To be honest is a mark of maturity. Dishonesty has within it its own destructive seeds. Most of us know the huge amount of energy deceit requires. And many of us have discovered the awful devastation of living a lie.

Our sermon today addresses an issue about which we need to be honest. I’m talking about coping with compassion fatigue - “When being Christian has Worn You Down”.

A mild little boy, not known for being ugly or mean, was being chastised and about to be punished for pulling a little girl’s hair. His mother asked him, “Son, why did you do it, that’s not like you?” “Mommy,” he responded, “I just got tired of being good all the time.”

One of my favorite writers, Erma Bombeck, who teaches good moral philosophy by whimsy, and comes at theology through the back door, wrote about marriage and the marriage relationship of coming to fatigue, or to a level of tolerance with our mate at which time we must make a decision. Listen to her:

“I read the other day that the average marriage that ends in divorce is over at six and one-half years. Why? Why is six and one-half years the end of the line for I-said-I-do-but-I-didn’t and I-said-I-will-but-I-won’t?

There isn’t anything mystical about it. Born in all of us is a level of tolerance. The marital warranty is set to expire at 78 months. At the end of this time, the bride will have cooked 5,408 meals. It’s as good or as bad as it’s going to get. The decision is yours.

At the end of 78 months, you will have met all of his/her relatives…away from the church. The father- in-law who may eat like a Cro-Magnon at the table, a brother who sponges and a mother-in-law who will call your husband “Baby” when his belt is hidden by his stomach and his hairline looks like the state of Florida.

At the end of six and one-half years the pretenses go. Company manners are set aside. Courtesies are no longer a consideration. She leaves her toothpaste on the bathroom sink. He cleans his fingernails at the table.

At six and one-half years the trousseau is faded and raggedy. The negligee is worn with wool socks. The wedding proofs had faded on command of the photographer who didn’t want you to get anything for nothing.

There may be a child who has taken over your whole life with demands and must be watered, fed, educated, clothed, maintained, and disciplined.

Anniversaries become just another day or worse. When you ask, “Do you know what day this is?” you hear, “I told you I put the garbage at the curb last night before I went to bed.”

Affection at 78 months becomes a notation on your calendar of “THINGS TO DO TODAY” and the good bye kiss in the morning has all the fervor of giving mouth- to-mouth resuscitation to a parakeet.

At the end of six and one-half years you are both yourselves. And if that’s what you thought you married, you’re probably good for another 30 or 40 or 50 years.” (quoted by Donald J. Shelby, “What Love Is”, January 30, 1983, First United Methodist Church, Santa Monica, California)

There’s nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing wrong with recognizing the fact that we get tired of being good. The challenging newness and sparkling freshness fade out. That’s the meaning of fatigue. We don’t have the energy to go on.

I want to talk about that as it related to the core of Christian living. Boil it all down, refine it to its most precious essence, and this is it: Compassion is the call of every Christian.

I could open the New Testament to almost any page and find text.

I could use that summary word of Jesus in the 15th Chapter of John: “This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (vss. 12—13)

Or, I could have presented that heart-piercing judgment picture of Jesus in Matthew 25. The basis on which we will be judged is made scathingly clear. The basis? Compassion Love and care for others.

“Come, oh blessed of my father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger, and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.” (Matthew 25:3-36)

But when did we do this, we might ask. And Jesus responds: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (vs. 40)

I could choose any number of passages to plant in our minds the simple, straight-forward word of John in his First Epistle.

The summary the bottom-line: “And this commandment we have from him: that He who loves God loves his brother also.” (vs. 21)

That’s our call the call to love. We’re clear about that. There’s no other alternative. When you boil it all down - compassion is the style of the Christian – loving out of the love of God, loving with the Love of God, continuing to love until we give up the last ounce of our being on behalf of the Kingdom.

Now that wears us out. We get tired. We grow weary, and there’s no end in sight. There’s always someone standing by to be loved. There’s always a loved one demanding more. There’s always a stranger entering our life and causing us to sense that somehow in that stranger may be Jesus Himself. There’s always that call in the middle of the night - that request to go the second, even the third mile unquestioned surging up within us that tells us we have to do it - we have to give that cup of cold water in Jesus’ name; and that demands our energy. That drains us of power. And so, we grow weary. We suffer compassion fatigue.

How do we deal with it? How do we cope? How do we continue, “when being Christian has worn us down?

Let me offer three helps for coping with compassion.

First, recognize that there is a limit to what we can offer. There is a limit to what we can offer.

Now this is tough for the sincere Christians. God has given so much to us, and we’re so grateful. Our love sensitizes us to needs around us. The more we love, the more aware we become of the need for love. The closer we walk with he Lord, the more our eyes are opened, and the more we see the loneliness and pain, the quiet desperation of people around us, reaching out - hoping that someone will see, and hear, and stop, and listen, and touch. The closer we walk with the Lord, the more tender our hearts become, and we cry within when need goes unmet.

So, it’s tough – so very though for the sincere Christian to recognize that there is a limit to what we can offer. But we must do it – when compassion and fatigue sets in.

A RABBIT ON THE SWIM TEAM

Once upon a time, the animals decided they should do some thing meaningful to meet the problems of the new world. So they organized a school.

