Vicar's Bit For July
‘Badly done, Emma, badly done’
We’ve been watching the BBC’s wonderful three part biography of Jane Austen.
“Badly done, Emma, badly done” was Mr Knightly’s impassioned response, when his friend Emma Woodhouse was “unfeelingly insolent” to her social inferior, the loquacious dullard Miss Bates. Knightly was clear what proper manners required - “she should secure your compassion”. 250 years after the birth of Jane Austen, we might say that the wealthy Emma lacked empathy.
The wealthiest of them all, Elon Musk, believes “the fundamental weakness of western civilisation is empathy”. In words even more forceful than the atheist philosopher Nietzsche railing against Christianity, Musk says, empathy is like a “parasite” or is a “woke mind virus”. Other anti-woke warriors claim empathy is “sinful”, a “toxin” or an “evolutionary dead end” for too much compassion or understanding, too much care, creates “competitive victimhood”. Current popular right wing book are titled Against Empathy and The Sin of Empathy. And Musk concludes that a society which is too open, that is, too empathetic, simply falls apart.
There are three Christian responses that come to mind. The first is that intercessory prayer, without empathy, is hollowed out prayer. Jesus’ Ascension testifies to this: “We do not have (in the Ascended Jesus) a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses”. Jesus empathises with us when we are weak and tested. He approaches the Father, with “grace and boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”. In other words as there are no limits to Jesus’ empathy, and as his intercessory prayer for us is ceaseless there should be no limits to our empathy.[Hebrews 4. 14-end]
Secondly the Holy Spirit causes us to be empathetic. “The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints…” If we can’t do empathy, the Spirit will. [Romans 8. 26-27]
Thirdly Jesus commands us to be empathetic. After loving God, the greatest command is “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” [Matthew 22.39]. We should live within our neighbour’s world view as much as our own. This Jesus did when he left his Father’s side and was born into our neighbourhood, in poverty in a stable; Emmanuel, ‘God with us’.
We live in a traumatized world. So much lack of care out there. It is difficult to love others when pain numbs our feelings, for in our pain we become disassociated from others. And when we distance ourselves from our neighbour we “other them”.
Christian love surely chooses differently. In no way - as anti-woke warriors would have us believe - is empathy sinful or a toxin or an evolutionary dead end; for empathy is another word for a love; a love which understands others and shows proper respect for the dignity inherent in others.
Jesus showed empathy. Jane Austen expected rich Georgian socialites to show empathy. So should we today. Please don’t stop empathising, and don’t stop praying for the poor people of Gaza and Israel, they need our empathy; and pray for peace and for compassion in our neighbourhood too.