The Art of Caring
Leviticus 19 1-2, 9-18
Cor. 3: 10-11, 16-2
Matthew 5: 36-48
February 22, 1981
One of the fascinating features of the English language is the way it constantly changes. As someone once said, our words, like children, never stand still; they are always developing and constantly being transformed.
For example, back in 1675, some nine years after the terrible London Fire. Sir Christopher Wren laid the first foundation stone for what was to be his greatest enterprise. St. Paul’s Cathedral. It took him 35 long years to complete. When it was done, he waited breathlessly for the reaction of us and Her Majesty the Queen. After being carefully shone through the structure, Queen Anne summed up her feelings for the architecture in three words:
Awful, Amusing and Artificial
Imagine how you would feel if words like those were used to describe the great work of your life. Sir Christopher wren’s biographer tells us that upon hearing those words he rehearsed a sigh of relief and bowed greatly before his sovereign. Are you surprised? The explanation is simple.
In 1710 the word awful meant awe inspiring, the word amusing meant amazing and the word artificial meant artistic. What to our ears sound like devastating criticisms were in those days words of high praise.
That sort of thing happens all the time for words have a life of their own and are forever undergoing changes. That is particularly so of the four letter words in our language. Every generation seems to adapt them to their own ways. I know that it’s so of the four letter word that is at the heart of this. The word is care. It is one of the primary words of the Christian religion yet it has changed so much through the ages that I sometimes hesitate to use it.
Henri Nouwen, the Dutch Jesuit theologian from Yale, points out one of his many books how very ambiguous the word care has become. When someone says I will take care of him it is more likely an announcement of an impending attack then of tender compassion. Or when someone says, I don’t have a care in the world, caring is similar to worries and anxieties. And isn’t this a goal for many people today? To care less to become carefree? If not a goal, it certainly is an objective of modern society. As a style of life, living without cares is more attractive than being careful.
And then in Matthew we have the teaching of Jesus to care, not as others do but to go further, for we are sons and daughters of our heavenly father. Here is one of the central realities of the Christian faith. God has depicted again and again as one who cares for all his creation. And since we are human beings, made in his image, caring, real caring is essential to our makeup.
I seem to remember from freshman philosophy that it was Descartes who said cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. How wrong he was. We are not simply detached brains, nor do we establish who we are by thinking alone. Nor does it make any more sense to say, with the romantics, I feel therefore I am. Deeper than thinking, deeper than feeling, a greater part of her essence is the sense of caring. I care, therefore I think I care, therefore I feel I care, therefore I love. I care, therefore I am
the problem is as Henri Nouwen Put it, that caring is an ambiguous word. He suggests that we ought to go back to the original meaning of the word. In this way we can all start again and come to terms with what is involved in authentic caring. The old gothic root of the word to care is the word Cara and Cara means lament. The basic meaning of caring is to grieve, to experience sorrow, to stand with those who are crying. Much different that is from common usage. The word care for most of us, brings to mind care packages, a sick person cared for by a healer, a weak person lifted by a strong person, I have reaching out toward a have not. Yet caring doesn’t necessarily mean helping, it doesn’t necessarily mean fixing things up. It means standing with a person in his misery. It means sharing the pain, touching the wounds, walking in another shoes. It means recognizing the essential nature lies at the core of us all. Think for a moment with me about the people in your life who have cared. Are they necessarily the ones who have healed our wounds, given us advice, added to our solutions? Aren’t they rather ones who have sat with us in our silences, stood with us in moments of despair, loved us in our most unlovable times? We pass out of death into life because we care period the call of God is simply a call to care and those who have answered that call are those who have really brought us from death to life.
You know it, I know it, we all know it, because we have seen and been touched by those who care.
I want to make a confession this morning, period of all the teachings of Jesus, this passage in Matthew has been by far the most difficult period to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you, is probably the most foreign, difficult, hard to understand demand imaginable. It goes completely contrary to everything I have been taught. It seems the worst kind of folly, completely lacking reality. Yet there it is, the heart of Jesus’ teaching. And so, if we are going to be honest when we hear the demand, we look up and say how, how can we do this Lord? Ohh Lord, how long would you have us do this foolishness? And God looks down and says how long old man how long will you not understand my nature? All it takes is caring, walking with that person, being present to friends and enemies. Remember, if love is the game then caring is the precondition. Inland I’ve discovered that nothing human is foreign to us. The stranger no longer is different, the enemy no longer is to be feared. Where we discover that through caring we and they participate in the nature of God to the God who came not to be different but to be the same as we are, the God who came not to take pain away but to share it, the God who came not to convert us but to love us sinners if love is the game, then caring is the precondition
I would like to end this week with another story from Nouwen. Two weeks ago I was in San Francisco with him, and he shared this tale to help us understand this deep secret of caring.
The story comes from ancient India and tells of an old man who sat by his dream one day meditating on the love of God. One day, he spied a scorpion going into a hole and becoming entangled by a tree root. The more the scorpions struggled, the more it became entangled. The old man went over and stuck his hand down the hole to free the scorpion, but every time he did this the scorpion reached up and stung him. This continued for a while, and the man was getting redder and redder, sicker and sicker, weaker and weaker, yet he kept it up.
Finally another man approached and watched this little drama until he could stand it no longer You foolish old man he said you silly person, you can’t realize that the scorpion perceives you instinctively to be an enemy? The old man looked up and said, but don’t you see, don’t you understand, that it belongs to the nature of this scorpion to sting but it belongs to my nature to care.
Dare to care period for caring is from God and we are made in his image, Amen