2025-10-20
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
10/19/2025 - Sermon by Rev. Susi Kawolics
Do Unto Others Series – Week 2 – Compassion / Scripture Isaiah 11:6-9
It was the renowned theologian Karl Barth who said that Pastors should “preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” I have to be honest and say that this is quite a challenge. The newspaper is filled with stories of division, animosity, and hatred, while our Bible passage today is one depicting a realm of unity where enemies are friends and everyone lives together in loving, blissful peace. This prophetic vision collides with the reality of many of our lives. We often find ourselves hardened, embittered and angry - we experience families and friendships breaking apart, we feel threatened and unsafe, and often powerless.
But maybe this is just the right scripture for us this morning. After all, when the prophet Isaiah put forth this vision, this hope for peace, it was in the 8th century before Christ. The Israelites he was speaking to were not exactly living their best lives. They were under the rule of their enemies, the Assyrians. They were traumatized, demoralized and hopeless after having had their homeland taken over and their temple destroyed.
Into that bleak reality, Isaiah speaks a vision of hope. He proclaims a new day when enemies will live as friends, when predators will not prey on the vulnerable, when there will be no more hurt or destruction in the land. Isaiah came to them, and comes to us, sharing that God’s dream is one of all living things dwelling in mutual love, respect and peace. He reminds us that God is not done with us yet, that God has another chapter to write – for, with, and through us.
I want to be clear this morning that this vision, this hope that Isaiah proclaims, is not just about a time of no wars. There have been what might be called peaceful times and peaceable kingdoms in the world’s history. For example, Jesus lived during a time known as Pax Romana, a 200 year period of relative peace and order. But Romans regarded peace as a situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist. This is not what Isaiah’s vision is about. It is not saying that the wolf lays down with the lamb, letting the lamb know that any false move will lead to its death. It is not saying that the leopard lies down with the kid as long as the kid does what the leopard commands. It is not saying that the calf and the lion shall graze together as long as the lion eats first, and the calf gets whatever is left over.
No. This vision of a time and place that God intends is one where there is no predatory behavior, where there is mutual flourishing, where one person’s success does not come on the back of another’s diminishment, exploitation or domination. Those oppressed or abused are not required to put themselves in harm's way for the sake of unity. In this prophetic realm, there is a respect for the personhood of all people. It is a kin-dom, “kin” being the operative word. It calls us to create a beloved community, with compassion as its base. So if this is the vision that God calls us to, how do we even begin to get there?
First of all, I believe that compassion for others starts with compassion for ourselves. Jesus’s command to love our neighbors as ourselves is not much of a guide if we don’t first love ourselves. Different people will have different ways of doing this, of accepting and embracing that compassion within. For me, it’s taking time in quiet prayer to center, and to become aware of God’s loving spirit dwelling within me. This spirit, which accepts me unconditionally and loves me just as I am abides within and all through me, just as it abides in and through all of you, and in and through every person. The more I am in touch with this truth, with this spirit, the more it informs my thoughts, my prayers, my attitudes and actions towards myself and others. May we all find our own ways of connecting with that love, returning to it again and again as our touchstone and compass for all that we think, say and do. It is when we are in touch with the heart of God, which dwells within us, that we can extend that love, that care and compassion to others.
This doesn’t mean that we have to have a warm feeling towards everyone. No, rather it calls for a love lived out in actions, in showing kindness and respect, in offering care for the other. This kind of love searches for the image of God in each and every person, and focuses on what we share in common with others, and not what divides us. It is a love grounded in compassion.
Compassion bridges us to another person. Etymologically, we might understand it as “passion with.” When we have compassion for another person, we strive to see “with” their eyes, hear “with” their ears, understand “with” their perspective. Or if that feels impossible, maybe we can strive to see with, hear with, and understand with the love that God has for that person. This “passion with” can make the image of unlikely things or people sharing time, food, and space “with” one another a reality. It is the first step towards the vision the prophet Isaiah spoke about.
Prophets are people who come with messages from God, who call us to a vision of what is not yet, but point us to what God hopes and dreams for us. I believe we still have prophets in our midst who can guide us today towards living into this dream of a peaceable Kin-dom. I want to lift up two organizations and two individuals who that give me hope and guidance in working toward this.
One such organization is Braver Angels. Some of you may know of it, or even belong to it. It is dedicated to political depolarization. The organization runs workshops, debates, and other events where "red" (conservative) and "blue" (liberal) participants attempt to better understand one another's positions and discover their shared values. Embracing values of respect, humility, honesty, and responsible citizenship, their goal is not to change people’s views of issues, but to change their views of each other. Their vision mirrors that of the prophet Isaiah: “We envision an America with respectful embrace of political disagreements, where civic friendship flourishes and competing perspectives strengthen our nation.” (https://braverangels.org/braver-citizens/). I just want to mention here that Our Social Justice team is planning an event on December 8th to learn skills taught by Braver Angels on how to have respectful, compassionate conversations across a political divide. It may be just what you need in order to survive your holiday get-togethers!
