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good morning and welcome to earthing baptist church couple of notices and firstly we are continuing today with our series that started last week our new preaching series called nurturing a christ-like culture and it's the second in the series today and we'll be looking at the importance of nurturing empathy also touching upon the links between empathy and compassion the book that we are loosely basing the series on is this a church called tov and that is by scott mcknight and laura barringer and that's optional whether you get that and you read that over the weeks as well second notice is that something really important we're going to be doing every week or so and that is interviewing somebody who has been working during the time of the pandemic and who is working now and trying to get insight into the challenges that they've faced and asking them how we can be praying for them for example those who work within the nhs social workers whatever job they're doing which is helping this country and other people at the moment and finally the other notice is that we have facebook live 10 minutes after this service this morning and please do join us if you haven't joined before because it gives you an opportunity to ask questions to make comments on facebook and we can react to those and peter and i have been doing that for a few weeks now and this week actually we have a guest who is coming to join me to discuss the service and the sermon and that is linda donaldson who is a baptist minister and also she is working at northern baptist college but part-time linda is on sabbatical at the moment and she has kindly agreed to watch the service and also to give some of her thoughts about some of the things we're touching upon so join us after the service psalm 145 the lord is gracious and compassionate slow to anger and rich in love the lord is good to all he has compassion on all he has made amen oh god of love i come [Music] i can't explain all the things i see but i trust in you every moment you hear my prayer you go before how good it is is oh god of strength your hand is on my life bringing peace our how good it is how good it is is how good it is how good it is if you try to describe what god is like it could be difficult or daunting but when the people who wrote the bible pondered the mystery of god they consistently described god's character in this way compassionate and gracious slow to anger overflowing with loyal love and faithfulness the very first word used in this description of god is compassionate or in hebrew rachum this word also appears as a noun or compassion and what's fascinating is that both of these words are related to the hebrew word for womb so compassion in the hebrew bible is centered on a person's core and the word invites us to imagine a mother's tender feelings for her vulnerable infant so rahum is a word that conveys intense emotion sometimes it's even translated as deeply moved like in the story of king solomon who meets two women who've just given birth one of their babies sadly dies but then both women claim that the baby still living is theirs as a test solomon says to cut the baby in two and give each mother a half and the baby's real mother is deeply moved she would rather the other woman take her baby than see her child die and it's her compassion that reveals that she's the true mother but rahu isn't just an emotional word it also involves action and surprisingly the word is used most often to describe god's actions motivated by his emotions like when the israelites are suffering and oppressed in egypt god hears their cries and is compelled by his compassion his ham to rescue them then as the israelites travel through the dangerous wilderness they're hungry and thirsty and god is rahum caring for them as his own child he provides everything they need food water and clothing as he personally guides them so it's no surprise that when yahweh reveals his character to the israelites in the wilderness he begins by saying he's compassionate but despite yahweh's continual rakhim the israelites turn away from him time and again they reject yahweh's compassion and instead give their allegiance to other gods and rather than showing compassion to each other they do violence and their rebellion results in exile and they're scattered among the nations and it's in this dark moment in israel's story that we come to the book of isaiah where yahweh compares himself to a mother full of rakhamim toward her baby he says can a mother forget her nursing child or have no compassion or rahamim on the child of her womb even if she forgets i will not forget you god is full of motherly compassion and he will rescue his people and as you read further in isaiah you realize that god is going to do this by entering into the suffering of humanity and this points forward to a time when jesus comes on the scene he is yahweh's deep compassion become human in greek the word compassion is oktirmos and as jesus embraces the sick and cares for the outcast he is deeply moved by human suffering jesus compares himself to a mother hen using her wings to shield her chicks from danger as he gathers people into his embrace and in the ultimate expression of wake tirmas jesus is moved by compassion to enter into humanity's suffering into death itself to rescue and bring us near to god and it's this same life of compassion that jesus calls his followers to imitate allowing ourselves to be moved by the pain of others to embrace the hurting and to participate in relieving suffering in the world in this way we too can embody the compassion of yahweh or in jesus words be compassionate just as your father is compassionate now you