The Compassionator

Transcript

good evening everybody thank you for for uh coming uh to the class tonight I want to share a little bit about a really powerful

um attribute of God that that affects each one of us and it has some richness behind it in uh in the Hebrew language that that I want to kind of share

um let me start with uh a little bit of an introduction um there have been some uh babies that have been born recently

um I didn't I wasn't able to get like recent uh maternity picks except for one brother Ben's sister apparently uh just recently posted uh Dan and dassey

um who are actually in Stoughton

um not too long ago

um what did I do I broke it well hold on one second

um

everything's broken

that's not good

let's try this again

um so anyway Dan and dassey just recently I think yesterday posted uh

um a picture um and because dassy is expecting very soon

um but uh this is an old picture of

um of Kara I think she was pregnant with Joel at this time and I managed to dig out um and just another person that I none of us know that um is just very pregnant um to get you thinking about the following um so mothers that are in the audience think back uh to when you were pregnant other women and men this is going to be a little harder for us men especially try to imagine try to imagine what it must be like to be um pregnant remember what it was like to be pregnant um there's a small child growing and developing inside your womb uh you like you have to start thinking differently about what you eat and drink knowing that you're eating for two is this young life is now inside of you cradled in this protective environment nurtured loved

supplied with the oxygen the food the nutrients it needs for life and growth and there's this special bond that's forming even before the child is born

between you and the child and and that Bond of course continues to grow after birth now I do have some recent pictures of the newborns of of uh Nora and Clara um here so now after they're born

um now you can see that young life that was hidden from view for so long for nine months um and now they're they're totally dependent upon you for survival you feed them you change them you clean them you care for them you hold them gently and rock them when they cry you protect them and you love them dearly you have compassion for this fragile vulnerable child

I want you to keep that image in mind and and we'll see that it's actually very well connected to the idea of of what compassion is

um and so

uh thank you Jim for reading from Exodus 34 um God

revealing the attributes of his character

um and each of these attributes

deserve not just like a whole series of Bible School classes

um but a lifetime of study and reflection these attributes of God uh that he's compat the Lord the Lord the compassionate and gracious God slow to anger abounding in loyal love and faithfulness keeping loyal love for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgression sin

but he by no means leaves the guilty unpunished responding to Trend the transgression of the fathers by dealing with the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation

so among those attributes those really really important attributes of God that he revealed to Moses the very first is the compassionate God the compassionate God

um and on the context just considering

um you know with a build up to this event uh Moses was was asking God if you if if you're pleased with me teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you remember that this nation is your people Moses was seeking to be taught by God about God's ways and what was revealed to him reflects you know God's glory God's character reflects his ways and T and that's what Moses wanted to be taught Moses said show me Your Glory isn't it interesting that that God's glory he he could have you know had a hurricane come through he could have had lightning and thunder he could have had all kinds of but he chose

to show his glory through those attributes

and those attributes and and he said the Lord said uh I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you

um

and I will Proclaim my name the Lord in your presence I will have mercy on whom I have mercy now of compassion on whom I will have compassion

um he's high he's highlighting actually those first two characteristics only instead of adjectives and in verbal form uh and he said but you can't see my face for no one might see my face and live

then the Lord said there's a place near me where you may stand on a rock then when my glory passes by I will put you in the cleft of The Rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by

then I will remove my hand and you will see my back but my face must not be seen

so that's that's kind of the a little bit of the the context of of God's revelation his proclamation of his character of his glory in those attributes and as we said he leads off with compassion so you know what is compassion we think of the English word um it comes from

uh the come part prefix means with and potty uh means to bear or to suffer so literally it means suffering with another a sensation of Sorrow excited by distress or misfortunes of another pity commiseration according to Webster and in dictionary.com it says a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who's stricken by misfortune accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering

um you know just a really really powerful

uh thing compassion

um and it's so important uh as an attribute of God that God you know begins with it and