Another organization I learned about 2 years ago at my nephew’s commencement from the University of Utah is UNITE: an initiative to promote national unity and solidarity across differences. This organization contends that our disagreements aren’t causing the divisions in our country; it’s what we do when we disagree. Do we treat the other side with dignity, or do we treat them with contempt? The first brings us together; the second drives us apart.
Tim Shriver, who was the commencement speaker, developed what is called the Dignity Index, which he piloted at the University. This Index analyses political speeches and scores phrases used along an eight-point scale from contempt to dignity. Lower scores (1-4) reflect divisive language while higher scores (5-8) reflect language grounded in dignity.
For example, the lowest score, the number 1, is given to speeches which escalate from violent words to violent actions, rendering the other side as less than human and calling for or approving violence. The levels go up from there – each one de-escalating violence, until we cross from 4 to 5, cross from contempt to dignity. Level five, for example listens to the other side’s point of view and respectfully explains their own goals, views, and plans. The hope is to eventually move to Level 8, which signifies that everyone is seen as having inherent worth, and communication reflects that universal dignity, even during conflict.
One of the unexpected outcomes of this program is called the Mirror Effect. As the group of people came together to rate the various speeches, ads, and posts they saw and heard, they also began to internalize the index to rate their own words and interactions. And in doing so, they were moved to changing their language, their attitudes, their perspective to move up the dignity scale. You can find out more about this at the website https://www.timothyshriver.com/.
Along with Braver Angels and UNITE, I want to share with you the stories of two people who also give me hope. One is Daryl Davis, a black man who is a musician, speaker and author. His website says “Over the past two decades, Daryl Davis walked on the edge with one foot dangling over the precipice. . . . He tells stories of setting up surprise meetings with Klan leaders who were unaware of his skin color, and attending Klan rallies. On a quest to do nothing more than explore racism and gather information for his book, Klan-Destine Relationships, Daryl Davis eventually became the recipient of numerous robes and hoods given to him by KKK members who rescinded their beliefs after coming to know him. He had inadvertently stumbled upon a successful method of forming friendships between sworn enemies.” (https://www.daryldavis.com/ ) His way of operating? He befriends his enemies, sees them as people, and has conversations with them. If you want to know more about him, I encourage you to watch his documentary called “Accidental Courtesy.”
The other person I want to tell you about who really inspires me is Valerie Kaur. She is the author of the book “See No Stranger” - and is a brown skinned woman of the Sikh faith, and she talks about the need for revolutionary love in this country. In her book, she suggests that “Seeing no stranger begins in wonder. It is to look upon the face of anyone and choose to say: You are a part of me I do not yet know.” This is a challenge that takes courage, and it also takes humility. It means that we acknowledge a willingness to be changed by someone else’s story. This humility urges us to realize that we don’t know everything, to admit that we don’t have all the answers, and to acknowledge that there are other people who just might have something to teach us. To be open and humble is to wonder what life is like for another person, what another’s life experience is. This is finding compassion with- entering into conversation with – and seeking to experience with another person.
Valerie also leads with love when seeking justice. At a recent protest, as she and others stood in solidarity with the oppressed, and she said to them: We see you. We love you. And we will not leave you.” And to the oppressors she said: “You can hold your batons over us, You can burn our eyes with tear gas, You can throw flash bang grenades to make us shake, and cry, . . . but we will stand tall and say: You cannot make us hate you. You do not have that power. We will choose to see your humanity even when you deny ours. We will block your actions with one hand – and extend the other hand with the vision that you might one day take it, or your children will take it. . . . We are lifting up a vision of the world that could be – where you see my child as yours, and as I see yours as mine. Our dream is more powerful than your nightmare. . . . We will be – BRAVE WITH OUR LOVE. . . .And our love, our revolutionary love, will birth the world to come.” (https://valariekaur.com/2025/06/we-will-be-brave-with-our-love/)
We began our worship this morning by remembering that the act of simply coming together is “revolutionary,” which in its earliest form meant “finding a course around a central point.” We gather around the Light of Christ, around love, as the center and guiding light of our lives. This is our point of reference, our central point for our relationships and our love in the world. This is our “compassion revolution,” our revolutionary love.
May we always find our Center in the Love of God and the Light of Christ, igniting a spark of compassion within us. And may our compassion revolution lead us to the vision that God has for our world, a world of mutual respect, love, dignity and peace for all people.
Amen.