can see how fitting it is that compassionate is the first word god uses to describe himself so when we're in pain or see others suffering we can be certain that god is deeply moved to respond and that he's there to meet us with his deep compassion [Music] everyone needs compassion everyone needs forgiveness my god [Music] [Applause] [Music] fill my life again he jesus conquered the grave [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] as we come to this time of offering let's start by being still and silent and recall that before we say anything god loves us and god's compassion for us fails not lord jesus we thank you for loving us so much that you endure the cross for our salvation we thank you that amidst the pain and humiliation of golgotha you forgave your persecutors and prayed for them fill us with such wonder at your suffering love that we might long to be transformed by it woo us with your costly compassion that we might become compassionate people open to others in their need living lord we celebrate your resurrection for the way of your cross is shown to be the way of our salvation your love and forgiveness are displayed as the keys of our redemption and your sacrificial love is offered as the foundation of our hope lord jesus help us to follow and now we bring what we have to offer as a sign of all we have and all we are accept this offering the life of this fellowship worthing baptist church and our witness to the gospel the good news accept our day-to-day living the things we pray for and the things we hope for accept all these things bless them and weave them into your purposes to your glory and praise amen the reading is from luke 4 verses 18 to 19. the spirit of the lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set their press free and to become the year of the lord's favor this is the start of jesus's ministry when he returned to the hometown of nazareth and this is what's called his manifesto or the nazareth manifesto and it makes clear that he's coming to reach and bring healing to all people that's everybody it's actually the extent of his compassion that got him into trouble just after he read this people there gathered and they tried to throw him off the the cliff mount precipice because they were offended he was making it clear that his good news was for all people including israel's enemies as well tov gospel good news for everybody in our new series we're looking at a tov culture hebrew word for good a good culture what's good what's a good culture for a church to have and the first of seven we're looking today at nurturing empathy empathy what's empathy well it's the ability to understand another person's thoughts and feelings in a situation from their point of view it's about sharing the feelings of another often being said it's about the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes it's not just cognitive it's not just understanding with our heads but it's getting in touch with another person's feelings getting in touch with another person's pain and actually this kind of empathy can bring healing in itself because it develops that beautiful thing a connection between two people but sometimes empathy is just the start there's something that better comes out of empathy and that's because empathy can lead to compassion it's often been said that compassion is an outworking of empathy in latin compartie means suffer with can party compassion suffering being alongside somebody else in their suffering suffering becomes our suffering the suffering of another becomes our suffering mother teresa often said that compassion is love in action so we have this wonderful pattern empathy recognizing suffering flowing over to compassion being moved to act out of our empathy out of our compassion out of our love the good news is that god recognized our suffering the suffering of humanity and he had compassion he acted upon that empathy he came in the person of his son jesus and jesus as he walked around this earth in his coming when he met with people who suffered and who were marginalized he had empathy and out of that empathy came compassion compassion for the poor the prisoners the blind the oppressed everybody and he was moved to do something about all of that out of compassion brenny brown wonderful teacher and in her ted talk on empathy she says this empathy is more than simply noticing someone's pain more than noticing the hole they are in it's climbing down the hole to sit beside them making yourself vulnerable to sincerely connect with them jesus saw the hole we were in and he joined us and he acted this jesus manifesto which he declares in nazareth is now the church's manifesto and this is why we need a culture of empathy and compassion every church needs that both within the church but outwards towards everyone sadly that's not always the case it hasn't always been extended to people outside of churches who are seen as different a culture of empathy seeing other people's oppression their pain understanding and feeling with them moving us to compassion to do something about it for the good for the tov scott and laura in their book the book that we're basing this series on say this church is designed by god to be a place of empathy and compassion where we wrap our arms around the suffering and the needy of this world they say if we are to follow jesus we must have a heart for the wounded and the marginalized scott and laura often also say in the book that sadly many churches lack empathy and therefore lack compassion what about worthing baptist church well i think many of us already recognize where god has been at work with us in this but we can't rest on our laurels we need to nurture empathy and compassion