you know the the Jews recognized just how important that aspect of God was a favorite name for God in the talmud was uh rahmana the compassionate one uh that comes from that uh that same word uh compassionate um in in Exodus 34 6. and it's not just the talmud which which actually gives a name for God or a title for God uh describing him as the compassionate one uh we could look in in the scriptures a couple places in the scriptures one of which is Isaiah 54 verse 10 which says for the mountains made apart the hills may be removed but my steadfast love shall not depart from you and my Covenant of Peace shall not be removed says the Lord who has compassion on you

that that last line

um the literally says the one who has compassion on you Yahweh and and that whole part that I've underlined the one who has compassion on you is one word in Hebrew it's a part of Sybil uh so it's like a noun describing God

uh coming from a verb and that's kind of awkward to say you know all those things so

it's

um but if I was thinking just brainstorming okay if I could put a name you know condense that into a one word how would I do it I came up with the compassionator um God is God is uh you know the one who shows compassion but you know it sounds a little uh

I don't know weird so I guess that that's not gonna probably catch on obviously as a name but um but God is the one who who gives compassion we could even we could use that as a title for God and we have titles for God that we we have like the Lord of hosts um the

and and I've I've shared with uh

brother Jim you know another uh participle describing God as you know the Lord your healer

um God is our healer that's that's a powerful thing it's like we could make this list of of titles of God um and I think we would actually find that there's actually quite a few beyond the the ones we normally think of um like you know the Lord of hosts or El Shaddai and those kinds of things

add to that list uh the one who has compassion on you

well this word in in Exodus 34 um was uh rahoon uh comes from a verb which this participle um is is taken from as well the root verb is uh the word but

everywhere in the scriptures except for one time it's actually in a in a more intensive form uh and we put put it in the construct What's called the pl construct which is a more intensive Forbes so it's and yeah and those um and those and 99.99 of the passages

um and so I put up just how does the some of these some common versions like translate uh Recon the verb um and you know to have mercy was the dominant one in the King James and a number of us use the King James as a primary Bible so it's um much to see kind of how it's uh translated there um in the dominant ways but also the modern versions I think of rightly shifted the weight more towards compassion so ESV has uh almost half the time um to show compassion on

and the NIV and the nasb actually go with close to three quarters of the time to have compassion or show compassion on

and I think that's the dominant meaning of the word to have mercy captures part of the meaning

um when we have compassion showing Mercy is one aspect of that but it's it's a much richer thing than just that

um lexicon looking at uh the

ological workbook of the Old Testament it says that means to it refers to a deep love usually of a superior for an inferior it's rooted in some natural bond

and it's used for the Deep inward feeling that we ver know variously as compassion pity uh Mercy

it's also worth noting that 80 percent of the time in the Bible this word is referring to God God is the compassionator the one who has compassion um so just yeah well that is a background now back to the the pie charts for a minute uh in the King James

a pie there the little yellow sliver there uh loru Hama uh

does anybody know what that is

Bob can you help us do you know where that's from

Uncle Bobby are accidentally off of mute

what's that Aaliyah

it is it does mean without compassion the low my daughter said doesn't mean without commercial the low in the front is like a negative it means not um or without

um or no and

um you can see in the second part after the low the rouhama there's that that Roots the rhm letters the all Hebrew words are usually almost always based on a three-letter root um and you can see that root in there

well

it comes from the the story of Hosea uh and less importantly my personal history exploring this word actually starts in the book of Hosea

um back as a teen oh well so before my heart more importantly uh Hosea the story The the prophet lived an enacted parable and he takes a prostitute for a wife according to the command of God which was a symbol of of Israel's on faithfulness it says in chapter one verse 2 when the Lord began to speak through Hosea the Lord said to him go take for yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord so he married Gomer the daughter of De blame and she conceived and bore him a son so talk about a tough job to have to take on um that's that's what uh you know the Heartbreak that Hosea had to go through because his wife did not remain faithful to him she went off and and chased other lovers and and broke his heart sure

