You can listen to the full unabridged audio here: Mandate of Mishpat - Call to Empathy
In August of 1997, my wife Amy and I flew to Jamaica for our honeymoon. It was one of those perfect, all-inclusive deals where everything is paid for upfront. We spent our days floating in the pool, kayaking in the ocean, and eating incredible food. It was a week of total relaxation—a great way to start a marriage.
But there is a specific reality to vacationing in Jamaica. The resorts are all nestled along the coast. When you land in Montego Bay and board the bus to your resort, you experience a jarring dichotomy. On the left side of the bus, you see the gorgeous Caribbean Sea and luxury estates. But if you look out the right side of the bus, you see a level of poverty that is difficult to process. You see cows with their ribs sticking out and homes in total disrepair.
On a honeymoon, the temptation is to look only to the left. You tell yourself to forget the right side of the bus, because if you keep those images in your mind, you won’t be able to enjoy your vacation.
The problem is that many of us live our entire lives that way. We live as though the images out of the right side of the bus simply don’t exist.
The Danger of Arrogant Complacency
This was the exact state of the people of God during the time of the prophet Amos. In Amos chapter 6, the prophet drops a series of “woes” on the people of both Israel and Judah. He writes:
“Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria… You lie on beds adorned with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves… You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph.” (Amos 6:1, 4-6)
When Amos speaks of “complacency,” he isn’t talking about a benign laziness. In the original language, this word carries an edge of arrogance. It is the kind of complacency that sets into a heart when empathy dies. It’s the attitude that looks at the brokenness of the world and says, “They deserve it. I worked hard for what I have; they should just work harder.” It is a sense of looking down upon others from a place of comfort, effectively numbing ourselves to the pain of our neighbors.
When Empathy Dies, Justice Fails
Amos points out a terrifying symptom of this heart condition: “You have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness” (Amos 6:12).
When we lose the ability to see the world through the eyes of those on the fringes, justice and righteousness become offensive to us. If we have no empathy, then seeing grace or mercy extended to “those people” makes us angry. We start to feel that they don’t deserve God’s care, or that their gain is somehow our loss.
When righteousness feels like a “bitter pill” to swallow, it’s a red flag that our empathy is failing.
The Way of Jesus: The Practice of Empathy
As followers of Christ, empathy is not an optional personality trait; it is a core part of our identity. We are called to be a people who “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.”
We see the perfect model of this in the story of Lazarus. When Jesus arrived at the tomb of his friend, he knew exactly what he was about to do. He knew he was going to perform a miracle and raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet, when he saw Mary and Martha weeping, Jesus didn’t tell them to “calm down” or “relax because I’ve got this.”
Jesus wept. He entered into their pain. He practiced a deep, guttural empathy, standing in solidarity with his friends’ grief even though he knew the ending of the story.
Waking Up and Looking Right
In Amos’s day, the wealthy used “fine lotions” and “bowlfuls of wine” as a buffer. They used luxury as escapism to numb their senses and cover the “stench” of the world’s injustice.
Today, we have our own versions of those lotions. We numb ourselves with media, with endless scrolling, with consumerism, or even with “going through the motions” of church while keeping our hearts closed to the needs around us. We pretend that the “right side of the bus” isn’t there.
Whether it’s the struggling school district down the road, a neighbor wrestling with the weight of inflation, or a congregation member suffering in silence, God is calling us to look out the window.
My prayer for us is this: That we would refuse to be a people whose empathy has died. May we be moved to action by a love rooted in Christ. Let us stop buffering ourselves from the reality of the world and instead walk alongside the wounded, saying, “I see you. I love you. I will walk through this with you.”
Don’t just look at the ocean. Look at the need, and let the Spirit move you to act.