that's generally because empathy and compassion are always good to any individual but the book gives important examples highlighting the cry of particular groups of people who have been wounded who have been hurt who have been oppressed and marginalized and still are in this world and within many churches gives the example women who aren't permitted to use their gifts in a church gives the example of the widowed who sometimes can slide from participation to the back seats when the partner dies and where their loneliness isn't recognized it recognizes the physically challenged in this book saying we need to notice and then for example adapt buildings also mentions the depressed and the anxious saying that they're often reluctant to share their struggle and keep it private because of the culture in a church the book also mentions the elderly who can sometimes be ignored people can become impatient with it also mention the divorce to they say are often judged within some churches many other examples come to mind and for today i've chosen four particular areas for us to briefly look at and the first of these are women remember the mark of empathy is to feel another's pain to feel their suffering the mark of compassion is to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another patriarchy male dominance has always existed it's existed in societies but also within churches not everybody can see it a bit like that fish in the water peter referred to last week not noticing the water it's so much around and has been so much around that we get used to it but there has been this historic and in many places current oppression of women women have been imprisoned in certain roles excluded from other roles some have been held captive to views of how a christian woman should be how a wife should be can you feel the captivity when that goes in a really wrong way becomes very unhealthy now for us men empathy is the starting point stopping listening to the stories of women opening up our eyes not remaining ignorant we need to be more alert to prejudice and even if that was the water patriarchy that we grew up in it's no excuse to remain unseeing and to lack empathy worthy baptist church when i came here over 11 years ago i recognized that there was such a positive view of women and an openness to women in all different roles and i loved that and that has been and remains on my heart too and on peter's and we've tried to be part of the nurturing of that and want to do that nurturing this part of our culture worthy baptist church a place where women are celebrated where women are free and i state the obvious here but it's obvious for some and it needs to be stated women are equal but it's more than that within christianity there's something called complementarianism and within that equality is recognized but also goes on to say but women still have different roles men have roles women have roles and men are the head well let's state this clearly this is different to our hearts and our understanding of the bible we want to nurture an egalitarian culture rather than a male-centric culture at worthing baptist church a culture in which every role every single role is open to women and they're given the opportunity to check out their gifting in those areas whether it be preaching teaching leadership or whatever and also no roles are confined to women we want to have that space for people who might differ in their biblical understanding if they hold their views in love but the culture of worthing baptist church is this egalitarian culture and based on our understanding of scripture which we take peter and i take very seriously women wives are not to be subject to men we believe there is mutuality in every way i love a quote peter often says these words i'm quoting peter now he says i think scripture is always pushing towards liberation within its cultural setting and we're also acutely aware that we are two male ministers in this church i think it happens to be two male ministers i reckon the church could have called a woman back when they called me or peter if it had been somebody else the church would have called a woman but within all of this we are keen to identify we have been women with preaching gifts and to encourage them and give them opportunity if they want and we are so keen we want to hear the voices of women we have been for years within this church guest preachers come linda's joining us today for our facebook live we want this to be a safe culture for women and where women have been oppressed and hurt by men we want this culture to develop of this being a place of healing too secondly mental health problems again the mark of empathy is to feel another's pain their suffering the mark of compassion is to alleviate or reduce suffering of another our culture here where there is no shame no stigma to do with mental health problems we recognize that we all have mental health we recognize that any one of us could develop mental health problems we have a culture that we want to nurture more of openness where we have empathy where we have compassion and this can lead to a form of healing and when i say healing healing not always in terms of a condition going away miraculously because sometimes that pressure can cause guilt and people with mental health problems can feel like they're a second-class citizen a christian although they're sinful that's a toxic culture but we have a nurturing culture a culture where we share stories but still we're not to rest on our laurels people have been so open in sharing their struggles and that makes it less of a stigma we promote mental health services we promote counselling and we normalize that too as a minister and peter does this in