um but in in verse one before before she left they they had three children um these three children with strange names Jezreel Lo ruhama and lo Ami

um so back when I was a

um pre-teen I guess I had a a King James Bible given to me as an elementary student and these weird names were there and I I actually looked in it I still have that that King James Bible and it uh you know loami had a little footnote not my people but there was no note for load rahama um the story continues as a teenager I I got myself an RSV

um to try to help me understand and Modern English a little bit better the the Bible and uh those names were translated and we had uh in my Bible then it was Jezreel not pitied and not my people

so that you know when translators come across a name in in the Bible they

they have a tough decision because the name often in Hebrew carries meanings and I found that fascinating um as a young person and um and continue to find it interesting to kind of see the meanings and the play on words that are so often there and place names and people names

um so what a horrible name to get I mean imagine you're a kid and you're named not pidied or not my people um not really um the luckiest name to get you get I think you get some um pretty bad uh

razzing in school from from from your schoolmates when that's your name you're like I'm not pitied I mean um yeah anyway um so the kids also you know were part of the enacted parable they expressed the names expressed that God was would did not have these uh feelings for his people anymore because they have they had they had abandoned him they'd abandoned him um and yet there was hope expressed at the end of chapter one it says the people of Judah and the people of Israel will be gathered together they will appoint for themselves one leader and will flourish in the land certainly the day of Jezreel will be great and into the next chapter then you will call your brother my people you will call your sister pity rukama

um so

um as a side note again consuming my personal story um I became interested in kind of exploring the this word and and tracing it throughout the scriptures a little bit more uh when I was in university one of my classmates in in Hebrew class chose we get to pick a Hebrew name as well as our English name and we just pretty much used our Hebrew name all throughout and the class and one of my classmates chose rukama from this passage uh and I recognized uh where she got her name from and it was just now I was studying Hebrew and learning more about it I kind of explored it and and saw that it really has to do with this compassion that God had uh for his people

there's another side note she was actually rukama was actually the mother of one of my high school classmates which is kind of a weird Small World experience when you're at a university with a day school population of sixty thousand to end up in a class with the mother of a high school friend which was um interesting but anyway um her choosing that name sparked me to dig into the word a little bit more um and that started an interest that I that actually keep coming back to um every now and again things kind of redirect me to to explore this and think about it a little bit more

so I mentioned the RSV also the net and the nasb use pity

um which

I don't really like that translation um and probably

um well we'll come back to that hold on let's let's take a look at the naming in chapter one verse six Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter and then the Lord said to Hosea call her lo ruchama which means not loved for I will no longer show love

uhm which is our word again here to Israel that I should at all forgive them yet I will show love reachem to Judah and I will save them not by Bow sword or battle but by or by horses or Horsemen but I the Lord their God will save them and after she had weaned Lo rukama Gomer had another son and the Lord said call him Lo Ami which means not my people or you are not my people and I'm not your God

so

um our focus is on on that

um which again was translated pity in the NIV here uh they and the newest NIV they chose to like not really make a decision they chose to do both give the the Hebrew name and then kind of give a little translation right afterwards which means not loved um but

it's a little awkward to kind of say um I think what should be more accurate which is one who has not received compassion um so not loved is a little bit more concise and they already stretched it out the uh to one two three four five words um six words so

um can't blame them for for doing that but but again this is realize that this underneath here is this word for compassion to show compassion or in this case not have compassion shown to you um because that's the state that that Israel was in at the time and that really is the I think a better translation I the pity translation is is nice and short but

um probably because as a teenager uh in the 80s I think my mind was poisoned by pop culture and pity brings this to mind um Minister T saying

um apologize for that little uh inner introduction interjection but anyhow um so I think it's really about the one who's not received compassion you know it's an awkward phrase yeah but that's that's I think more to the point so we have here

um you know this current state of Israel not receiving compassion not being God's people anymore

um but but we also have the the picture of Hope

um So currently as it stood at this time you know not my people that's that's just horrible that's it and and I am not your god um that's really a reversal of the promises to Abraham a reversal of God's promise to be there gone and for them to be his people

um it's just tragic uh and uh that would have struck to the heart of these children of Abraham

um so hosea's

prophecy continues in chapter two um because God's compassion is returns there's a call to repentance uh