They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming; in fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying, and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This caused his web feet to be badly worn, so that he was only average in swimming. But average was quite acceptable, so no body worried about that - except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of his class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because of so much make-up work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He developed “charley horses” from overexertion, and so only got a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist. In climbing classes, he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there....

The obvious moral of the story is a simple one. Each creature has its own set of capabilities in which it will naturally excel - unless it is expected or forced to fit a mold it doesn’t fit. When that happens, frustration, discouragement and even guilt bring overall mediocrity or complete defeat.

(From Chuck Swindoll)

So when compassion fatigue sets in, that there is a limit to what we can offer.

II

Carry this idea one step further for a second help for resisting or overcoming compassion fatigue. Relax in the fact that there is a time to leave to God and to others what we cannot do. Now let that sink in, because it’s a very helpful truth: Relax in the fact that there is a time to leave to God and to others what we cannot do.

Now this is not a lesson we lea and for all. We have to keep reminding ourselves of it and on it over and over again. I confess that this is a big problem in my life. Hardly a week passes that I’m not so burdened by the cares and concerns of my congregation that I will awaken two or three mornings during the week, at 2 or 3 o’clock, and begin to think about those persons with whom I’ve been sharing, or with whom I would like to share. My mind focuses on the young mother who is waging a courageous battle against cancer, her two little children, and a husband who needs her and loves her and can’t understand the awful blow that has struck.

Or the couple who has just lost their beautiful college aged daughter in an auto accident. How do we speak to such mindless cruelty – such devastating pain?

Or, the 50-year-old man who is wrestling with depression because the rug of his business life has been pulled out from under him, and he has been sent sprawling to the floor confused, hurt because supposed friends have betrayed him, worried because he’s put most of his financial eggs in this one basket, and that basket seems to have a hole in it.

Or, the couple who has gone their selfish way for so long that they’ve almost destroyed their marriage. Now the shock of what they have done to each other, and the awareness of what they are losing, comes to them, they desperately seek help - help that is so hard to give for selfish patterns of relating are so galvanized that they find it almost impossible to even see the problem, much less act to resolve it.

Sometimes I lay for an hour or two in sleepless anguish, wishing I were 3 or 4 people rather than one, wishing there were 40 hours rather than 24 in the day, wishing that I had bushels, rather than pints, of spiritual guidance and support to pass around.

I confess I don’t handle it well, but I know the answer, and I keep reminding myself - that I can relax a bit if I can believe that the time comes to leave to God and others what I can not do myself.

I can say forcefully what I’m about to say, because I’m speaking to myself as well as to you. Brothers and Sisters, we cannot be God. It’s tempting to try, isn’t it? Also, it’s difficult to remember that ours are not the only hands and feet Christ has, there are others who share his life and ministry.

Have you heard that distilled wisdom:

I am only one – but am one
I cannot do everything – but I can do something
What I can do – I ought to do
What I might do - I will do

That’s the only sensible way to live, doing the very best we can, loving as much as we can love, spending what energy we have, but trusting God and others to do the rest.

There is a difference between following Christ and being in Christ. To be in Christ was Paul’s favorite definition of a Christian, and Jesus called us to abide in Him.

This has been the major failure of Christians from the Second Century on. We’ve emphasized following Jesus as the heart of Christianity, thus we tend to reduce Christianity to a religion of morals and ethics, thus denuding it of its power. Following Jesus is important. That’s what we’re called to do. But the point is we cannot follow Jesus for long, unless we are in Christ, unless we are abiding in Him. So, we renew our strength by waiting on the Lord, by spending time in his presence in prayer, his word, with his people, cultivating the presence of Christ within us in order that we act in the world out of His Indwelling Spirit which empowers us.

Some of you will remember 15 or 20 years ago the atomic submarine, The Thresher. The Thresher disappeared in the depths of the ocean. People never knew why. They surmised that it had gone so deep that it simply went out of control. It was designed only to go to certain depths. Some years after it disappeared, because of the perfection of technology, we were able to send another submarine down, a small one with thick-plated, thick glass, highly pressurized to go much, much deeper than the Thresher had been able to go.

They discovered the Thresher. It was a strange sight. They found out that it had exploded in on itself, and this hunk of steel was like a crushed piece of paper, the pressure within it was obviously not able to withstand the pressure without.

But there was the surprising thing about the whole situation. Around the crushed Thresher, there were sea creatures. They had big eyes, their skin was very thin, and yet they were swimming around the Thresher, in the same environment. Scientists told us that inside those sea creatures was an opposite and equal pressure to that which was without them.

Now that’s a parable for us.

That’s the way it must be in your life and mine. The Indwelling Christ is to be cultivated to the point that inside us His power prevails, and gives us the strength to go when our own strength fails. And we can survive the doing of our Christianity if the being of our Christian life is kept intact and up-to-date.

So, when compassion fatigue creeps on, don’t forget the answer. Renew your strength by waiting upon the Lord.

I’ve said three things that will help us in coping with compassion fatigue.

One, recognize that there is a limit to what we can offer.

Two, relax in the fact that there is a time to leave to God and to others what we cannot do;

And three, renew your strength by waiting upon the Lord.