What Price Empathy?

 

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Hebrews 4:15 English Standard Version

“Because your face hurts mine! Now SIT DOWN!” 

Chastised, the young man turned around and made his way back to his desk and sat down. But I could tell by the look on his face that a door had closed, one that nothing I said would ever reopen. I had burned a bridge. He’d come to our school as a high school freshman after elementary and junior high school as a home school student. Unused to the structure of a formal classroom, he struggled to fit in. He was a discipline problem in every class. He found the organized approach to the classroom and classwork, foreign and incomprehensible. His mother, who had taken care of his instruction had never set and enforced standards. Consequently, he wanted to run his day by his own schedule. More than once he would suddenly get up and leave a classroom saying that he was tired of that subject and needed a break. He found interpersonal relationships with students and teachers nearly impossible.

Soon after our confrontation, within a week, the young man withdrew from the school and never returned. Stricken, I sat down with Mrs. Driscoll, the principal and related the incident, saying that I was the reason he left. Mrs. Driscoll, always empathetic with students, parents, and teachers, reassured me that I was not the cause. He’d had similar clashes in all his other classes. But that moment remains seared in my memory as a moment of personal failure. 

At a critical moment, I failed to show empathy for a struggling young man. Caught up in my own milieu of schedules, lesson-plans, and the need to have an orderly classroom environment, I snapped at him, using military sarcasm as my tool of choice. While sarcasm works well in the military environment, it does nothing to show empathy or concern for another. Marrium-Webster defines empathy as: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another. I should have been more understanding.

After all, we’ve all had the experience of struggling to fit into a new environment, feeling lost and adrift, not understanding the rules, roles, and functions in the new place. At the time, I was over forty, approaching fifty, and had shared his struggle more than once. Yet, I failed to put myself in his shoes. I did not take a few moments to come alongside him and help him adjust. I know how he felt; but, I was shackled to my own little world and failed my student when he needed me. I was just not empathetic when I needed to be.

Sometimes we think of empathy as a week emotion, but it is not. Think of Jesus, who in perhaps the greatest display of empathy became one of us. He understands and knows how we feel. The incarnation is the greatest act of empathy on record. Through the incarnation, Jesus chose to embrace humanity, accepting all our weaknesses and truly knowing how we feel. We approach Him with confidence because He’s one of us. He realizes what it is like, no matter the situation, and He expects me to be the same.

32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

We often think of empathy as being wishy-washy and unwilling to be strong. Empathy does not give up moral standards, it simply understands the struggle and seeks to help others through the struggle. Jesus knows what it is like, but He did not sin. In a like fashion, we can understand but not sin. Empathy comes alongside and offers understanding and help. Legalism looks down upon and requires that one fix themselves first. Empathy remembers our own weakness and often failed state.

15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15

Empathy is a pain in the neck. It requires me to slow down and put others first. And that is the true price of empathy. I put the needs of others first. 

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;… Isaiah 53:3 

Empathy makes me stop and consider others and put myself in their place. It does not make me embrace their decision, just understand the results of that decision. If I had been empathetic with that young man, I would have taken him aside and spent time carefully explaining what the standards were and what I needed him to do. Instead, I snapped at him. God displays great empathy and patience with me. I need to do likewise. 

Thought Questions:

1. Why do you find it so hard to feel empathy?

2. Why do we think of empathy as a weak emotion?

3. What does empathy require of us?

4. How would our lives be different if we felt more empathy?

5. Who do you find it hard to feel empathy toward?