When Jesus disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with PITY for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things. (Mark 6:34)
My daughter, Danielle, speaks fluent French. She, in fact, speaks better French than I speak English. I have often said that I really speak New Jersey…not English. My wife also speaks French. She does OK. Without her I would never have made it traveling around France and Senegal (French is the official language since Senegal was a French Colony). But, there are significant subtleties in any language, French especially. Knowing the language “sort of” can get you into trouble.
An example is when we were traveling with Danielle around France and Elise wanted to say thank you very much to someone for something they had sold us. To say that in French it is, Merci Beaucoup. And the sound of the “coup” is pronounced with your lips rounded and resembling the sound a monkey would make with a strong “ooo“. But Elise’s pronunciation came out as Beaucul (“cool”) instead. Essentially she told that person that they had a nice derrière….if you get my drift. To say that my daughter was embarrassed would be greatly understating her reaction.
Words matter. And how you use them can matter even more. In the Gospel today we see Jesus traveling with His apostles to a deserted place. The apostles had just come back from the mission Jesus gave them to go out and preach the good news and heal the sick. As you can imagine, they were pretty excited over all that they had seen and done. But they were now surrounded by large crowds. To the point that they did not even have time to eat. So Jesus took them to what he thought would be an isolated place. Somehow the crowds knew where they were going and arrived there ahead of Jesus and the apostles. They were there in great numbers. In fact, the stage was now set for the feeding of the 5,000.
But Jesus’ first reaction upon seeing the throngs was one of sympathy. The Gospel says because Jesus realized that they had no shepherd. No one to lead them along the correct path in life. He was condemning the religious leaders of the day for not having led the people in the ways of God. Having instead burdened them by focusing on the letter of the law and not helping to reveal the spirit of the law.
And the word used in this bible translation of the passage from Mark is, pity. Jesus had pity for them. I did a bit of research into the meaning of the word pity as compared to the word compassion…which I knew was similar but not exactly the same. Both words express sorrow for someone’s situation or circumstances but that is where the similarity ends.
Pity implies that there is somewhat helplessness. That there is little that can be done to change the person(s) sufferings. That you are somewhat outside and detached from what they are experiencing. The emotion you are feeling tends to have a short duration since you would move on quickly after the encounter. After all, your approach here is that you cannot change the person’s circumstances. So why remain. The other person is essentially seen as a victim of their situation.
Compassion also implies a concern for the suffering of others. But this emotion gives a sense that the person experiencing compassion is somehow connected to the them in a real way and can identify with what they are experiencing. One source I read described a feeling of shared humanity. Somewhat appropriate for the incarnate Son of God…don’t you think?
This mutual connection then prompts you to get involved to help correct their plight. As opposed to being a casual onlooker, you instead become a sort of emotional first responder. For the life of me, there is no way I see Jesus as a casual onlooker. So I questioned this translation (New Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition) of this verse. Turns out I had a reason to question.
Most translations of this verse use the word “compassion” in place of “pity”. I also found a source that discussed the Greek origin of the verse. That is where I found the word, Splanchnizomai (“splank knees o my” is how I think of its pronunciation). It literally means to be moved so deeply by something that you feel it in the pit of your stomach. It is used in several other places in the Bible such as with the Father in regards to the Prodigal Son. Or when Martha and Mary were mourning over the death of Lazarus. Jesus’ sorrow was so deep, so “gut” wrenching that He was moved to DO something. To raise Lazarus, to heal the woman suffering hemorrhages, to awaken Jairus’ daughter…to die on the Cross for us.
It is relatively easy to express pity for someone in a bad situation. It is much more difficult to feel a sense of compassion for the individual and thus be motivated to act. Through grace we are saved and are blessed with faith. But through that same faith we are propelled to act…to work for the good of another. And through that act, to be Christ. And by being Christ…to be an instrument of God’s grace and open the path to salvation for others. Turning despair and hopelessness to life eternal through compassion for others. Through splagchnizomai.
