September 15, 2019
I love to meditate. Buddhists love to meditate. So, I have a lot of friends who are Buddhist.
One such friend gave me a book, entitled, “Opening to You,” by Norman Fischer. It is subtitled, “Zen-inspired translations of the Psalms.” Fischer is a Zen priest who grew up Jewish. He recited psalms at the synagogue as a boy, but they were in Hebrew, so he couldn’t understand them. As an adult, after he had become a Zen priest, he stayed for a time at the Abbey of Gethsemane, in northern Kentucky. Listening to the monks chant the psalms day-after-day, several times each day, he decided to spend more time with these ancient prayers.
Fischer didn’t translate all of the psalms and, unfortunately, did not translate today’s psalm. But I’d like to read a story he shares in his introduction. Fischer writes:
Once at a Jewish-Buddhist retreat he and I were leading at San Francisco Zen Center’s remote mountain monastery, called Tassajara, my old friend and colleague, Rabbi Alan Lew was asked to make the odious comparison: strengths and weaknesses. He said that the strength of Buddhism was that it was clear and helpful and will help your life. Judaism, on the other hand, doesn’t make sense. And that is exactly its strength. Just like us, he said. We don’t make sense. (p. xv)
Life doesn’t make sense. It’s messy. We know that. Sometimes it’s messy because of things we do; something it’s messy because of things that happen to us. I don’t think, however, most Christians appreciate how messy life is for God.
We tend to think that God is somehow above it all. That God is eternal and immutable. Amid all the changes of our lives, it is comforting to think there is one thing that does not change – the Lord God of heaven and earth.
There is certainly scriptural basis for this view. But it is not the whole picture. If we read the Bible carefully, we find a different story.
For, in the beginning, when the man and woman ate of the one tree they were forbidden to eat, they did not die, as God had said they would. They were evicted from the Garden and made to toil in earth and birth.
Then, when one of their sons killed the other out of jealousy, he also did not die. In fact, God went so far as to provide a mark on his forehead that protected him from any who would identify him as a criminal and kill him for his act.
And when God had destroyed all of life on the earth through a flood, save those on the ark, God vowed never to do it again. Why? “For the inclination of the human heart is evil from birth,” God says. God promises not to do it again, because it didn’t work. Not one human heart was changed.
In each instance, God adapted to human behavior. God didn’t abandon the creation or its creatures. God didn’t go off to some other universe and try again. God recommitted to this creation. Although it may not say explicitly that God changed his mind, there was an alteration in God’s behavior.
Then we come to today’s reading from Exodus. God has seen the suffering of the people in Egypt. He has sent Moses to lead them out of slavery. After Moses and God spend time together on the mountain, God establishes a covenantal relationship with the people in which they have twice promised, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.”
Then Moses goes back up the mountain to the God that they cannot see. When Moses doesn’t return as quickly as the people hope, they ask Aaron to make a god for them – one that they can see. Aaron asks for all their gold, melts it down and casts it into an idol – a figure that is not God.
When God sees what they have done, he becomes livid. Surprisingly, he reacts in a very human way. He blames his partner, Moses.
“Your people,” God says, “whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.” God’s plan is to burn them to a crisp and start over with Moses.
Moses (Thanks be to God!) does not back down. He gives as good as he gets. He says, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?”
Then Moses makes a very human argument about why God should not destroy them.
“Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’?”
In essence, Moses says, what will the neighbors think?
It may not be the best argument, but it works. Moses calls on God to change his mind – and God changes his mind. Then the covenant is remade. This time, however, the promise of the people to be obedient is not required. The covenant is based solely on the promise of God – the promise God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Life is messy. Even for God. Because of that, God adjusts, God adapts, God changes. Yet the character of God remains the same. For God responds out of compassion to the suffering of the people. It is not the immutable God, but the compassionate God that does this. And the compassionate God is the God of Jesus.
So, when religious leaders of his day scoff at Jesus because he socializes with sinners, Jesus engages them. He does not scoff back. He does not dismiss them. He engages them with stories.
“Tell me,” he begins. “If you had a hundred sheep and one of them got lost in the wilderness, what would you do? Wouldn’t you leave the 99 and go in search of the one? And when you found the one, wouldn’t you carry it back on your shoulders and invite others to celebrate? Well, even if you wouldn’t, that’s how they react in heaven when even one lost soul is rescued.
