All heaven breaks loose

“When we practice generating compassion, we can expect to experience the fear of our pain. Compassion practice is daring. It involves learning to relax and allow ourselves to move gently toward what scares us. The trick to doing this is to stay with emotional distress without tightening into aversion, to let fear soften us rather than harden into resistance.”

                                                                                      Pema Chodron

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If anything it true about Jesus

It is this

Jesus came to reveal God's compassion

Which really ruined things for the religious status quo

Who were all about rules and merit

Who saw themselves as the gatekeepers

But Jesus came and turned this upside down

He was the great disturber

Which is why the way of Jesus (aka the Gospel) tends to be: good news for the poor

disruptive to the status quo

offensive to the rich

and terrifying to those in power.

Think about all of the times, in Jesus ministry when he overturned the “tables”

When he simply ignored the rules and rituals

And showed…. Compassion.

Compassion for the Samaritan woman at the well. She was considered impure by bloodline and behavior.

Compassion for the woman accused of adultery threatened with stoning. She was surely considered impure and the written laws said so.

Compassion for sheep who are not yet part of God's fold ( Who are those people in our communities?)

God, Jesus is saying, is accessible to everyone

God Jesus is saying, is love

God Jesus is saying, is compassionate

All people have access to God, because of that compassion,

But Jesus says more than that doesn’t he?

If God is about compassion, we have to be about compassion

That is if we want to reflect the fact that we are created in the image of God

The fruit should fall close to the tree

But compassion isn’t easy

It means we have to be open, and vulnerable

We have to go outside our comfort zone

It means we have to let go of so much that gives us security

And when we feel like closing up

Rejecting

Excluding

Protecting

We can’t

We just can’t

That is the time we become softer

More open

More forgiving

More generous

Compassion leads us into the unknown

Into fear

Into pain

And then…

All heaven breaks loose