking each other in a hierarchy, which ultimately leads to antipathy and violence. When we live in a ranking system, we are in constant search for what it means to be a “super-man” who lives over others. Empathy shapes us to live in a circle of connection where all are equally valued, equally embraced.
How do we walk out this way of empathy? Dan provides three tips. First, keep it relational. Empathy is not meant to be experienced at a distance. It cannot be automated or abstracted. God became human and walked as one of us in a local setting with specific people. The same is true for us. We live it out with those who are near. Secondly, keep your empathy fresh. There is time to give empathy and there is time to replenish it. We cannot give continuously to try and meet every need in the world. We must receive from God and give in a continual cycle. Third, keep your heart soft. Listen less to propaganda and influencers and more to actual people. This will create connections to real people in real situations that will open your heart to their lives.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Community, Presence of God, Relationships
Sermon Series: Wholehearted, Walk the Way
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Focus Scripture:
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1 Corinthians 12:26
If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
6 thoughts on “The Way of Empathy”
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From my prior comments on Greg’s two sermons “The Way of Contentment” and “Silence if Golden” a tad more about PAYGRADE.
Dan, I wasn’t intending but elected, on listening, to place this comment in your sermon in support of Hebrew 2:17 but then!
Thank you Dan, I’m still working on unpacking ALL your ideas stemming from EMPATHY.
I connected best, so far, to a prior comment I made, – [Taleb’s book “ANTIFRAGILE” “I think Fat Tony would consider the one sidedness of the EUCLIDIAN ALGORITHMIC left-right political process a FRAGILE sucker game”], – with your elaboration on, [actually any PRIMARY RHETORICAL TOOL opponent process], EMPATHY for oppressed victims happens ONLY when one stands with ME against my opponent VERSUS standing with GOD in the MIDDLE, with EMPATHY for BOTH, [to some degree right], sides.
I pulled your book “CONFIDENT humility” out. Taleb considers it commendable when you have books on the shelf that you want to read but just are not quite ready for. I scrolled thru your book and contract society versus Agape community caught my attention.
From the appendix: “Jesus wasn’t teaching us to condescend and serve one another; he was teaching us that we should not regard service as condescension to begin with. Service isn’t what unimportant people do for important people; it’s what equals do for each other”.
In the Tennessee Ernie Ford song, “Sixteen ton what do you get another day older and deeper in debt – St Peter don’t you call me because I can’t go – I owe my Soul to the company store”, I consider this man was given, by God, a one talent say so – but he performed it tenfold – however contract society says sorry pays the same at that level: if you want more you need to transcend above you God given talent say so however, Colossians 3:23-24, in the end God will make it right for the Agape community!
Dan, Good word and book!
“God loves everybody” as a CHOICE – [response to a code of ethics] IS vastly different from “GOD IS LOVE”
GOD is NOT a BEING, [the CALVIN one and done], but the, [NECESSARY – NO parts – PURE LIGHT], SOURCE and SUSTAINER of ALL, [CONTENGENT universe levels of subatomic virtual parts dependent for its existence], BEING
Acts 17:24-28 The GOD, who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of HEAVEN and EARTH, does NOT LIVE in temples built by human hands and he is NOT SERVED by human hands, as if he needed anything is NOT CONTENGENT, RATHER he himself GIVES, SOURCE & SUSTAINER, everyone life and breath and everything else.
From one man He made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would SEEK him and perhaps REACH OUT for him and FIND him, though he is NOT FAR, [TRANSCENDENT and CLOSE], from any one of us.
‘For in him we live and move and have our BEING [parts made of parts because God IS] As some of your own poets [Epimenides later Aratus] have said, ‘We are his offspring.
However we do have a choice to connect dancing before making a [GOD”S WILL] joyful noise or NOT!
Dan I liked this! “The problem beneath our struggles is a disconnected soul”. Larry Crab
From my “Silence if Golden” comment: “a [SELF WILL] beaten down by Cognitive Dissonance Reduction” is anything but a [GOD”S WILL] connected joyful noise.
John 1:14 The LOGOS, [the ONE GOD – SOURCE and SUSTAINER – behind ALL things – BEING], became FLESH and made his dwelling AMONG us…….FULL of GRACE and TRUTH. – So we can NOW SEE LISTEN and EXPERIENCE [God in a Bod]
1 John 4:7-12 Dear friends let us love one another, for love COMES FROM God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does NOT LOVE does NOT KNOW God, because GOD IS LOVE.
THIS is how God SHOWED his love AMONG us: He SENT his one and only Son into the world that WE might live [be SUSTAINED] through him. This is love: NOT that we loved God, but that HE LOVED US and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice FOR OUR SINS.
Dear friends, since God SO loved us, we also ought to LOVE one another….. IF we love one another, God LIVES in us and his love is MADE COMPLETE in us.