Hosea says plead earnestly with your mother or God says two

um

oh it's

um

God is saying in this enacted Parable plead earnestly with your mother for she is not my wife and I am not her husband so that she may put an end to her adulterous lifestyle and turn away from her sexual immoral Behavior and jumping to verse 14 of chapter two however

in the future I will Allure her I will lead her back into the Wilderness and speak tenderly to her so God's expressing his desire to win Israel back to through love and compassion and tenderness and kindness to to bring them back from this unfaithfulness that they were currently practicing

and

he says in verse 19 I will betroth you to me forever I will betroth you in righteousness and Justice in love and compassion

and I will verse 20 I will betrayal you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord

um

in verse 19 that compassion word is a

a related word to our to our root um here

and it's

it's really the plural of the word racham just the the same as our verb with just different vowel pointings and

it's often translated Tender Mercies in the King James which I do which I like is a really good a translation of this

um in the ESV you get mercy and compassion only about nine times so

um compassion was just only four times in the King James it's nine times the and the uh ESV

um but again the dominant meaning this is Shifting as you get to more modern translations

um compassion and then in the net is like 25 times or some flavor of compassion um a little more than half and close to three quarters of the of the NAT the nasb uh and the NIV really capture this compassion idea

um but it's the plural it's the compassions um of the lord it's it's a often most often it's in this plural form

and it captures uh the

not only the idea of compassion but it also is an anatomical kind of a term it's like the the core the the core of your being um the idea of uh like the bowels of your core um which is where feelings come from in the Hebrew mindset

um so you see we see that word again in uh the end of the chapter um I'll actually start back to the verb again I will plant for myself uh of her for myself in the land and I will the the people of Israel and I will show my love we come to the one I called not my loved one and I will say to those called not my people you are my people and they will say you are my God this beautiful prophecy of of God's people being restored to their relationship with God they're they're repenting and God welcoming them with compassion and open arms

so I love the story of Jose it's just a beautiful enacted Parable that speaks of God's God's love and compassion for his people despite their uh unfaithfulness and God's promise to to win them back through through speaking tenderly and lovingly to his bride

Peter alludes to this beautiful story when he says in First Peter 2 verse 9 you are a chosen people a royal priesthood a holy nation a people belonging to God so you may declare the Praises of him who called you out of Darkness into his wonderful light once you are a people but now you are the people of God once you had not received Mercy but now you have received Mercy

um

there's another husband bride image in Isaiah 54 um

beginning in verse 5 for your makers your husband the Lord of hosts is his name the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer for the Lord has called you like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit like a wife of Youth when she's cast off says your lord for a brief moment I deserted you but with great compassion um rahmanim here get only the very great compassion I will gather you in overflowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you says the Lord your Redeemer this is like the days of Noah to me as I swore that the Waters of Noah should no more go over the Earth so I was sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you for the mountains made a part and the hills may be removed but my steadfast love shall not depart from you in my Covenant of Peace shall not be removed says the Lord who has compassion on you

so

uh that's that's actually the context of that uh verse 10 that we we uh looked at earlier which speaks of you know this the The God Who has compassion one who has compassion on you almost as a title of God

um so understand this word a little bit more this kind of the the bowels from which feelings flow uh there's we can look back to Genesis in Genesis 43 in the story of Joseph um when Jacob's sons are about to go back to Egypt to to because they ran out of grain uh Simon was left behind he's he's saying Abraham said or sorry Jacob says and may God Almighty grant you Mercy

before the man so that he he will let you and your other older brother Benjamin come back to you if I am as for me if I'm bereaved I am bereaved

