First, I would like to make clear that on Palm Sunday, the
recital of the Passion is a sermon in itself. The Passion narrative is a
proclamation that needs no adornment or explanation. To that end I offer only a
simple meditation.
This week we have seen another violent tragedy play out when
the copilot of a plane fixed a crash killing himself as well as everyone on
board. What could have possessed this person to do such violence? Well if we
are to be honest we must first acknowledge that we live in a society framed by
violence. And violence happens on many
different levels. Inequality, for instance, is a form of violence, not only in
its very nature, but in the way in which creates conditions that promotes
visceral violence. The repeated shooting of black youths by white police in
Ferguson is a stark example. Injustice is form of violence. The kidnapping of
hundreds of thousands of very young girls in undeveloped countries to serve in
the worldwide sex trade industry is an act of violence that begets violence. The systematic destruction of the planet’s
natural resources is a cataclysmic act of violence for which the generations to
follow will pay a heavy toll. Consider that it is predicted that the next great
war of the future will be over water. Our own creed of faith, the Nicene Creed,
came into its final form over the countless tortured bodies of zealous Christian
who died in defense of their proclamation. It may not be of interest to you to know that
young singer and pop star, Zayn Malik has left the wildly popular boyband One
Direction. But perhaps it would interest to you to know that in response, young
girls across the nation are cutting themselves as a way of showing their love
and solidarity with the handsome superstar. As I said, we live in a society formed and
framed by violence. How then might the violent work of the cross serve to
address such a condition and further the non-violent, peace-seeking nature of
Christianity?
It is sometimes helpful to throw a wide net in order to get
there, so bear with me as I, myself, try to understand such a deep mystery. In
my reading of Thich Nhat Hahn’s Living
Buddha, Living Christ this week I reviewed the five precepts of Buddhism, which
have parallels in all major world religions. In Christianity they are bound up
within a single teaching: love your neighbor as yourself. An advertisement I saw in a magazine recently
said simply, If you want to heal the world, you’ll have to begin with yourself.
The healing of neighbor can only begin
with healing our own deep wounds. That self-love is missing in our society in a
big way is self-evident. Volumes could and have been written on this
topic. But I think that perhaps Christianity itself might be to blame, in part.
There is a strain of Christianity that has been very pervasive in the West that
dwells on self-sacrifice as a way of living as a proper disciple of Christ. The
misguided belief is that the more you suffer, that is, deny your own needs
in order to provide for the needs of others, the more righteous you become in
the sight of God. The image of Christ’s
own suffering has been used as the central justification for this teaching. But
let me say clearly, it is wrong-headed. To do so is to commit violence to
yourself in a very real way. If the Passion has but one lesson it is that Jesus’s suffering was
enough; it was large enough to encompass and carry all other suffering. There
need be no more; that was the point. All violence of religious peoples was
intended to be ended at the cross. Christianity’s gift to the world is
non-violence.
If that seems too large to comprehend then perhaps studying
how the commandment of love of self/love of others is incorporated into other
traditions can be useful for us. The Five
Wonderful Precepts of Buddhism are as follows:
1.
Reverence for life
2.
Generosity
3.
Responsible sexual behavior
4.
Speaking and listening deeply
5.
Ingesting only wholesome substances
Since our topic is violence and how we have been commanded
in our own tradition to bring about its end, let us focus on how that might be
done. The first precept, Reverence for
life, reads as follows:
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I
vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people,
animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others
kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world, in my thinking and in
my way of life.
What I like about the wording of this vow is that it takes
into account the interconnectedness of the world we inhabit; the acknowledgment
of the sacredness of all life: people, animals, plants and even minerals. In
truth, we are all made of stardust, that is, minerals, and are positively
charged by ions. We are energy, the stuff of the universe. Did you know that
when you breathe, the molecules floating around in the air you are breathing
was also once breathed by every person who lived before? Just as there is no new
water, there is no new air. The elements that make up our breathable
stratosphere have been recycled, polluted and mutated, refined and renewed by nature’s own means,
combined with other elements in countless chemical reactions and substances,
and are continuously being transformed into what we know to be solids and gases
again and again in what appears to be an endless cycle of life. An unbelievable community of life is supported
in the just the smallest dew drop. Each biological system on this planet is
dependent on the stability of the others. It is a fragile balance. So is it any
wonder that the suffering of others will result in our own suffering? If we
want to end suffering, we must begin that work with ourselves. To that end Christ suffering will have to truly mean something
to us. It has to be taken personally or it will be just another story. It is
just another beheading, another plane crash/suicide mission, another act of
violence that seems senseless and quite disconnected from our own egocentric
reality. It is not. Christ died for you. That you might have life and have it
abundantly.
Jesus calls us not to
self-sacrifice but to self-love – into profound, radical selfishness. The work
of the cross has been done. It is not our role. It was his role. As one of my
favorite teachers often says: Stay in role. We have been called to a different
work; to the saving work of the cross and that begins with addressing our own
wounds and brokenness. If you want to heal the world, you must begin by healing
yourself. It is only from this place that we can have the kind of determination
demanded by our own tradition not to kill, not to let others kill, and to take Christ's commandment to its most complete translation: that we should not condone
any act of killing in the world, in our thinking and in our way of life. May
the work of cross begin that work in you.
