René Maciel: Compassionate community in the storm

But pity anyone who falls down and has no one to help them get up. … Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves (Ecclesiastes 4:10b, 12a).

René MacielWe’ve all been there. We are winning in life, things are exciting, and everyone wants to be a part of our parade. Then, without warning and seemingly in an instant, a dark, savage storm shatters us.

We’ve all been there. And it hurts.

Economists usually see emerging financial trends and warn businesses how to react. Meteorologists watch incoming fronts and winds swirling in far-off oceans to forecast weather coming our way. But sometimes, with deadly results, the models don’t hold.

We’ve all been there. Sometimes, we just don’t see things changing. We don’t understand how things can happen so fast. Life changes instantly and drastically. We are caught off guard. We fall. We bleed. We suffer.

Currently, the people—all the people—who make up Baylor University are living in a nightmare of a storm. Thousands of individuals—first and foremost the victims of sexual abuse, but also anyone who has invested life and prayer into the school—have, to some degree, fallen and need help getting up.

They all, to some degree, feel abandoned and lonely. And it hurts.

The Hebrew word the New International Version translates “pity” is an interjection that translates literally as “woe” or “alas.” In fact, translations overwhelmingly use the term “woe,” while only a handful opt for “pity.” But we too easily read “woe” as a judgment, as in “tough for you that you are abandoned in trouble.”

Rather, our God and our faith call us to active concern, to have pity and take pity on the storm-tossed. When I fall, I can do little more on my own than worry and fret about the situation. On my own, I can’t seem to recover. I need others to support me, to cry with me, to pray with and for me.

This is an opportunity to live out this Scripture, “Two are better than one.” We can help them up, stand by them, and most importantly, we can pray for them through the darkness. They need us, and we need them.

It is so difficult to take on life by yourself. It is lonely. We are overpowered by darkness, and it seems like everyone who was with us is now against us. We need others to come along and be with us, hold us and be our strength through the troubles.

I can think of no greater thing we can do as Texas Baptists than to pray for the specific people who make up our beloved institution of Baylor University during this storm.

And those prayers need to be the kind Jesus prayed.

Repeatedly, the gospels tell us Jesus looked at hurting people with “compassion”—including in one of my favorite verses: “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

“Compassion” can be understood as he “churned with emotion and empathy.”

We’ve all fallen and felt abandoned. And it hurts.

We all can join others in their pain and sustain them through community.

And that helps.

Two are better than one.

René Maciel is president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and president of Baptist University of the Américas in San Antonio.