When Compassion is the Key
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
March 27, 2022
1 Peter 3:8 (Message)
8 Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions.
Too often in our world today, we confuse the concept of compassion with empathy. In reality, there is something deeper, something even more profoundly powerful, in compassion.
Just before this sermon series, I gave a sermon about compassion where I talked about the origin of the word. I believe it helps us grasp the true breadth and significance of compassion.
As a refresher, in Latin, ‘compati’ means “suffer with.” So that means, compassion is when someone else’s heartbreak becomes your heartbreak - another’s suffering becomes your suffering.
True compassion changes the way we live.
I have found the Buddhist tradition helpful in getting to the depths of compassion. In Buddhism they speak of the compassionate way as:
The Courage to See
The Courage to Feel, and
The Courage to Act
So first, to live compassionately is to courageously SEE the connection between us and those who suffer. Not only do we SEE the connection and become aware of it, but we allow ourselves to FEEL it.
And finally, it is not just to SEE and FEEL the connection, but also to ACT on it – to courageously take responsibility for those who suffer. For many to ACT is where we draw the line.
To act may mean defending the rights of someone else, or to provide opportunities for health and happiness.
Yet, to move beyond just seeing and feeling, we may need to develop or grow our own personal compassion. As Quakers that may mean spending time meditating in silence to help cultivate and fine-tune our consciousness to those around us.
Let me take a moment and ask you a query - How do you see human life? Just ponder that for a moment.
Is human life “infinitely precious” to you? How about people in other nations, other communities, or how about people in other families, are all other people as precious as your own?
Our true connectedness is not with just our own. We are bigger than our nations, communities, and even families.
As Americans, we are quick to have pride in our country, to pray for our country, and — especially — to work to make America a better, more just society.
But when we begin to presume that God holds America in special regard, or that God plays favorites when it comes to the nations of the world then we begin to lose our connectedness.
Or more appropriately, how do we see Russia, currently? Are all Russian people bad? Beth Henricks wrote beautifully about this in our “Friend to Friend” newsletter a couple of weeks ago.
Many of us were raised to see certain groups of people as bad. For me growing up, I was led to believe Russians (or at some points even people who don’t speak English), other Christian denominations, other religions, even people of different skin or hair colors, ethnicities (I don’t know how many times I heard and sadly repeated a Pollock or Blonde Joke). Some of it may have been innocent ignorance, but I sense it was more a huge lack of awareness.
This narrow thinking and speaking happens whenever we decide to draw lines, categorize people, and make it about “us vs them.”
What if we could take the higher road and find another way of approaching this?
As people who look to Jesus Christ and follow his example, what if we approached it with Christ’s compassion. I sense we might sound more like how Brian McLaren states it (I remember the first time I read this and just wanted to shout an “Amen” afterwards). McLaren says,
“Because I follow Jesus, I see you as my neighbor and I love you, as I love myself, whatever your religion.
Because I follow Jesus, I believe God loves you and accepts you just as you are.
Because I follow Jesus, I believe that the Holy Spirit is active throughout the world and that the light of Christ has already shined on you and is at work in and around you.
Because I follow Jesus, I believe that God has a special concern for the marginalized and the weak, and so I refuse to use a position of privilege, especially as a member of the world’s largest, richest, and most heavily armed religion, to harm you.
In fact, I want to be your servant, your friend, and your neighbor—to love you as God in Christ has loved me.”
That, to me, is a very strong identity; it gives me a good reason to be a Quaker or a Christian, and it promises blessing to others, not a threat.
You see, compassion frees us from the burden of our ego, whether our individual ego or that of a family, religious group, community, or even a nation. To want to be able to see, feel and act for the needs of others is a blessing. It frees us from our narrow self-interests and helps us see with the compassion of Christ.
But folks, this is not always easy – actually, it rarely is. The challenge for us is to see our connection with those who seem different than us, the nation that does not share our vision, the people whose lifestyle we can’t fully understand or embrace, and the people who down right threaten us.
Often because we don’t take time to make connections or learn, we develop within us a hatred for these people. But over time, I have learned that it is not as much hatred as it is our habitual patterns of self-interest that get in the way of connecting.
