3.21.23 - Matthew 12: 48-50
What would it mean to extend empathy to one person in your orbit today?
But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who are my parents, and who are my siblings?” And pointing to his disciples, Jesus said, “Here are my parents and my siblings! For whoever does the will of God in heaven is my sibling and parent.”
I loathe these verses (and the one’s in 1 John 4 as well). Verses of radical interrelationality.
Radical. Stepping beyond ‘normal’ boundaries and categories.
Interrelationality. We are all connected.
I viscerally react to these ideas because it means I’m connected to ‘them.’
And a ‘them’ creates an ‘us.’
And an ‘us’ is good while a ‘them’ is bad.
And, with radical interrelationality there is only us.
It’s easier to get 1% better at radical interrelationality when there are only people I agree with.
I really want to say something wise here, but I’ve got nothing.
All I can think of is extending empathy to that part of us who live by fear rather than their capacity for love, and for those who mistake the two.
Those like me sometimes.
Extending empathy is vulnerable and hard.
I’m not recommending entering dangerous places or putting yourself in harm’s way. But I do wonder what it would be like to briefly extend empathy to the world around us if only to wonder.
--Jason Whitehead
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