TD Jakes - Strengthening The World With Empathy
Right now, we are looking at the depth of empathy. You have to understand what I’m saying: we have problems that I don’t expect any one person to be able to fix. COVID-19 is a problem; I don’t blame you for not having the cure. I don’t expect you to have the cure, but I do want you to be empathetic. I want you to have the ability to mourn the more than 120,000 people who are dead. Even if you don’t have a cure, have empathy. I want you to be touched by the feeling of my infirmity. You can’t change the killings on the street; you can’t control what other people do, but I don’t want you to act like it doesn’t matter. I see—oh here we go—Jesus! When we want to know if we matter, it’s not that we want you to fix it; we want you to care about it.
The death of empathy is causing our streets to be terrorized. We need someone who can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity. I want to warn every leader and everyone in a position of power: your empathy is tested to the level of power that you possess, and if you gain power without empathy, God will judge you. Oh yes, God will judge you. How do you know that? God says, «I will not hear the husband’s prayer regarding how he treats his wife.» If God puts you in a position of authority and you abuse that authority while losing empathy, God says, «I will shut you off as you shut her off.»
What we are dealing with today is that we have people in positions who have no empathy, and what we are craving, what we are looking for, is not magicians; we are looking for empathy. We understand it’s a process; we know you can’t control everybody. We understand you can’t control every police officer. I understand that no matter what system we put in place, there will be people who go AWOL. We get that, but we need someone who can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity. You would be surprised; as a young pastor, I used to go into the homes where people had died, and I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to get a book on what to say when people die, but there is nothing you can say that makes the pain go away. There is no magic scripture you can quote, no specific way you can stand, or certain thing you can anoint to take away the fact that my child is dead. All you can do is walk into the room and weep with those who weep and mourn with those who mourn because there is something about empathy that brings comfort.
So Jesus came where we were so that God could have empathy for what we’ve done; He can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity. It would be easy for Jesus to say, «I cannot relate to what you’ve been through because I have not experienced that as well, and I really don’t understand, so you know, you’re on your own about that because I’m God and I’m celestial, and you’re terrestrial, and we come from different places. That’s your story, and this is mine.» But He went out of His way to be touched by the feeling of our infirmity because empathy makes us kin. Empathy makes us kin.
I was at my mom’s funeral; my mother’s body was presented at the front of the church, and her little brother—my uncle—came to my mother’s casket. I knew him and loved him, but I didn’t really know him. I fell in love with him, though, over how he loved my mother. I saw him crying over her casket, and we became friends until he died because he had empathy where I had pain. Empathy strengthens kinship. Oh, glory to God, y’all don’t hear what I’m saying: empathy strengthens kinship. You don’t have to say the right thing—just care about it. Cry with me; be worried when I’m worried. Be frustrated when I’m frustrated. If you can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity, that makes us kin. It’s not skin that makes us kin. It is not skin that makes us kin because, as the old folk used to say, «Everybody’s skin to me ain’t kind to me.»
So it’s not skin that makes us kin; it’s empathy. We have not a high priest who cannot be touched by the feeling of our infirmity. I don’t have to paint Jesus black, and you don’t have to paint Him white with blonde hair; it’s irrelevant because it’s not about the skin—it’s about being kin to me. Can you be touched by the feeling of our infirmity? So while we’re having a very juvenile argument over what color He is, we ought to be concerned about what kind He is because I’ve seen people who were the right color, but they still weren’t the right kind.
Just because you’re white doesn’t mean you’re right. Just because you’re black doesn’t mean we can hold back. We ain’t going to be together just because of skin. Being kin to me is about being empathetic to where I’m at. The Bible says we are bold because He has empathy. He can be touched by the feeling of our infirmity, tempted in all points, yet He didn’t sin. He didn’t have the same experience; He didn’t fall where I fell. He stood where I fell; He won where I lost; He was victorious where I was defeated. But He got close enough to it that He can be touched. Look at this: by the very fact that He relates to me, He said, «When you come before My throne, come boldly because we are connected.»