Aligns well with, from your sermon, John 17:20-21 my prayer………..that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
The best followers of the WAY are the ones that hold their lives up against Jesus and say dear GOD make me more like Jesus who WAS, [God in a Bod], & IS LOVE.
As with my “The Way of Contentment” comment: from the song: GOD IS LOVE – Finnesand
You don’t just CONTENGENTLY TOLERATE us you don’t have somewhere else to go. We’re not your TROPHY children you ABANDON when we roam. Your mercies NOT a FAVOR and your presence isn’t RUSHED.
The CROSS was not a vehicle for you to FINALLY care. When we look upon your CHARACTER, your grace was ALWAYS there; CONTENGENT ACCEPTANCE was NOT withheld from us; no need to MEASURE up.
How VAST the Father’s heart for us, we’ll never reach the END. We thought for sure we’d FOUND it but He PROVED us wrong again; so much HIGHER, so much WIDER, so much DEEPER than we know.
In reducing God to a CONTENGENT being among beings whatever picture we have isn’t BIG enough, isn’t GOOD enough and doesn’t SUM Him up; COULDN’T sum Him up.
His arms are OPEN for ALL to gather near. The CROSS has SPOKEN, there’s nothing left to FEAR. Once and for all He SHOWED how FAR His grace would go for us.
GOD IS LOVE!
Jerry, you are a force of nature. You process abundantly and contemplate deeply. I love it.
And I agree: Fat Tony would absolutely view our polarization a sucker’s game.
Thanks for reading my book, too.
Dan Kent
This message was one of only a few sermons where I disagreed with the message from a speaker. I disagree that we should limit our empathy to applied only within our existing relationships. I can have endless sympathy for others, but sympathy only leads to superficial or proverbial “thoughts and prayers” offered. Only when we empathize with the struggles of others are we motivated to *do* anything. Empathy is an activating and motivating emotion. Finally, just because a problem is perceived as “too big for me” doesn’t mean I shouldn’t allow for empathy to motivate me to act on said problem. In fact, if nobody acts on big problems, then they will never get solved.
Hi Ron. Thanks for the feedback. You raise some good points. I’m not even sure where I disagree with you. Maybe I could have worded things different, but I don’t know (my head is currently filled with today’s sermon on generosity).
I remember my focus in that sermon was on protecting people from the rampant manipulation of thought leaders and conflict entrepreneurs whose propaganda strategy involves tapping into people’s empathy to compel certain attitudes, beliefs, or behavior. I’m working with congregants crushed with anxiety, fear, and heartbreak—overwhelmed by the happenings of the world.
Meanwhile, as they press on with their heavy hearts, they are surrounded by—as Jesus called them—Pharisees who tie up heavy burdens for people but who are themselves unwilling to lift a finger to help. Many people today think the “work” of the Kingdom is to shout about injustices, to point out wrongdoing, and to rage against whoever they think are responsible—and maybe there is some value to that. But when it comes to actually helping, like actually doing work, it’s not the shouters I see at the food shelf, at the homeless shelter, or who volunteer with the youth. Suddenly, those folks are nowhere to be found. When it comes to doing anything, they’re home polishing their megaphones.
If people come help with our homelessness ministry, our food shelf, our affordable childcare, or any of our other ministries, I’m happy to listen to their diagnosis of the world’s problems. I’m less interested in a person’s passion for, say, crises on the other side of the world if they cannot even show up to help with the crises right here in our neighborhood.
On these we can agree: the world has little patience for Christians who are all talk and no practical help, that “empathy manipulation” is a real thing, and that burnout can occur. I still think empathy is a noble and Godly trait– that it moves us past mere sympathetic words to become like Jesus to pick up the burdens of others via sacrifical action. I do not have an easy answer for burnout or overwhelm, but I do not blame an abundance of empathy for that problem… maybe a failure to effectivly plan, partner, or delegate?
You’re right, Ron, empathy is a Godly trait, and the more empathy we have the better.
My main point on empathy is simply that there is a diminishing return on empathy as you move further and further away from your own life and location. To empathize is to understand intimately what someone else is experiencing, to feel what another feels. But I cannot really understand and feel the suffering of, say, a child in Nigeria, orphaned because of civil war violence. To think I can understand that intimately strikes me as presumptuous, to say the least.
Jesus healed the lepers who came to him. He didn’t heal the lepers of Sarmatia or Caledonia. He modeled a mustard seed movement, calling us into empathy for those around us, with whom we have relations. If the whole world did that, there would be peace.
This is not to say we do nothing for those around the world, it’s just to say that we prioritize those God has put in our lives. You never hear politicians, or thought leaders, or media hotshots talking about the homeless people of Maplewood Minnesota. Why not? Because those yahoos are on the prowl for bigger crises. They chase platform growth, and empathy—yours and mine—is where they want to sink their hook.
I love your passion and your empathy, and I also think empathy is centrally important in our Christian walk. It’s so important that we must guard it against the principalities and powers that seek to steal it, kill it, and destroy it, along with every other good thing.