I was 18 years old when my heart first began to bleed.
For the previous 17 years I had been the boy in the bubble; raised in suburban Central New York and extremely well-loved by an amazing family who was for me. I was surrounded by people who pretty much looked, talked, and worshipped the way I did. I had everything I needed and most of the stuff I wanted. My heart was well insulated there.
Then I left the bubble.
When I moved to the heart of Center City Philadelphia for college I saw it all; poverty like I’d never known, diversity I’d never experienced, and the kind of unfiltered, unsanitized, messy real that the bubble just doesn’t provide.
And I didn’t experience these things as an intellectual exercise, from a safe distance, or with a buffer of protection. I had a front row seat to it all. I had faces and names and lives. I had stories. It was then that my heart was first exposed and wounded.
I remember coming home on Thanksgiving break and getting into a spirited discussion with my father about poverty. I can’t recall exactly the context, I only remember him saying sarcastically, “Wow, you’ve turned into a real bleeding heart!”
Before I could blink, a response left my lips, “I’d rather have a bleeding heart than a dead one.”
(The fact that I’m still alive is evidence that he was far more compassionate than I gave him credit for.)
The thirty years since have been about me living open-hearted, willing to be wounded, seeking to feel.
When Jesus commanded those who would emulate him to “love the least”, he wasn’t referring to those who were less than, but those who were treated as though the were; the forgotten, the marginalized, the hurting, the voiceless. He was with them, and that’s where those who claim his name are called to be.
I don’t see the people of Jesus with the least very often these days, and it’s a sin.
I’m so weary of a cloistered Christianity of privilege, one that feels itself entitled to comfort and ease, one that wields absolute power and cries “oppression” when it cannot have all of it. I’m exhausted from daily encountering a Church that still works to segregate itself from the very people Jesus was most burdened to protect and care for. Most of all I am tired of dead-hearted Christians trying to convince themselves and me that God is okay with it.
There is so little of Jesus in this; in all the bullying and condescension and “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” coldness. That Jesus himself was a homeless, itinerant street preacher relying on the generosity of others, escapes them.
When we say that we’re Christian, we’re saying that we’re trying to perpetuate the character of Jesus in the world.
Compassion isn’t supposed to be a liability to us. It’s supposed to be the default setting of our hearts. It’s hardly something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. Benevolence isn’t supposed to be a character defect. In fact, our lives as followers of Jesus should be specifically marked by the ability to see beyond our comfort, to be inconvenienced by the pain of others, and to move in such a way that this pain is alleviated.
If our hearts don’t daily break for those we encounter who are hurting or marginalized—I’ll argue we aren’t aspiring to Jesus. A Christianity without empathy is counterfeit.
These days many Christians like to do a whole lot of theological dancing around the responsibility to love their neighbor as themselves; blaming people for their dire circumstances, speculating on their moral failings, and proposing reasons why another’s misfortune isn’t their responsibility. Jesus’ life and ministry doesn’t allow for such fancy footwork. He demands that we live always burdened by the suffering around us. He compels us to get our hands dirty tending to the wounds of those we pass by. He commands us to a love that suffers.
I’m done being ashamed for trying to live with a compassion that resembles Christ’s.
I’m through apologizing for giving a damn.
Sacrificial love is the very center of the Gospel.
I’m okay with my bleeding heart—it’s trying to beat like Jesus’.
