Kristin Tovar

“When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
—Matthew 9: 35-38

Dear friends,

Almost 15 years ago, I spent a summer in Washington, D.C. as a camp counselor for middle school students learning about character and leadership as we toured the area. Each week included a trip to the Newseum (closed in 2019), where we would pack into the museum’s theater to learn about an investigative journalist, Elizabeth Jane Cochran.

Under the pen name Nellie Bly, she voluntarily went undercover in a nineteenth-century New York City insane asylum for women. Out of her own stay among those being treated there for mental illness came her published work, Ten Days in a Mad-House.

“I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly—a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God’s creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.” 

To her dismay, she details the experience and horrifying treatment of those living inside Blackwell’s Island, often against their will. A “human rat-trap” is how she described it. Her own escape was only brought about by lawyers and friends on the outside, as attempts to prove her own sanity were labeled as insanity by the staff. Their view of the very people they were called to care for and serve was warped, resulting in mistreatment. 

Today’s reading shows how Jesus sees human beings and humanity in a state of harassment and helplessness. Moved with compassion, he goes a step beyond empathy, ready to alleviate their suffering.

What are the “human rat-traps” of our day?

While most of us will never share the experience of Nellie Bly and those inside the asylum, we hear and see the vulnerable in our society every day. At other times, the vulnerable and their experiences will be hidden from us, and part of the work becomes simply staying awake and attuned to the marginalized and those who are suffering.

As followers of Jesus, we are both healed and invited to continue this work. Later in the passage, Jesus calls his disciples to pray for more workers because the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

May we remember the compassion with which we have been seen in our own helplessness, and be moved to respond to the needs of those around us, whether in body, mind, or spirit.

—Kristin