As John Phillip Newell says in “The Rebirthing of God,”
“It is a way of seeing in which we pretend that we can be well simply by looking after ourselves. Or we pretend that our nation can be safe simply by focusing on the protection of our nation, even at the expense of other nations. Such patterns of narrow self-interest become the norm, accepted and sanctioned at times even by our religious traditions. We become blind to the courage to see.”
In the New Testament when talking about Jesus’ compassion, the Greek word used goes much further than just seeing, it says we are moved in our guts – or as the translation says, “the bowels of compassion.”
We as Quakers can relate to this feeling. It is like when you feel led to say or do something and often it is described as butterflies in the stomach, an uncomfortableness, even a physical quaking.
I remember one Friend saying to me that they were so uncomfortable in waiting worship once that they had to get up and move around, they almost felt like they were going to get sick if they didn’t respond or speak out. I don’t know how many times I have heard this and even felt this myself.
The courage to feel leads to action – or what I will label “Engaged Quakerism” or “active compassion.”
Folks, if we are to be a thriving and progressive Quaker meeting, we must have the courage to see with new eyes, feel at the depths of our bowels, and ultimately engage in active compassion.
To close my sermon this morning, I would like to share the story of Prudence Crandall – a woman who I believe embodies this three-fold understanding of compassion. Since it is still Women’s History Month, I sensed Prudence’s story to be inspiring and a nice illustration of one Quaker who had the courage to see with new eyes, feel at her depths, and engage in active compassion for those less fortunate.
Prudence was born to a Quaker family on Rhode Island in 1803. At the age of 10 or 11 she moved to a farm near Canterbury, Connecticut. She was sent to Moses Brown’s New England Boarding School in Providence, Rhode Island, where she learned the same broad range of subjects that the boys learned, exceling, and even teaching the younger students as she grew older. She was a born teacher! Moses Brown was an abolitionist, so Prudence early came to see slavery as a sin. She, however, had little contact nor few encounters with blacks and thus knew little about their lives and struggles.
That was to change in 1831 when, after gaining a positive reputation as a teacher at a female academy in Plainfield, Connecticut, she was invited to start a similar school in Canterbury. With $500 down and a $1500 loan from the village leaders, she bought a large house facing the village green and opened her school for young white girls.
Her sister Almira came to help her teach and a young black woman who had lived with her family since she was nine, Mariah Davis, came to be her assistant and manage the household. Prudence had high standards and expectations for her students. The students responded quickly and well to the sisters’ helpful instruction and loving ways. The house was filled with purposeful learning and varied activities. The village was well pleased.
One day a young black woman and friend of Mariah’s, Sarah Harris, came to see Prudence and asked to enroll as a day student. She assured Prudence that her father could pay the $25 per quarter tuition.
Sarah had finished the local district school but wanted to learn more to start a school for children of color. At first, Prudence put her off and went about her teaching. Mariah was disappointed as she knew how deeply Sarah wanted to teach. Her friend’s father was a successful black farmer who believed education was important for all young people, but especially those of color.
He distributed “The Liberator,” William Lloyd Garrison’s newly published anti-slavery newspaper. Mariah was in love with Sarah’s brother Charles and read the paper whenever a new issue came out. She brought the most recent copy to Prudence in support of her friend.
As so often happens among Quakers, God moved in mysterious ways. A village leader came by and treated Mariah impolitely. Prudence was so annoyed, she sought out the newspaper and read straight through the night. She was moved by its stories of the brutality, injustices, and horrendous struggles of blacks, both slave and free. She turned to her Bible and was led to the verses of Solomon about the call to be a “comforter to the oppressed.”
Prudence was in a struggle with her conscience. She realized during this struggle that she held a prejudice against people of color despite her Quaker upbringing. It was a humbling experience, one that led her to want to do something for these people. But what? She had no great wealth, but she could teach! She must be obedient to this call.
She would enroll Sarah Harris in her school. Some of her students knew Sarah from the district school and had found her smart, kind, and helpful. Most of them welcomed her and looked forward to the help she could give them in their studies. Their families were not pleased at all. Some even threatened to “destroy” the school.
Thus began a two-year battle between Prudence and her allies and the village leaders and theirs. It began with the villagers not wanting their daughters going to school with a young black woman, no matter that they had done so as children.