his way as well but for me i've been very open about my own counseling over the years and my phobias and anxieties in the past and they sometimes arise as well these days that's our culture openness empathy compassion thirdly ethnicity the mark of empathy is to feel another's pain and suffering the mark of compassion is to alleviate or reduce suffering of another i think awareness of racism obvious racism and subtle racism has been growing for many over the last few years and partly because of the horrors we've seen on our screens watching the news others have always been acutely aware of racism because they've lived it they've been oppressed by it thankfully i believe anyway that attitudes have been evolving over the generations but some people remain stuck here in this church we're nurturing a culture of understanding opening up our eyes and where we need to repenting changing our thinking saying sorry turning the other way and also calling racism out and challenging it i must say over my 23 years or so being a christian i've heard some shocking things come out of the mouths of christians who would consider themselves loving and they wouldn't see themselves as prejudiced thankfully that kind of thing for me anyway i'm noticing is happening less and less whilst this goes without saying i'm going to say it because it needs saying everyone is equal whatever our ethnicity and people with a variety of ethnic origins are not just welcome here but we want a culture here that we celebrate our diversity we have that culture we want to nurture that more and far from being a dominant white culture well we can also all learn from our cultural differences and celebrate that and enjoy that and finally fourthly lgbt plus lesbian gay bisexual transgender plus the mark of empathy is to feel another pain another suffering the mark of compassion is to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another now i believe churches and christians are playing catch up here and we need to and sadly not all are thankfully on the positive side some are leading the way in all of this our culture at worthing baptist church the one we're nurturing we want god to nurture even more the lgbt plus people lgbt plus people are not just welcome but we celebrate with we celebrate who they are a culture as i say this i think isn't it obvious we need a culture focus but a culture where people are allowed to be who they are encouraged to be who they are and given space to be who they are and for some it's a place where we can get alongside them on their journey of discovery about who they are for me my story peter's is similar but there's differences as well with this but for me i've had a growing empathy in this area and that was before my sabbatical four or so years ago during and since and a key part of that empathy came out of listening to people who are lgbt plus christians and those who wouldn't identify as christian or who once did and for certain reasons wouldn't any longer reading about stories and then that compassion grew the action loving action that studying i did and looking at scripture afresh in more depth is how my convictions changed and why as ministers we took big risks in this church nothing to the risks that lgbt people take but we took risks of the importance of this as i mentioned before a little bit earlier when talking about women and looking at lgbt as an example we have a culture here i believe god wants to nurture more and us to nurture cooperate with him well many people don't identify with male or female they're non-binary and this is just one example we need to respect that i believe as well and need to celebrate that because it's part of god's beautiful diversity and just as we said with women no role is closed all roles are open it's the same with all lgbt people as well and it has to be a safe place for lgbt people all lgbt people in this church and all women anybody based on gifting any role is open and i pray this applies to baptist ministry one day too we heard the really moving story of andy and andrea's story about this a few months ago that's my prayer for baptist ministry let's pray for that as well so nurturing empathy this wonderful thing for empathy the spirit of the lord is on me jesus said because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the lord's favor worthing baptist church a place where we're nurturing empathy and compassion this is key in that a tough culture here a good culture here for every adult who is already here to whom one or more of these things i've mentioned today might apply to every child or teenager already here to whom one or more of these things might apply and to anyone and everyone who comes through our doors to whom one or more of these things might apply tov good news gospel for everybody and that means everybody draw me close to you [Music] again to hear you say that i'm your friend help me find the way and bring me back to you you're help me know you you are to feel the words of your embrace [Music] you're you're as we come to close just a quick reminder 10 minutes after this service we will have facebook live and that's an opportunity for you to type in questions or comments about the service and mike's going to be joined by a special guest and they will try to weave in those questions and comments into their honest and open discussion be great if you can join us for that but if not see you next week and as usual words of blessing may the peace of the lord christ go with you wherever he may send you may he guide you through the wilderness protect you through the storm may he bring you home rejoicing at the wonders he has shown you may he bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors [Music] you