um so here they were in this vulnerable situation Jacob knew they were in a perilous situation they they had this problem of the you know the money looks like they stole the money you know they have to go back they're dependent on this man for for getting some food to survive they needed rahamim they needed Mercy they needed compassion

um and then the word shows up again in the same chapter when Joseph uh is about to reveal himself it says deeply moved at the sight of his brother Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep he went into a private room and wept there

it sounds very different but it's because it's a Hebrew idiom idioms are notoriously difficult to translate but it has the idea well let's look at a few translations and how they try to to capture it the King James Goes a little more literal his bowels did yearn so the rakamim referring to the the core of his being the RSV moved it up a little bit a little bit more modern where we think of feelings coming from in our in our language his heart yearned for his brother the SV says his compassion rewarm capturing the fact that rahamim is has this idea of compassion and net has overcome by affection now just imagine what it'd been like for Joseph he'd this has been over a decade perhaps as long as two decades I mean we don't know how long he was a slave repotifer

um after and how long was in prison before he meeting the Butler and the baker but after they uh left the prison it mentions there was two full years or agonizingly in Hebrew two years of days he waits no sign of his request for them to remember him uh showing any fruit and then finally Jacob's Pharaoh's dream comes and and he's restored out of prison and then you know you have the seven years of plenty and now we're two years into the family think how long it's been since he's seen his brother um and that's why these feelings are so deep for for Joseph

the same phrase

this deep feeling that's expressed coming from the core of one's being is used in another familiar story in First Kings chapter three when the the two prostitutes come before Solomon and it's it's a kind of a test of his wisdom and he obviously passes it with flying colors um because

he said you know they both claim oh this you know one of them one of them's son had died uh in the night

um in their sleep

and then they started fighting over the baby that remained and and they come before Solomon

um and Solomon says okay take a knife sword and split the child into and everybody gets half and that'll solve the problem uh and the response of the mother the true mother is in verse 26 the woman whose son was alive was filled with compassion for her son uh and she said to the king please my Lord give the give the her the living baby don't kill him

um but the other said neither I nor you shall have him cut him into so very clearly uh Solomon could tell who the real mother was and he said nope goes to the it goes to her but imagine that feeling here's the the woman who remember those feelings that I asked you to think about either imagining if you're in my shoes or remembering if you are a mother this mother had had this child in her in her womb has she been cradling them nurturing and protecting them

um and and both before and after birth

and

and now she's about to about to she's about to lose him because the king is saying cutting in half I'm just her feelings um are coming from deep within her uh and trying to capture that uh in different translations the ESV says because her heart yearned for her son again not literal it's bringing more to our experience we think of our feelings coming from up here

but the but the King James a little bit more literally says her bowels yearn for her son like deep down in her core or where the in the Hebrew mindset our feelings come from that's what she was feeling

and this actually brings out an interesting connection the

there's another word that uses these same three uh letter same three letters of a root um but the vowels have changed a little bit and it becomes and

uh is a word which which ties into this this this young mother in First Kings three

um because requiem means Womb

so

you can see the tie-in between compassion

uh and a womb

um a mother has this deep compassion for the child who was in their womb who came from their womb to the world

um this is uh our son Jacob when he was first born um and you can see that what was it game yes

too okay all right forgive me I didn't check they do look yeah they're Brothers they look similar right so

um

so it's it's isn't it it's not surprising that there's this fascinating connection between the the Hebrew concept of compassion um linked to the the deep love a mother has for the child in her room in her womb so

the deep love that recognizes the helplessness of this child this child will not survive on their own and this mother will do anything to protect and nurture this delicate life so

wreck him a beautiful word with a beautiful connection uh it's related to The Compassion the mother has for her child before and after they they leave the womb and and this really expresses the the depth of the sense uh of this word this yeah this word in Hebrew

and it leads to another passage that that uh where God actually Compares his compassion to The Compassion of a mother's love and it actually exceeds that compassion

