"Compassion First" by Pastor Steve Borgard (9/13/05)

Matt: 22 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

1Cor. 13:13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

We all set priorities in our life. Often our most difficult choice is not between good and evil, but between what is good and what is better. Choosing ice cream over castor oil is easy. Choosing one of the 31 flavors tends to be more difficult.

When it comes to living our lives, what is the best? Jesus was pressed on this issue. Was it obedience, faith, prayer, meditation, piety, education, or worship? All good things. Unequivocally, Jesus answered that the greatest activity is love. Love in and of itself summed up all of the prophets and law. The nature of this love was divine, it was a love of God and from God, but it needed to find its expression in the human, loving others as ourselves.

The Apostle Paul, upholding the mode that Jesus set forth, states that love is the greatest virtue of them all. Faith and hope are marvelous and wonderful virtues, but they must still take a back seat to love.

Too often, Christians and people of other religious faiths, have made faith a priority. They've made confessions of creeds or belief statements the test of one's rightness with God. They believe, in one sense that God is "password" protected, that only by making the right confession or saying the correct name (whether it be Buddha, Mohammed, or Jesus) do you find access to the divine. This leads to religious groups that are exclusive and elite, treating outsiders with condemnation and hatred, in order to protect the faith.

Others make hope the chief virtue. Hope has to do with future reward. Hope allows a person to endure hardship in the present, looking toward a future outcome that will redeem. As wonderful as hope is, it too can be misplaced. Suicide bombers, out of religious zeal, hoping of an eternal reward, reek havoc on society and destroy innocent lives. Christians can be so full of hope that they become "so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good."

Faith and hope are important virtues but not in and of themselves. Just as being religious or spiritual is not necessarily a wonderful thing in and of itself. Religious people of various cultures and times, have been racist, hateful, bigoted, and sexist. Wars and violence have been done in the name of God.

So, without love as the primary and guiding virtue, religion and spirituality head down the wrong road.
Since the term love has lost much of its power in our society (we love everything from candy and clothes to our latest electronic gadget) our use of "compassion" defines more accurately the idea Jesus was championing. The word compassion at its root means "womb-likeness." It is the connection that a mother has with her developing child. This connectedness is expressed by Jesus as treating others as if they were connected to us. Do to others as we would want done to us. This is the nature of compassionate action, it is the true Christian message of where God is found.

"No one has ever seen God; if we are compassionate to one another, God lives in us, and God's compassion is perfected in us. " 1 John 4:12

First Christian Church of Burbank's mission is to experience and express the compassion of God. Everyone is welcome to join us in this journey as we learn to love ourselves, each other, all others, and God. Our experience of God will only be manifest by keeping "Compassion First."