As he went ashore, he
saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep
without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
- Mark 6:34
We’ve
all been there: you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate,
mentally calculating how late you're going to be, wondering whether it’s worth it
to cut over to the service road, when suddenly a motorcycle comes roaring up from
behind you, driving along the shoulder at a ridiculous speed. Your face turns
red with indignation, rage really, as you see him zoom past the line of cars
in front you, bypassing the rules of the road for the shortcut you wouldn’t
dream of choosing.
In
such a moment, there are several things you want to do. You may want to lay on your horn—I’m sure if you did,
you’d been in good company with the other drivers impatiently waiting alongside
you. You may want to utter a few choice words, whether screamed out the window or
muttered under your breath. And if you’re not having your best day, you may even
want to let them know how you feel with a universally understood hand gesture.
But
there’s another choice you can make, one we tend to forego or forget. You can
give the driver the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’re just an idiot, sure.
Maybe they think the rules don’t apply to them and that their priorities override
those of everybody else waiting in traffic. But then again, maybe their baby is
running a 103 degree fever and they’re trying to get home with medicine. Maybe
they’re on their way to their first job interview since getting laid off two
years earlier. Maybe they’re trying to get to the airport in time to welcome
their son home after his fourth deployment to Iraq.
You
just don’t know. How could you? So you have to make a choice: cling to the
rules that excuse your indignation or choose compassion.
In
Mark 6, we see which choice Jesus made. His ministry had begun to reach a fever
pitch, with crowds constantly begging for his attention—they wanted to be seen,
to be taught, and most of all to be healed. Needing a break, Jesus told his twelve
disciples to hop in a boat with him so that they could cross the Sea of Galilee
and find some quiet time on the other side. But when the eager crowd saw what Jesus
was up to, they made a beeline for the towns on the other side. By the time Jesus
and the disciples came ashore, they found no refuge from the attention, just a throng
of needy hangers-on, each wanting a piece of him.
In
such a moment, Jesus could have yelled at the crowd or deputized his disciples to
act as bouncers—for that matter, he could have done any number of miraculous
things to get rid of these people and give himself some space. But instead he
looked at them, and what he saw was not an abstract inconvenience, but flesh-and-blood
people, each with their own desperate needs, each hoping that Jesus might do
for them what no one else would. Jesus had compassion on them, and instead of
sending them away, he sat down to minister to them.
None
of us like to be inconvenienced by other people; none of us like it when somebody
else breaks the rules while we’re left to pick up the pieces. But when someone else's desperation becomes your inconvenience, take a moment to see things as they
might see them. Ask whether the situation is as black and white as your anger
assumes it is. And if you can, choose compassion.
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