
Welcome back, subscribers to the Empathy Surplus Network USA Substack. Today’s post is my sermon to Episcopalians in Oakwood, Ohio, as the invited preacher and celebrant for June 22, 2025. Even if you’re not religious, I hope you will find some meaning in this post. Thanks for reading, and consider sharing, subscribing, and leaving a comment.
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Good morning. My name is Chuck Watts. Thank you for braving our climate crisis heatwave to be here. I’m wearing a red stole during this green season to remind us to call our local leaders and demand that they declare a climate emergency.
I want to talk to you today about how Jesus persevered in trying to inspire courage in his neighbors so they can expand one another’s freedoms. This is the same perseverance we pledge ourselves to in baptism. This sacred perseverance is also reflected in the United Nations Charter, which we commemorate this week on the 80th anniversary of its adoption at the San Francisco Conference. I have left complimentary copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the back, which you can pick up as you leave. I hope you will.
Let’s recall our proudest moment of empathy surplus.
However, before I continue, take a moment, in silence, to remember a time when your perseverance to encourage helped the most people outside of your family. Where were you? How old were you? What was your role? Who were the beneficiaries of your help? How did your Good News fit into fulfilling our shared moral mission to protect one another’s human rights and freedoms?
Okay. So, as you come back, I hope you feel proud of your Good News experience in helping the most people. What parts of your empathy surplus experiences could you repeat in the weeks and months ahead? Thank you for all you did in your empathy surplus experiences. Thank you in advance for being as brave as you can be, and for joining weekly public demonstrations to demand an effective and compassionate government.
Encouragement during state intimidation of human beings deemed unworthy of the respect of their human dignity.
Wherever he went amid the violence of Roman martial law, Jesus called the crowds to follow his example of care so they can be sources of Good News to their neighbors. Jesus called them and us to be one another’s encouragement, protection, and a source for freedom expansion. Down through the ages, when tyranny put its boot on our necks, Jesus came again.
Jesus came again through our founders when they wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
Jesus came again through Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address, attempting to put off civil war when Lincoln said, “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
Jesus came again through Franklin Roosevelt’s first Inaugural Address to a fearful nation during the Great Depression, when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Jesus came again through Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reminding his German congregation during Hitler’s fascist regime that ”Christians should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak.”
Jesus came again through former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who wrote shortly after the United Nations’ San Francisco Conference, “Freedom without bread … has little meaning.”
Jesus came again through John Kennedy’s first Inaugural Address to a fearful nation during the Cold War, when JFK said, “Ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
Jesus came again through billionaire Bill Gates, who recently said of Elon Musk, “The richest man in the world killing the poorest children in the world is not a good look.”
Unite with courage to care for neighbors, no matter who they are, and demand that leaders do the same.
The four post-Trinity Sunday Gospel lessons from Luke tell stories of Jesus preaching to interfaith followers and calling them — and us — to unite with a simple formula: reduce our fears, increase our courage, care for our neighbors regardless of their background, and demand that our local leaders do the same. In all four, Jesus and his followers fall short in some way, but they persevere. The lessons culminate in Jesus condensing the Ten Commandments down to Two, Great, Coequal, and Interfaith Commandments: love your God and love your neighbor, implying every day. Jesus didn’t call for conversions.
There’s no longer a distinction between legal and illegal residents, worthy or unworthy individuals, but all are united in CARE.
That profoundly empathic idea is the compassionate faith that came to Paul on the road to Damascus, that there is no longer “Jew or Greek, male or female.” That empathic faith could come to our elected officials if enough of us demand it. The test of faith is how we teach and educate others about the compassion of human rights in the public square, not how many Bible verses we can impose on them. Nor is passing legislation that impoverishes millions, or sickens millions, or kills millions by enriching the obscenely wealthy. We must demand protection of human rights and freedoms under the rule of law.
The “effective” human rights advocate’s commitment and mantra: Promote courage. Care for others.
Today’s Gospel story is the first of the four. Jesus arrives in the country of the Gerasenes and tells them not to be afraid; his Good News will help them. But a demon-possessed passerby shows up and disrupts his teaching.