in Isaiah 49 verse 15 it says can a woman forget her nursing child that she shouldn't have no compassion on the son of her womb

even these may forget yet I will not forget you behold I have engraved you on the palms of my hands your walls are continually before me

uh is it surprising that God would like him liking himself to a woman

um well remember God created man in his own image and the image of God he created the him male and female he created them

yes God is labeled with masculine pronouns he is our father but remember the limits of language both both male and female according to Genesis 1 are in the image of God and both carry attributes of of God's likeness

so a mother's love and compassion for a child mirrors

this attribute of God's glory is compassion in a way that uh that the male humans don't quite

um capture as fully

um so the image of God as this

uh mother who loves her child just

with with

unending compassion

uh the context of that passage also has this has the word compassion a number of times there are verb that we were looking at a couple verses before they will neither hunger not not hunger or thirst nor will they scorching heat or sun strike them down for he who has compassion on them will lead them and he will guide them

Springs of water shout for Joy you heavens and rejoice you Earth Break Forth into shouting mountains

for the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted

so that leads us to the idea of reflecting God's character if God is one of the most important attributes of God is his compassion then we should be reflecting that as well as as people in the image of God

the tamalytic rabbi is considered compassion be one of the three distinguishing marks of the Jewish people um so that's how important they saw it as people having to reflect this attribute of God this characteristic of God

um

uh another quote in in Jewish teaching compassion is among the highest of Virtues as is as is its opposite cruelty among the worst of vices

so keeping all that in mind is it any surprise that Jesus embodied compassion we see so many passages just here's just a few of them uh when he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them and healed they're sick

God called the disciples to him and said I have compassion for these people they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat and do not want to send them away hungry or they may collapse on the way

Jesus the son of the Father Who Bore the image of his father more completely than anybody else obviously demonstrated compassion should not be surprising and it shouldn't be surprising that he taught compassion as well

um Luke 6 36 yeah we're familiar with it as be merciful as your father is merciful but consider the revised English Bible be compassionate as your father is compassionate and justification for that translation is octieremon the the Greek word there is the in the Septuagint is the mo is the most often used word to translate the compassions uh of of the Lord

um the uh modern Hebrew New Testament In this passage translates

um using the word uh compassion as well so you know Mercy you know captures part of it but

I Think Jesus is calling us to compassion as well be compassionate as your father is compassionate that first attribute of God should be an attribute of our character as well

Jesus had a number of lessons on compassion

um he not only demonstrated it in his life he taught us about it with these beautiful uh word pictures

like this one but he while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him and he ran to his son and threw his arms around him and kissed him Jesus paints this moving picture of God's deep yearning for a lost son to return for us to return to him when we've strayed

and in this move in this lesson Jesus has the lesson of the older brother for us to remember when we see our brother return and repent you know we should we should be sharing in the joy of the father who has this compassion and and love for a son and is willing to overlook what the son had done because he has turned away from that life and is returning to his father

another powerful lesson um whoops hold on um Jesus paints him no sorry forgive me that

um another powerful lesson in this picture

but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him he had compassion on him

he cared for his needs the Samaritan he personally sacrificed time and money to help one in need and really this is a picture of Jesus what he has done for us Jesus the Good Samaritan

has saved us when we were as good as dead and has shown mercy and kindness and love and compassion and bound up our wounds and brought us to an end the Ecclesia where he asks our brethren like he asked like the Samaritan asked The Innkeeper to care for this injured person

