By Dr. Darrel Sears
Turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman?” These simple words of Jesus in Luke 7:44 often get overlooked. We tend to breeze right by as we consider the Savior’s next words, “I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet (Luke 7:44-45, NRSV).”
This is a truly remarkable story of a courageous and repentant woman, desperate to do whatever was needed to find forgiveness from Jesus. What a bold act to enter the home of a stranger, uninvited! The text says she didn’t just shed a tear at his feet; she wept with uncontrollable sobs, producing enough tears to wash his feet. Yet, the irony in this story is that Simon can’t see her. He knows her sin, he sees the act, but he can’t see HER.
As ministers, it is easy to read Scripture with judgmental eyes. We say to ourselves, “Come on, Simon, quit being a jerk and have a heart!” But if we are honest, I think we all find ourselves in Simon’s shoes. This callousness to see the sin and look past the sinner is called compassion fatigue. It gets the best of us and can be prevalent in ministry. Compassion fatigue happens to all of us from time to time, but a continued numbness to the needs of others should be a red flag. It is a sign of ministry burnout.
There is a paradox in full-time ministry that is rarely talked about. Most of us who feel called into ministry do so because we want to help people. We love to teach teens about Jesus, or we want to serve others who are in desperate need. We have a burning desire to share the Gospel, and we genuinely want to help others with their problems. People are why we get into ministry!!! And yet, people tend to be the reason why we get out of ministry!
Compassion fatigue comes from perpetual exhaustion. When feeling burnt out, it’s not that ministers don’t care about others; it’s that they don’t have the capacity to care for others over a long period of time without personal rest and renewal. There are thresholds to empathy and care. You cannot pour into others if your own cup is empty. Without the capacity for empathy and compassion, people become problems to be solved rather than souls to be loved.
The good news is that compassion fatigue is curable. The hard news is that a renewed sense of compassion for others requires an audit of the heart and an honest evaluation of the parts of your soul that are starving for spiritual nourishment. Ministers, if you are experiencing compassion fatigue, I would like for you to permit yourself to sit quietly in solitude at the feet of Jesus. I know this sounds like an oxymoron, but if you want to have spiritual and emotional capacity for others, you must find time to be alone with the Lord. Solitude is not about escaping the world, but rather the need to sit in stillness and hear his voice. Consider the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. He ran to the mountain of the Lord to meet with God. The Lord came to Elijah in a mighty wind, a violent earthquake, and a blazing fire. These acts of God grabbed Elijah’s attention, but they didn’t quiet his heart. What he needed most was the gentle whisper that came after.
Having gone through my own burnout battle, I can attest to the emptiness and loneliness that ministry brings. I can also attest to the fact that I spent so much of my time pouring into others, I neglected to let God pour into me. I didn’t need God to do a miracle…I needed God to whisper words of empathy and compassion into my own struggling soul. Like the woman who wept at the feet of Jesus, I wanted to be seen. An amazing thing happens in ministry when we feel seen, heard, and loved by Christ. We are given the capacity to see others.
Dr. Darrel Sears is an associate professor of Bible and Ministry at York University. He is also the director of the Second Chance Program for the Nebraska Correctional Center for Women and preaches for area congregations.