John 14:1-14

Easter 5 – Year A

John 14:1-14

Last night I taped and watched the Compassion Forum sponsored by Faith in Public Life. My hope is that they will have the video available on their website. CNN may also have it available online or rerun it. At this point there are 93 exerpts of the event on You Tube (search for "compassion forum").

This Forum was a helpful step beyond our usual duality oriented, zero-sum-game decision-making. I hope there will be more of this. Even if not all that many people watch, they, at least, will be encourage to make a greater difference in changing the tone of our community conversations.

With that context, presume for the moment that we know where Jesus is going – faithfully living out his sense of being a Beloved of G*D and receiving whatever consequences come from such radical behavior. Now, what is the way to get to that end of faithful living for ourselves?

Compassion might be a key word to describe the "how" of Jesus. If so, that is his modeling of our way to arrive at appropriate expressions of our sense of being Beloveds of G*D.

Compassion becomes way, Compassion becomes truth. Compassion becomes life.

Compassion is preparing a place for those who follow in which they might participate in way/truth/life issues.

Compassion will also inform what it is we ask for in Jesus' name. It will cut out some of our askings, It will challenge us to engage our Belovedness with the world around us without dictating to it.

If you have an opportunity to see the debate and ignore the various spins and reportorial assessments, you may find specific applications of compassion that will call you forth to risk your Belovedness.