“And if you had ten coins, and you lost one, wouldn’t you scour the house up and down until you found it? And when you found it, wouldn’t you run around the neighborhood saying, ‘Rejoice with me! I found my lost coin!’? Well, even if you wouldn’t, there is more joy in heaven over one lost soul who turns to God.”
It is arguable whether a shepherd would actually leave 99 in order to find one. The Judean hills have many places sheep could navigate but shepherds could not. They are also filled with predators – jackals, hyenas, foxes and wolves. This shepherd initiates the search with little hope of finding the lost sheep. Against all odds, the sheep is recovered and is carried home and restored to the flock.
It is also arguable whether the woman who lost a coin would have lit up the whole house and searched high and low in order to find it. Depending on whom you ask, the coin could have represented either a half day or a whole day’s wages. Some say that the coins represented her life savings. But it also appears she owns her own home, so perhaps she is more well off than we think.
Either way, the shepherd and the woman are responsible for the lost item and also responsible for finding it. In neither case did the sheep or the coin repent. Finding the lost item is enough, however, to cause both to throw a party. One wonders – at least in the case of the woman – whether the party cost more than the recovered coin. No matter! The joy that marks the occasion suggests that the item was irretrievably lost, and its recovery was highly unlikely, if not impossible.
The human elements of these two stories are open to question, but the character of God reflected in them is not. Whether sheep or coin, we belong to God. God has promised to remain faithful and, when we get lost, God seeks us out. God does not stand back. God does not abandon us to our fate. God seeks us out until God finds us. That is the compassion of God.
Among the Buddhist friends I have made is Pema Antoniotti. Pema visited First Lutheran Church last May. She is coming back to town this week for a couple of different events. (Sorry. We won’t be at First next Sunday!) One of them is a discussion about interfaith friendships on Thursday night at Burlington Lutheran.
Pema and I met at Meriter Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, when our stints as student chaplains overlapped. Because of my interest in Buddhism, I had read of the concept of bodhicitta – the energy of compassion. I asked her one day if she would be willing to tell me about it. Pema lit up because she loves talking about bodhicitta. But, to my surprise, she also loves talking about Jesus. So, we started having lunch. I would ask her about Buddhism. She would ask me about what I was preaching on Sunday.
One day, Pema gave me the gift of this beautiful stole. It is green, so I get to wear it often. I don’t wear it for Easter, but green is the color of new life in Buddhism. In fact, this green has a gold shimmer.
But this stole is reversible. It has another side. Let me show it to you now. On the other side are peacocks. Peacocks are a symbol of new life in both Christianity and Buddhism. Although rare in the western church, the peacock is more common in Eastern Orthodox churches.
For Buddhists, the peacock is a symbol of bodhicitta, a symbol of compassion. Peacocks eat plants that are poisonous to others and then turn that harmful food into something beautiful – their colorful feathers. They transmute something that is hurtful into something that is beneficial.
This is what compassion does – it sees others who are suffering and does something to help them. It does not necessarily fix the problem, but stays present to those who are suffering. Compassion keeps us connected. It does not stand off in judgement, as we are tempted to do. It doesn’t turn away from suffering. It stays present both to our own suffering and to the suffering of others.
In order to stay present, compassion moves toward suffering. It goes into hopeless, dangerous situations in order to seek out those who are suffering. And it is so strong that it transforms suffering into blessing. It transforms suffering without repentance and without appreciation. And because that compassion stays present also to our own suffering, it gives us the same strength to love through anything.
Life is messy, even for God. But this messiness gives God a chance to show compassion – a chance to remain present to us when we suffer, a chance to connect deeply with us – even when we suffer from our own mistakes. So, in the mess of our lives, we know we are not lost forever.
This is what God does. Time and again. Throughout the Bible.
This is what Jesus does. For those who are lost. For those who have no hope of being found. He does this time and again.
Finally, this is what Jesus does on the cross. This is what Jesus does in his own suffering. He takes our suffering upon himself. He takes our death upon himself. And, through the power of God’s compassion, Jesus transforms our death into new life.
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