Community Sunday: Jesus Our Friend, Compassion Our Calling

This morning was our monthly Community Sunday where we have communion together as well as have time for coffee, snacks, and fellowship after musical worship. This month, Dave offered a brief reflection on what it means for Jesus to be our friend and why that reveals that compassion for others is our calling.

Please find the slide deck for this week's teaching here.

Home Church Questions:

1. What stood out to you from this week's teaching?

2. When you hear Jesus say in John 15:15 that he calls us friends, what comes to
mind? Does that feel natural or challenging for you?

3. In Matthew 9:36, Jesus is described as having compassion. What do you
notice about the way Jesus responds to people in need? How is his compassion
different from how we sometimes respond?

4. Sunday’s reflection suggested that friendship with Jesus shapes our hearts over time. Have you experienced your perspective or reactions changing as you grow in faith? What has influenced that change?

5. Imagine walking with Jesus and realizing he has stopped to care for someone. What might “keeping walking” look like in your life? What might it look like to “turn back and join him”?

6. Where in your daily life might Jesus be inviting you to notice someone right now (eg, work, neighbourhood, church, family, etc.)

7. What is one small, practical way you could respond with compassion this week?

8. Pray with and for one another, our church community, and our world.

Instagram: @theharbournewmarket
Website: theharbournewmarket.ca
Email: david@theharbournewmarket.ca

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hi everyone. Will here. Just a quick note about this morning's recording. Towards the end, Dave showed a video. Unfortunately, we will not be able to show you the video here, but the audio is captured here in the recording. And I'm sure you'll be able to gather what was going on in the video based on the audio that you will hear. So just a quick note to let you know that there won't be a video to see, but if you keep listening, then the audio of that video will play here in this recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Alright, well, this has been an interesting week, friends, and uh we're just gonna spend a few minutes before communion with a couple of uh a couple of stories, but along the theme that if Jesus is our friend, then compassion is our calling. Is my shirt all right? Is my shirt tucked in? Are we good? Do we really want to really want? Oh bless you. The Gospel of John 1515 says, I no longer call you servants. Instead, I have called you friends. What a great shift. You know, servants obey commands, husbands obey commands, no, no, um, servants obey commands in a variety of contexts. Um, but friends share life. And what we've learned, you know, through through Lent and as we've moved into Easter, and now as we move towards Ascension Sunday, we know that Jesus doesn't invite us just to follow him, but he invites us into relationship, into relationships, into closeness, and most importantly, I would submit into a friendship. And I believe that can change us individually, but it can also change us corporately or as a church family. And uh we have been a community that's leaned into compassion in a variety of ways. You remember making up kits, those of you who have been around for a while, making up kits for Mennonite Central Committee. I know we did AIDS care kits, compassion kits. Um we did some Christmas cards. I remember Alona standing there with a little tree for Connect City. I guess that would have been Christmas 2004 with all these wonderful gift cards to bless the people in the Scarborough community. So we have leaned into compassion in a beautiful way, and uh that's uh where we're gonna be looking at over the next uh our all-in services over the next couple of months is how can we as a church lean into compassion? And we've done it with our home churches, and uh so I'm curious what we can do moving forward as a collective community, and we'll talk about that in just a couple of minutes. And we do this because we know Jesus isn't distant, he's not detached. Again and again, we've seen in the Gospels that Jesus is moved by suffering, he's attentive, or he's attentive to the overlooked, and he's present with those who are hurting. Matthew 9 16, or Matthew 9.36 says, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them. And we don't take that word compassion lightly. The context here is that it's deep. It's not a service-level kindness. It means to be moved to your very, very core. And so we've learned that Jesus is a friend who notices, feels, and then responds. Well, it's been an interesting week. It's been one of those weeks that have kind of gone up and down. It started uh, it started with a great uh just a great Monday, and I'm gonna share about that in a in a second here. But uh something happened on Friday that I think has prepared me for just leaning in a little harder. Um I was invited to the probation office in Keswick to uh meet a new client. Um and I took it, uh I mean, it's never great when you get invited to the probation office because it usually means a lot of work. And uh, but I said, sure, you know, it's almost lunchtime, let me come up over my lunch hour here and uh let's see what we have. So I rolled in there at about 11.30, and um, I mean, you sit behind much glass and locked doors, and a fellow came in about 11.34, um, just a couple minutes late, but he was immediately apologizing to you know the front desk staff for being late. Hmm, that's a little unusual. It's good when probation clients show up at all. So for someone to be concerned about being four minutes late got my attention. And I proceeded to find out that this fella had nothing. So when the probation officer says he has nothing, he meant that, or she meant that, literally. So we we sit in the the little office and I ask him where he's living, and he's living in the forest. Um, okay. Um, how do you get around? Well, I walk. Well, did you walk here? No, I jumped on a bus. Okay, I didn't ask him if he paid the fare, didn't want to go there. And so I asked him why you weren't on Ontario Works, which is basically welfare. Well, when I went to jail, I lost it and I haven't been able to get it back. Why is that? Well, I don't have a phone, and you see the cycle continues. Um, the only way you can get Ontario Works is if you have a phone, because you can't walk in there to reapply. And we kept cycling around and around, and the takeaway is this fellow had nothing, and you have this feeling of kind of helplessness. So, because the question asked, okay, if you have a phone, will you lose it? Um, or will you sell it for you know for drugs? Um, and the reality is this fellow's offense was nothing to do with addiction. There was no addiction challenges at all. It was that he stole food. And uh so that uh again doesn't usually end well, and uh here we are. And so I was moved with compassion, and this is kind of maybe God preparing me for the message. Um I gave him a gift card um for some food, and we agreed to meet uh next week in a Tim Hortons at the South End of Keswick, and hopefully he'll show, and hopefully we can come up with a with a phone. But I guess my point is friendship is never neutral. And all of us have contacts much different than mine in your workplace, your day-to-day activity. Rick Baker shared a story with me this week where there's an opportunity for him just to lean into a need. And if Jesus is our friend, then over time his heart begins to shape our heart. And so that's my encouragement as we move forward as a community that we start to notice what Jesus notices. We learned a couple weeks ago, didn't we, with um The Good Samaritan. It's an old story. Um, not the first time we would have heard it, but it's always relevant because we know that the Samaritan just didn't feel something. He acted, he stopped, he tended wounds, he gave us time, compassion and motion. And uh that flows from a heart that's been shaped differently. Now, my start of the week started um very, very differently. And uh yeah, there's a little a little photo up there, or there will be. There it is. Man, I look much bigger on the screen. Scary. It's a little scary. Um, where to start this? I'll I will keep it brief. Our home church started making dignity kits, compassion kits. Long story short, we strove to meet the need of a marginalized homeless community with just um practical items: toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, bottle of water, bottle of gator aid, socks, things that mean a lot when you have nothing. And I took them down to our office before I went to Myrtle Beach, and by the time I got home, they were all gone. And I received a call from Jacqueline who, through conversation and uh through friendship, introduced me to a young lady that I had never met, but who had a heart for homeless people. And she wanted to make up some kits. And this uh this Monday I had the uh blessing of going and picking them up. So there's we got our picture taken, but she also made a little video of why she did this. This is the best thing I've ever heard. Anyhow, roll it, roll it if you can.

