Beyond the Patio

The Light of Compassion
Matthew 5:13-20

During the grim years in Nazi prison camps during WW2, Victor Frankl search for meaning in the suffering that he experienced.  At one point he described his search in this way

…we were at work in a trench.  The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners  were clad and grey were their faces—I was struggling to find reason for my suffering, my slow dying.  In a last violent protest against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom.  I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world and from somewhere I heard the victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose.  At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. “Et lux in tenebris lucet” – and the light shines in the darkness.

Of course the story doesn’t end there.  Dr. Frankl gained freedom eventually only to learn that almost his entire family had been wiped out so his suffering continued even after prison.  But during , and indeed partly because of, the incredible suffering and degradations of those harrowing years, he was able to develop Logotherapy and was able to help many people to find in the midst of their suffering, a higher meaning in life.  You could say that he became the light shining in the darkness that others were experiencing. I believe that he was able to do this because he was at one with the others in their suffering. Calling upon his own suffering, their suffering was his suffering. There was true empathy behind his practice of logotherapy.

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To be able to help others in their suffering is to be in touch with our own suffering in life. The suffering we have experienced in our own life can help us to appreciate the depths of other people’s unhappiness so it is important to revisit our own past in our desire to be empathetic toward others. 

When Mahatma Gandhi, a young Indian lawyer who previously had led a privileged life, was violently thrown off a train in South Africa, he became aware of the plight of people in his own country.  This marked the beginning of a lifelong, non-violent campaign against oppression. From early childhood the theologian and doctor 

Albert Schweitzer was saddened by the misery that he saw around him, especially to animals. He says:

“The sight of an old limping hoarse, tugged forward by one man while another kept beating it with a stick –haunted  me for weeks”.  He didn’t try to push this memory away but it became the impetus for his empathetic attitude and inspired him to devote his life to the alleviation of hardships of others.  Although he experienced happiness in his life, he could not stop thinking continually of others who were denied that happiness that he experienced by their material circumstances or their health.

These heroic examples of compassion is how these people became the light for others  in the midst of their darkness.

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In the Gospel reading this week Jesus says to his followers that they are the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a city that cannot be hid.  They are to let the light shine before others.  How are they do this? Unfortunately, some would say that it means to announce your beliefs before others so they might come to believe what you believe – to proclaim the doctrine that you have been taught so you can bring others to accept them. I have a hard time accepting that.

Marcus Borg points out that the earlist Christians were not called believers but earliest name of the Christian movement in the years after Easter, according to the Book of Acts at the beginning of the 9th chapter, is followers of the way. Christianity is about this path or way of transformation.  Believing, when you think about it, has very little transformative power. You can believe all the right things and still be quite untransformed. You can believe all the right things and still be mean. Rather, Christianity is about entering into this process of transformation.
(Marcus Borg on “What’s Christianity All About” )

To me transformation means taking on the life that you see in Christ, the compassionate lifestyle and live the same compassionate life before others so that you can be a light to others in their darkness.

As Karen Amstrong points out in her book “Twelve Steps to the Compassionate life”, Compassion is at the heart of all the major religions of the world as it is of Christianity. The Golden rule of doing unto others what you would have done unto you  or in it’s negative form of not doing unto others what would you would not have done unto you, is at the basis of this compassion. However, it is true that in the course of history, many religions including Christians have gone off in other directions.  They have not followed the golden rule at all and have used their religion to promote the egotistic concerns that have become the cause of many wars.  One could say that many “religious” people are concerned more about belief than compassion. But if we are the light of the world, it is in living compassionately in the world as individuals and together as a community.

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The compassionate life is not easy in our time. In many ways it is alien to our way of life.  The economy is intensely competitive and individualistic, and encourages us to put ourselves first.  It is also about the accumulation of goods which never seem to be enough.  It is about status and power over others.  It is about pursuing our own interests at whatever cost to our rivals. So, to concentrate of the emotions of compassion, joy, friendship, even-mindedness and gratitude  takes commitment,  perseverance and continual practice of going beyond our ego concerns and reaching out to others.