Prudence was stubborn. She was being obedient to her call and would not back down. The school was hers. She had paid off the loan and was educationally and financially successful. When it became obvious that an agreement could not be reached, Prudence came up with another idea. She would close her present school and open one exclusively for “young ladies and little misses of color.”
The villagers were irate. They had lost their school of good reputation and now all their fears and dislikes of blacks surfaced. They believed that more blacks would come to their village, their habits and behaviors would lower their real estate values, bring crime and even social mixing. Besides, they said, weren’t blacks socially and intellectually inferior?
Prudence went to Boston to see William Lloyd Garrison and gain his support. With his help and support, she travelled to Providence, New York City, and Philadelphia to meet black families and recruit students. A chance encounter with Arthur Tappan, a wealthy silk merchant and philanthropist, led to much needed financial help. When the townspeople sought to use an old vagrancy law and then new legislation, the Black Law, against her and her students, Tappan provided bonds and lawyers. The Black Law made it illegal to teach black students who had not come from Connecticut.
Clergymen in nearby towns came to her aid. Samuel J. May, a Unitarian minister, and Levi Kneeland, a Baptist pastor, were ready to help with strategy and offered friendship.
In April, 1833, she opened her school with only two students but soon had 17. When the villagers refused to sell her supplies and fouled her well with manure, her family supported the school, bringing barrels of water, food, and other supplies from nearby towns.
Even threats of fines and destruction of their property did not stop them. Keeping her school going required courage and commitment of Prudence, Almira, and the students. They displayed it time after time. The villagers waged a campaign of harassment, insults, egg and rock throwing, and even a fire set one night and blamed on an ally of the school. Prudence was arrested and jailed, accompanied by her friend Anna Benson.
Even though Rev. May and George Benson bailed them out the next day, the action brought much publicity and support from other U.S. and foreign cities.
Three trials were held. Prudence and the townspeople were frustrated by the results: the first ended in a hung jury, the second in a guilty verdict, and the third in a dismissal of the guilty verdict on a technicality. The school stayed open.
Prudence married a Baptist minister and supporter, Calvin Philleo. Her friends and family were glad for her, but some were not in tune with her choice. The townspeople, thwarted in their legal attempts, took matters into their own hands. In September 1834, a mob came in the night, broke ninety windows, destroyed furniture, scattered debris about, and frightened the household.
Prudence was done. She did not have money for repairs that might be needed over and over again, she did not want to see any of her family or students hurt. She had tried to be obedient to the call.
Prudence had stepped out of her comfort zone, been faithful in her action, and led members of her support community to work for justice and equality, and she had tried so hard to forgive and love her attackers. Calvin encouraged her to sell the school and move. Two days after the raid, the school was closed.
Prudence Crandall was only 32 when she left Canterbury, but she was obedient to the call in so many ways for another 55 years. Along the way, Prudence remained loyal to her friends and former students. She kept in touch with them, recommended books for them to read, and encouraged their service and action in the world.
She taught people of all colors, opened schools, worked for temperance, women’s rights, and peace. After Calvin’s death, she moved to Elk Falls, Kansas to live in a small log cabin she built on land given her by her brother Hezekiah. She loved the beauty of the Kansas prairie. Four years before she died in 1890, the people of Canterbury, some of them relatives of her opponents and ashamed of the town’s past behavior, petitioned the state to grant her an annual pension of $400.
Their petition was supported by Mark Twain, then a resident of Hartford, Connecticut. Prudence did not see this as charity but a just payment for the debt she incurred. She wrote to Twain to thank him and asked for copies of his books and his picture. He gladly sent them.
At 87, she was still seen going to meetings and urging actions to help others. She was no more afraid to die than she was to live. It was January 28, 1890 when she was laid to her final rest in the Elk Falls Cemetery.
Prudence Crandall was the embodiment of Christ’s compassion. May we as we ponder our own compassion this morning be inspired by her story and work to see, feel, and act in compassion to those less fortunate around us.
As we enter waiting worship, please take a moment to ponder the following queries:
· How often do I see and feel, but neglect to act?
· In all human life “infinitely precious” to me?
· How might I take the “higher road” of compassion this week?