Jesus as her Brethren to care for us until he returns

and he asked us to care for others who come into the the house

the Inn to care for them until he returns

he asked us to have compassion like that Samaritan did

and another lesson on compassion the servant's master took pity uh or the King James moved with compassion on him canceled the debt and let him go you know you know the parable the servant who owed 10 000 talents millions of dollars in today's um you know money you know of a day's wage or Year's wages like say forty thousand dollars that'd be 400 million dollars even if it was you know a Year's wage minimum wage is 25 000 or something like we're talking 2500 million dollars uh or sorry 250 million dollars anyway crazy amount of money that's the debt that this man forgave that the ruler forgave the servant and Jesus taught us to recognize that that is a picture of our debt to God God has shown us incredible compassion and so we need to turn and show it to others

you know in so many passages teach

um so so that's Jesus teaching um but and throughout the scriptures God is teaching us

to have that kind of compassion for one another and for those in need so many passages teach of God's care and concern for the vulnerable of society the stranger the poor the Widow the orphan

one beautiful verse at the end of Hosea we looked at Hosea was expressed as God's compassion for the orphan for in you in God the fatherless find compassion

you know in the law we have God caring for the Sojourner the fatherless the Widow by by telling Israelites the Israelites that they we're supposed to leave the gleanings of their field so that these people who are in need could go through and pick up the the Stray pieces of of grain and um the Stray olives on the vine grapes on the vine so that they could be sustained God had a had a heart for these people

um

compassion one one thing I heard said about compassion is it's recognizing suffering and then taking action to help

also had said the opposite of Love is indifference compassion is is the opposite of indifference it's it's seeing a need and and having a heart for that need and and doing something about it

and and we we do there there's in the Brotherhood there are so many examples of in our community of how people have showed compassion I I can just think of a few examples um I don't know how many of you know about uh brother Alan Overton um who's kind of called the the

um the Schindler of rugby England was a crystal brother

um who helped hundreds of uh evacuees from Nazi Germany have a place a home um and and

Refuge from the certain death that they would have faced uh in Hitler's Germany

um hundreds of of children taken in by Believers many with great sacrifice

um if you haven't heard a red brother Jason Hensley's book on the Kinder transport or heard some of his interviews um online look it up um do it it's it's really really really inspiring

um and the article mentions that it it just touched his heart when he when when brother Alan saw the plight of of these these children um who were facing certain death it touched his heart that's that's compassion

um another way that I see in the Brotherhood and passion uh coming out and Christoph and Charities like Mila day and Agape in action um you know we were in in Kenya and saw the the powerful things that are being done by with the support of people from you know this country and elsewhere in the Brotherhood the nutrition drink program the care for the widows and the widows program

um so as a Brotherhood there are things that we are doing well uh that are demonstrating compassion

and I want to think about both the positives and the negatives if we close out the class um some discussion questions

um can you you know thinking about our Ecclesia some positives

um and in our region you know prayer requests I think are a great example of compassion recognizing the needs and having a heart for the needs of our brothers and sisters

um the welcome that the Stoughton Ecclesia has has given to refugees and the care and support they've given to the people who are Strangers In a Strange Land as somebody who was a Stranger in a Strange Land but without the added burden of of being a you know a refugee who's you know fleeing for his life from his homeland but just being a stranger and and you know being in a country that's not my own or my language is not the dominant language being spoken I can appreciate just how powerful that is uh to to have that kind of

love and support of of I depended on it when I was you know in another country

um you know the support in our Collegiate for Agape in action and actually my you know I think back on my first experience that stood my very first visit uh was when you invited uh brother James and sister Deb Flint to come and speak about Agape in action um it was a wonderful I saw the love and support of our brethren in Stoughton and and it it

stuck in my heart and in my mind

um

in our you know a little bit more extended community in New England the Swahili program at Eastern christophian Bible school I I recognize that people in the community had it in their heart that we need to recognize the needs of our brothers that that are in a different culture and and really could benefit from having a little sometimes a little bit more critical mass of brothers and sisters who share uh language and culture for a time having that Fellowship

um as well as the fellowship of of the Native Americans not Native Americans but people who are who grew up America um

that that was a wonderful experience and I'm so glad to hear that we're doing it again this year at Eastern um I know so discussion can you think of other reasons other positive things that you see you can think of uh in our body

um

in New England and in Stoughton that that show compassion anybody have anything to share