Karen Armstrong’s Twelve steps to a Compassionate life in which she presents a way of working for a better world are:

1. Learning about Compassion – recognizing that compassion exists potentially within every human being and can become a healing force in our own lives and in the world

2. Look at your own world – that is how we relate to family, other people in  our work situations, issues that affect ourselves and others in our community and nation and where our influence lies in any of those areas.

3. Compassion for yourself – It includes knowledge of ourselves, our own suffering, darkness and areas of unhappiness. Then, being compassionate to ourselves because if we don’t love ourselves it is difficult to love someone else. Once we are in touch with ourselves, then we can reach out to others in a way that their suffering is our suffering.

4. Empathy – Not hiding from the suffering, grief and sorrows in the world but it is in knowing the pain of the world and how it affect us.  In this way we can identify with others and weep together tasting the immeasurable power of compassion

5. Mindfulness – Being aware of the selfishness the impedes our compassionate outreach and entering into a meditation that gives us more control over our minds so that we can reverse the ingrained ego driven tendencies and cultivate new ones.

6.  Action – Even one small act of kindness can turn a life around

7. How little we know -Sometimes we have to leave our post-Enlightenment presuppositions, our twentieth-century self behind and enter wholeheartedly into the viewpoint of a world that is very different in order to discover the wisdom of the past ages. Practice exercise in open-mindedness “making room for the other”

8. How Should We Speak to One Another – Perhaps if we were able to have true dialogue (Socratic type of dialogue) peace would break out. There are many questions to consider in the way we speak to one another

9. Concern For everybody – We cannot confine our compassion to our own group. We need to go beyond tribalism. We have a duty to cultivate concern and responsibility for all our neighbours in the global village

10. Knowledge – How little we know of other peoples and cultures.  We need to use all the resources available to develop a  wider, all-encompassing knowledge and understanding of our neighbours

11. Recognition – There can come a time that when we look into the face of another, we see ourselves and realize that there is no “us” and Them” but at the end of the day we recognize that we are the same. We need only one person to understand our suffering and pain – that is so important

12. Love Your Enemies – We can stop the vicious cycle of attack and counterattack that holds the world in thrall today only if we learn to appreciate the wisdom of restraint toward the enemy.  In the words of Martin Luther King Jr. “Only goodness can drive out evil and only love can overcome hate” as difficult as that might be.

Karen Armstrong includes practices for each step in her book. She reminds us that it is, however, a life long project. It is not achieved in an hour or a day – or even in twelve steps.  It is a struggle that will last until our dying hour.  Nearly everyday we will fail but we must pick ourselves up and start again. She says:

“You will have to work at all twelve steps continuously for the rest of your life – learning more about compassion, surveying your world anew, struggling with self-hatred and discouragement. Never mind loving your enemies- sometimes loving your nearest and dearest selflessly and patiently will be a struggle!

“I hope I have shown in this book that compassion is possible, and that even in our torn and conflicted world some people have achieved heroic levels of empathy, forgiveness and ‘concern for everybody’.  We are not doomed  to live in misery, hatred, greed and envy — anyone of us can become a sage, and avatar of compassion.”

(About Karen Armstrong’s book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Knopf, N.Y., Toronto, 2011)

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The world needs compassion and working with all others who are committed to the compassionate life, no matter who they are, what religion or tradition they may adhere to, or whether they relate to any religion or particular tradition, we can make difference

There is much darkness in the world. The world needs light in the midst of that darkness. It needs the light of compassion.  We have seen that light in the life and death of Jesus as well as in the lives of other religious leaders in the ancient world.  We have seen that light in the lives of people we have come to know as Saints. In Sunday school a child was asked “What is a Saint?” the child, thinking of the stained glass windows in the church answer, “One who the light shines through”. We have also seen that light in the lives recent people such as  Victor Frankl, Mahatma Ghandi and Albert Schweitzer. There are many more we could point to that could be called modern saints.

The question is whether we are truly committed to the compassionate life? Once we take the compassionate life unto our self, we are, individually and in community, the salt of the earth, the city that cannot be hidden and the light of the world:

“Et lux in tenebris lucet” – and the light shines in the darkness.

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