Part 3 of a 10 Part Series by Rev Kurauone Mutimwii
(Uniting Presbyterian Church - Masvingo)
Mark 6:34 "And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.
6:35 "When the day was now far spent, His disciples came to Him and said, “This is a deserted place, and already the hour is late.
6:36 "Send them away, that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy themselves bread; for they have nothing to eat.”
6:37 "But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”
The Crisis of Compassion
Jesus as a Shepherd Leader saw the gaps and void in people who were searching for meaning and purpose. He saw how exposed these people were because they were Sheep without shepherd.
We all know what will happen to Sheep without a Shepherd to protect them from wolves and hyenas. That was why Christ felt compassion for them and he clearly stated that the people who were gathering around Him were in potential danger if they continue without Shepherds.
When we, as Church or leadership, see people in their desperate situations, in violence, in poverty, in drug and substance abuse, in gender based violence, in corruption, and in perrenial seemingly irreedemable suffering and our first reaction or response is not compassion but any other way we can exploit their situation to our enrichment or glory, then that is a clear statement that we are not cut from the same cloth or rock of leadership with Christ.
God demands from his Church and its leadership, shepherds of his people who are compassionate, who will do what Christ would do in any given people situation.
People of Zimbabwe live in a world where they are rejected and perceived as misfits. In diaspora they face xenophobia, ridicule and deportations. In Zimbabwe they are victims of political polarization, shrinking democratic space, impunity, injustice. insensitive corrupt political leadership, economic hardships, no sense of security, no social amenities and an intentional exclusion from national resources.
There is no compassion at all because all are aimed at molesting them, squeezing any form of life out of them.
They are confronted by a church that does not care anymore, that is equally pushing them away from spaces of hope, generosity and compassion. Each man must go and see for self.
The church that simply say, go away we cannot help you because they perceive these people and their hovering around as economical inconveniences, as unbearable burdens which it is not able to address.
The Church at times send away those politically persecuted, economically desperate and socially marginalized because it no longer has the compassion and empathy to keep up with them.
The church would rather take the side of the elements of oppression and send the people away than standing alongside those in need of justice and empowerment simply to secure its comfort and salve its guilt of lack of compassion and crisis of leadership.
The Church will pray to God saying Send them away to their homes and lay before him many justifiable reasons why they cannot be the ones to address the plight of these desperate shepherdless people.
The Church would say, the people are lazy, are useless, are bothersome, or any blame that they can rail against them just to make sure they are kept away from us.
The attitude to use people for political, religous and economical advantage then dumb them other than empowering them to realize their full capacity as humans and citizens or standing with them in solidarity is a sure sign of rot and failed compassion in our time.
When the Church is presented with the deep issues of people and it treats them lightly and dismissively in its, expression of God or faith, missional call, theological reflections, public advocacy and humanitarian response, that is a sure sign that the is death of compassion in the world.
When the Church cannot care that the day has been far spent, the people had been waiting for quite a long time, have been hoping for better for years and nothing is coming forth, that oppression and dehumanizing vices have been gripping them for years eithout remedy and that they are losing their sense of humanity but the Church, instead of rekindling those people, it pushes, or prays them away from God and themselves and send them back to their miserable lives, then we know that Compassion is dead and non existent in our times.
May God help the Church of our time to have compassion and never send them away from us and from God no matter how unable we seem.
They are Sheep without a Shepherd, when they come, instead of sending them away help us be able to give them something to eat.
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