Maybe if fully human Jesus hadn’t been so fearful himself, his fully divine side would have told the demons to drown themselves and leave the pigs alone. Consequently, his routine sermon opener, “Have courage and help one another,” falls on deaf ears. The terrified locals ask him and his peacemakers to leave. It’s not Jesus’ proudest moment. Even so, scripture says his crowds grow with residents of each rejecting town.
Next Sunday, June 29, you’ll hear a similar story of Jesus giving another “have courage and help one another” sermon, only this time in a Roman-occupied Samaritan village. But, again, for whatever reason, they throw him and his peacemakers out of town. Even so, some Samaritans follow him to the next town. The following Sunday, July 6, we’ll hear the story of Jesus sending out the 72 to take courage to the Roman-occupied countryside, but the 72 also come back with stories of failure.
Finally, on July 13, we get Luke’s grand finale to this interfaith series. Jesus tells an inquiring lawyer of unknown religion that his answer to love his God and love his neighbor is right on. But the lawyer asks who his neighbor is and Jesus tells him and the interfaith crowd that his neighbor includes all the townspeople who have run them all out of their many towns. Jesus didn’t tell the crowd to convert, but put the test of faith in any God as to how well they love their neighbor, because the context is that the Romans don’t love them, there is strength in numbers, and that they all need caring and compassionate neighbors to live fully and thrive in dangerous times.
Faithful Christian ministry is linked to all world religions: Love your particular God and love humanity as proof of that love.
Repetition of caring behavior, in the hope of creating a caring society, is, for Luke, a sacrament versus a sign of insanity. Our catechism says the laity’s ministry is the most important. Your ministry, as laity, is to be one of repetitive public caring, regardless of success or failure. My ministry, as a clergy member, is to join you and encourage you on. That’s the key takeaway from scripture and our baptismal vows. Show up in public to care for your neighbor. Help your neighbors care. Organize around care. Educate about our duty to care. Start over each day.
This repetition is a strategy employed in peaceable assemblies as opposed to armed confrontation. A repetitive call to empathy is also a good strategy, according to scientific research, as it activates empathy in the brains of Americans. Every member of a world religion has a choice between the caring and cruel wings of their organizations. The Two Great and Coequal Commandments of Jesus mean that petitioning one another is just as important as petitioning God. Petitioning one another to overcome our fear of one another is essential. As Timothy Snyder wrote in On Tyranny, “Be as brave as you can be.”
We, the People, could unite around our duty to care for one another’s human rights and freedoms.
That people in the United States are afraid that our life, liberty, and security are in danger is a sign that self-righteous god-fearers are formidable, repetitive communicators. It’s a sign that God-lovers must improve our efforts to centralize empathy in constant public discourse, which is why I founded EmpathySurplus.com.
The United States suffers from a chronic, cancerous empathy deficit disorder, which is now metastasizing before our eyes. Fifty years ago in West Point, Mississippi, at a time when my wife and I were exploring the Episcopal Church, we were invited to serve on a new, emerging interracial community action board of directors. Many on that board became our mentors. Our task was to establish the first licensed daycare center for black children in the State of Mississippi, which we accomplished.
Sadly, intimidation ensued from the Ku Klux Klan during the process. The KKK was a recipient of secret intelligence gathered by Mississippi’s Sovereignty Commission, which surveilled all of the board members. Ultimately, thanks to our care for one another, we persevered.

The Episcopal Church’s human rights legacy.
Empathy is the soul of Christ’s Good News, democracy, ethical businesses, and nurturing families. Our care-wing faith tradition demands repetitive care for our neighbors, no matter who they are. Our repetitive caring ministry strategy is why, in 2014, the UN Economic and Social Council of the United Nations granted The Episcopal Church full consultative status. Scientific research shows that centralizing empathy in constant public ministry physically activates caring neural pathways and could build a caring common sense in American brains if we persevered in that ministry every day.
This week marks the 80th anniversary of the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which led to the immediate post-World War II creation of the United Nations Charter and reaffirmed the fundamental faith in human rights. The Archives of The Episcopal Church from 1941 to 1949 contain [a] praise for defeating fascists, [b] praise for creating the United Nations, [c] praise for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, [d] praise for teaching our children to respect human rights, and [e] praise for protecting human rights with the rule of law.
I have left complimentary copies of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the back, which you can pick up as you leave. I hope you will. And consider visiting empathysurplus.com.