SPEAKER_02 11:14

I think it's a monitor. I think it's not going to be a monitor. And that's what they use as their current thing. It's really important for all those people to have a good spot for color things and to make sure they're worse. So everybody gets one card, and they all have different cards. Some of them are pineapples and some of them are stripes. And in the card it says, Dear friends, I'm a seventh year in the new Victoria, and I want you to know that you're being odd. I know things might be hard right now, but I hope this note brings light to your day. So hopefully to give you a laugh. Here's a joke. What do you call a bear of note? Okay, and then it says, I'm reading too and I hope things look up too. That's what she was back. That's what it looks like on the inside. And then all of them got packaged into one. Not all of them, but each one gets packaged into one envelope, and they're shields and put in the bags, and it's something nice that each one of the homeless people who are receiving them can get it. And they're all written by hand by me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I love it when good sociology meets theology. Beautiful. Well, so out of this flows an invitation. Um personally, I'd encourage you to stay close to Jesus as your friend, not just in belief, but in relationship. Walk with him, talk with him, communicate as a family with each other around Jesus, pay attention to his heart, and maybe ask a question. Jesus, what are you noticing today, and how can I join you? You know, compassion often begins in very ordinary moments. Friday morning I thought I was just slippity sliding right into the weekend, till I wasn't. So there's conversations, there's a need we don't always plan for, there's a person we might have overlooked. And as our church family, I'm gonna ask us the same question. Jesus, what are you noticing in our community, and how can we join you? So this is on my radar. We have a compassion team. Um it's been a little bit uh dormant over the last the last few months, but as John Belushi said in a great movie, The Blues Brothers, we're getting the band back together, compassion-wise. So we have a small committee at present, but we're looking for more. So if you are interested in joining this committee, speak to Alona. Um, there's going to be a survey coming out in the next couple weeks, and um basically as a compassion committee, we want to hear from you. Now, back to Victoria for a second. We're trying to raise some money for Tim Horton's gift cards. We've raised enough for we'd like to raise$50, yeah,$50,$10 gift cards, so$500. Um, we have raised uh$200 so far. So if this is something you would like to participate in, we do have a compassion fund. Email us there, compassion fund at the harbornewmarket.ca, and just put in hygiene kits. This way um it'll get designated properly. And um, I would love to be able to put a$10 gift card in each one of these kits. Right now they're sitting in my front foyer, and I would love to get them where they need to go. Um, so the quicker, quicker we get to our goal, the quicker I can get them out uh out and uh out into the community. So that's my challenge this morning. So before we move into communion, let's just uh pray together. Yes. She was in grade seven. That would be 12 years old. I think 12, 12. She did say she was in grade seven. It's what it's incredible. Like I came home, I went down kind of cranky because it's well, it's all the way down to Thornhill and a lot of traffic on Bathurst Street, and it's oh, after school, that's like four o'clock, and but then the drive home went so well. My heart was full even in the traffic, and uh yeah, fabulous. Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you that you call us friends. Thank you that you see us, you know us, you walk with us day by day, so shape our hearts to be like yours. Help us to notice what you notice and to respond with compassion. Lead us into these small everyday moments, whatever they look like, and whatever our context is, and may your love be made visible through us. In Jesus' name. Amen.