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‘Can we make room for a full-bodied Jesus?’

John Pavlovitz concludes his lectures at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary with a how-to on ‘empatheology’

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January 29, 2025

Mike Ferguson | Presbyterian News Service

Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — Picking up Wednesday where he left off Tuesday, author, speaker and pastor John Pavlovitz, who’s delivering the Currie Lectures as part of the 2025 MidWinter Lectures at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, once again read Mark’s account of Jesus stilling the storm at the request of his frightened disciples.

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Photo by Hannah Busing via Unsplash

The disciples “knew Jesus well. They understood his power and they knew his character. They thought at most it would be a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour,” Pavlovitz said. 

“I imagine they looked at one another and said, ‘How did we end up here?’” Pavlovitz said, picking up on a theme he’d touched on Tuesday.

Our ministry “takes us into people’s paths,” and so “we need to embody the compassionate activist heart of Jesus. Can we make room for a full-bodied Jesus?” Pavlovitz asked. A relative recently texted him to say, “I just want you to know you’re coming across as really angry lately.” “Good,” Pavlovitz texted back. “I was afraid I wasn’t communicating clearly.” The relative told him, “I feel sorry for you.” He replied: “Don’t feel sorry. I know I’m angry and I think they’re worth it.”

Or, as Augustine of Hippo put it: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage: anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”
No less an authority than Aristotle pointed this out: “Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and it’s not easy.”

A Pavlovitz addendum is that “the object, level, timing, purpose and manner of my anger all matter.”
“Anger propels us into movement, but it’s almost always toxic. It seeps into our bloodstreams,” he said. “Little by little we become used to a posture of irritability and defiance. We can begin to live angry, but there is nothing of Jesus in that,” although “there is anger in the works of Jesus.”

Rather than using a term like “righteous anger,” Pavlovitz prefers “redemptive anger” instead. The tests include “Does the work bring wholeness?” and “Is compassion the product that comes out of that anger?”

He also suggested replacing “anger” with “ferocity,” as in “the way a family dog fiercely defends a small child from a coyote.”

It was ferocity, after all, that helped birth the civil rights movement, the women’s movement and the LGBTQ rights movement, he said.

It’s also a main contributor to Jesus being executed, he said — Jesus’ “ticked-offness.”
“When you feel that holy ferocity, nurture it and transform it into a tangible, redemptive act,” Pavlovitz suggested. “Don’t let anger exist for anger’s sake.”

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John Pavlovitz

Pavlovitz had at least five ideas on “living the compassionate active heart of Jesus, especially with people you disagree with.” He called it “Empatheology”:

•    Look for the fears and the false stories — “No one is at their best when they’re terrified,” Pavlovitz said. “Part of the job of being compassionate is uncovering people’s fears.” It’s possible, he said, to get to know someone better and like them less, but at least “you now see them as a fully complex human being.”

•    Be mindful of the grief we all carry — Anger and grief “look similar on the outside,” he said, telling those present in person and online, “I imagine you’re here because you’re grieving something,” such as a loss in the belief of the goodness of people or our sense of optimism toward the future or “the lightness you used to feel when you woke up in the morning,” he said. Everyone we encounter “is experiencing the collateral damage of living. … We’re all mourning something.”

•    Confront the epidemic of loneliness — Pavlovitz recently read one author’s critique: “Churches often think they have community when they only have proximity.” He shared what he experienced as a young youth minister, when a student wrote him expressing gratitude for “making me feel visible, and I rarely feel visible.” “The greatest lesson I have learned in ministry is to see people,” he said, adding that Jesus not only saw people, he saw what the world was doing to people.

•    Be a student of other people — The nation’s divide is more about how we see people, the world and our resources, Pavlovitz said. Our first step ought to be to admit we don’t know a person as well as we could, “then learn more,” he said. “We have to become students of the people we disagree with. They are unique and complex, and we have something to learn from them.”

•    Consider your lenses — Pavlovitz told a story on himself of complaining about a new ride at a theme park, then realizing he’d failed to put on the 3D glasses given to him. He asked his family if they could get back in line so he could have the experience he’d paid for. “It was so clear, so life-like,” he said of the second time through. “Friends, the lenses through which we view the world matter.”

“God is not overwhelmed by the things that overwhelm you. God is not taken aback by the trouble we face,” he said near the end of his third talk in two days. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘Do I still believe in that God?’”

“We need to be the kind of people who bring peace to those who are shaken,” he said. “Amen. Thank you. Be blessed, friends.”
 

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