The compassionate way.

The Dalai ‘Lama once said “Compassion is not religious business, it is human business, it is not luxury, it is essential for our own peace and mental stability, it is essential for human survival.”

If this is so, if compassion is part of the business of being human and essential for our survival, then we are failing badly when it comes to our treatment of asylum seekers in this country. We have, sadly, entered into a time in Australian society where our sense of our humanity, of what it is be a part of a society where compassion and human rights are valued and basic, is under threat.

And we live also in a time when the nature of the truth about our treatment of asylum seekers is twisted. It perhaps began with the ‘children overboard’ lie, and extends to this time when we are being sold the lie that putting men, women and children into indefinite detention in places like the Manus island detention centre is somehow a compassionate act because it is stopping the boats. The great deception is to disguise expediency and selfishness as compassion and to disguise ugly politics as the protection of Australian society. 

On Palm Sunday we celebrate a story in which traditionally a king or messiah would come into a city triumphant on a great steed, but Jesus chose to come into Jerusalem riding a donkey to reinforce that he was not that sort of king. And though Jesus had been preaching and teaching about peace, compassion and an alternative paradigm of life in which the first are last and the last first, on this day, everyone wanted a powerful, forceful king.

The palm Sunday message calls us to live out Jesus' alternative way of being; to live the compassionate way and to find way to welcome the stranger. On Palm Sunday I will be thinking of those who have sought asylum in this country, particularly those who are on Manus island or Nauru. I will ponder their journey, their sacrifice, their shattered hopes, and I will vow to work and pray for transformation in our politics and society that will bring a better, more compassionate way.

The Dalai Lama also said that “Compassion is the radicalism of our time.” As Christians we are called to shout 'hosanna' to this and to be just such a group of such radicals.