Word to the Wise
Thursday, January 5, 2012 - Jan. 5
[1 John 3:11-21 and John 1:43-51]The way we came to know love was that he laid down his life for us; so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If someone who has worldly means sees a brother in need and refuses him compassion, how can the love of God remain in him? Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.
A popular expression used nowadays to distinguish between those who merely speak about doing something as contrasted with those who actually do what they talk about goes like this: He (she) not only talks the talk, but walks the walk! The last line of the quotation from the First Letter of John seems to me to say the same thing. Compassion is not just a feeling. The story of the Good Samaritan comes to mind [Luke 10:25-37]. The Samaritan acted on his feeling of compassion.
It is difficult sometimes to know what to do for someone in need. Those who are long time workers in the field of social justice know well the best ways of meeting certain kinds of needs. We can always ask them. Of course, there are the immediate needs that we experience in our own neighborhoods, which can be handled by simple acts of kindness. The one thing that we cannot do is to "hunker down" and ignore the vast world of need around us. Even small gestures are important. I have told this story before, but it keeps coming back to me: A sparrow heard that the sky was going to fall. So she laid down on the ground and pushed up with her feet with all her might! A passerby saw the sparrow and stopped to ask what she was doing? The sparrow replied, "I heard the sky is going to fall and I'm holding it up with my feet!" The passerby exclaimed: "Sparrow! Do you think your spindly little feet are going to hold up the sky?" The sparrow relied through gritted beak: "One does what one can!" This is loving in deed and truth! AMEN