Sunday June 29, 2025 | Dan Kent
If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
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.
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.