Over the pandemic, we have all experienced hardship. There may be no better time for The Salvation Army’s Ethics Centre to facilitate a learning opportunity on suffering, compassion and Christian ethics.

I have heard many good news stories of compassion throughout COVID-19. Unfortunately, they have been more than matched by accounts where there has been a lack of compassion. And some of these accounts have come from church contexts. I think you would agree that the church should always be compassionate where compassion is needed. But it seems that Christians have not always shown a readiness to offer compassion. How can this be?

Compassion, or suffering with people who suffer, is a virtue. It’s something we need to nurture in ourselves and in our communities. In a Salvation Army context, we might even say we should be trained in cultivating this virtue. Training in compassion begins with learning what compassion requires of us. As a virtue, compassion includes both caring action and a disposition or attitude that engenders lives characterized by active care.

Sometimes we think the virtue of compassion is a way of expressing our tender feelings for others. Receiving warm emotions from people can feel really good. But do compassionate attitudes and actions depend on feeling empathy?

For Christians, compassion is a version of the Golden Rule expressed in Luke’s Gospel: Suffer with others as you would have them suffer with you. It’s no accident that Jesus teaches this to his disciples right after he tells them to love anyone who hates them and to be generous to those who take advantage of them.

Pandemics are no respecters of persons. There are people whose suffering breaks our hearts. There are also people suffering from COVID who we are inclined to despise. Jesus calls us to be compassionate toward both, even to the point of self-sacrifice. This means disciplining ourselves to see their plight through compassionate eyes and using that vision to shape our behaviour toward them.

Other observations of attitudes and actions during the pandemic indicate that many Christians—myself included—have not been trained to suffer well.

What do I mean by this?

Most of us who have the privilege of living and worshipping in the Western world appreciate freedom, comfort and stability. Of course, it’s important to have the opportunities to be educated, earn an adequate income, receive quality health care, and socialize with family and friends. We are also responsible to advocate for people who don’t have these opportunities. They are good things!

However, it appears we have become so used to freedom, comfort and stability that we haven’t seen a need to prepare for their absence. While we can certainly experience joy in waiting for and working toward the fullness of God’s kingdom, Jesus didn’t teach his followers to seek after freedom, comfort and stability. He promised we would have trouble.

One of those troubles is that profound suffering can be isolating. It can isolate us from others and from our sense of self. It can even cause us to feel forsaken by God. Anyone who has read that once-ubiquitous Footprints in the Sand poem knows this. In my own experiences of profound suffering, I have questioned how a good, just and loving God could allow people to suffer. No strength of faith escapes the truth that we are fundamentally vulnerable and subject to having our lives upended. I have yet to find an answer to my question that is both intellectually satisfying and compassionate.

Yet Jesus offers another promise. God is in the business of overcoming evil in ways we have not expected and cannot achieve through human power. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Only the suffering God can help.” Over the past centuries, greater access to knowledge about mass human suffering has made this theological idea attractive. (It’s even included in the Handbook of Doctrine!) And for people enduring profound suffering, it provides a strange solace: God loves us so much that Jesus came to be with us. He celebrates with us. He suffers and dies with us. In Jesus, God shows us how to suffer well.

The end of the pandemic will not end profound suffering or the need for compassionate communities. If you are interested in exploring ideas and questions about suffering and compassion, register for the Ethics Centre’s study and conversation series “Suffering Well and Suffering With.” More information can be found on the Ethics Centre’s website.  

Dr. Aimee Patterson is a Christian ethics consultant at The Salvation Army Ethics Centre in Winnipeg.

Illustration: Maria Stavreva/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images