Matthew 25:35-36 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.’
“If you love me, you won’t eat your peas.” Although my high school friend liked peas, she abstained in deference to her boyfriend’s request. My tender-caring friend evidently pitied him, and felt if she didn’t prove her love for him, it would break his heart. Young, immature love not quite at its finest!
But that incident surfaced as I read C.S. Lewis’ perspective on two kinds of pity. He describes pity born of passion as the kind that uses emotion, even manipulation, to get what it wants. This kind of pity withholds the truth for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. In the end, it deprives people the dignity of facing consequences for their actions. Sorry to say, I think today’s culture is drowning in this this kind of pity.
The second kind of pity, says Lewis, is the action kind. “It leaps from the highest place to the lowest to bring healing and joy, whatever the cost to itself.” This kind of pity moves us to do something when we see the needs and injustices our fellow humans suffer. But it will never sacrifice the truth in order to achieve it, as often happens with the first kind of pity.
Jesus did not mince words about the kind of pity his followers are to embrace. He tells us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and welcome the stranger. To the extent we can, we clothe the naked and visit the sick, the imprisoned. As we show pity to the least, we show it to him. And few things are more impactful, more beautiful, than mercy’s streams.
Life-giving pity rests on both truth and mercy. We help no one when we give them a pass for not addressing issues they can and need to address. Or when we indulge in what George W. Bush once called the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”
Well, my high-school peas-averting friends recently celebrated 50 years of marriage. I’m guessing they’ve learned a lot about walking in the right kind of pity.
‘Cause it’s the kind of pity that lasts a lifetime.