Sermons

Preacher: Rev. Charles J. Stephens

Opening Words: Meaning of Compassion gathered by Nina Todor

The English noun, compassion, means to suffer together-with, it is derived from Latin. The prefix “com” equates to “with.” “Passion” is from the verb “pati” which equates to the English noun patient, or one who suffers. The various expressions of the “Golden-Rule” embody by implication the principle of compassion, “do to others what you would have them do to you”.

All the major religious traditions and numerous philosophies rank compassion among the greatest of virtues.

For Christians, Jesus embodies the essence of compassion and relational care. Jesus taught the golden rule. Compassion was central to the Christian ethos from the beginning. The gospels show Jesus practicing concern for everyone reaching out to sinners, prostitutes, lepers epileptics, tax collectors. He told his followers to refrain from judging others.

In Hinduism the central concept that is particularly relevant to the attitude of compassion, is “ahimsa.” Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word that can be translated most directly as “refraining from harmfulness.”

The Buddha stated, “Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others.” When his attendant asked the Buddha, “Is loving kindness and compassion part of the practice?” He replied that it would be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion was all of the practice.

From Islam, the foremost among God’s attributes are mercy and compassion. From the Quran each of the 114 chapters with one exception starts with the verse in the name of God the compassionate, the merciful. One of the practical purposes of fasting during the month of Ramadan is to help one empathize with the hunger pangs of those less fortunate, to enhance sensitivity to the suffering of others and develop compassion for the poor and destitute.

In the Jewish tradition, God is ‘the Compassionate’ and is invoked as the father of compassion. Rabbi Akiva (circa A.D. 50 – A.D. 135) stated that the commandment to love one’s neighbor as oneself is the “great rule in the Torah.” From the Kabala one rabbi stated “Kindness gives to another. Compassion knows no other”.

Meditation: By Thich Nhat Hanh 

Let us be at peace with our bodies & our minds.
Let us return to ourselves & become wholly ourselves.
Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all & to all living things.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion, let us fill our
hearts with our own compassion-towards ourselves and towards
all living beings.
Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, & of the
sufferings that are going on around us, let us practice the
establishment of peace in our hearts & on earth.               Amen.

READING: from Martin Luther King, Jr.

…”Something should remind us once more that the great things in this universe are things that we never wee. You walk out at night and look up at the beautiful stars as they bedeck the heavens like swinging lanterns of eternity, and you think you can see all. Oh, no. You can never see the law of gravitation that holds them there.

When I speak of love, I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.”

READING: from Karen Armstrong – lecture at UU GA 2011

“Well, the world religions all insist that you cannot confine your benevolence to your own group. You must have (what) another Chinese Sage called jian ai, concern for everybody. Otherwise, as Jesus said, if you just like the people who like you, there’s no merit in that. This is just group egotism. We cannot confine to people who share our ideology or ideals to everybody without exception. Love the stranger, love the foreign, says Leviticus. Love your enemies, said Jesus. Reach out to all tribes and nations, says the prophet Muhammad.

So, this is the challenge. This is the challenge in our world. And it’s tragic that the religions which have this ethic right at the heart of their faith are seen to be the major cause of hatreds and disdain and exclusion.”

SERMON:

I was excited to hear Karen Armstrong speak several years ago at one of our UU General Assembly. After she was introduced and then after thunderous applause, she said, “Thank you. What a welcome. I’ve always been told that Unitarianism should be my spiritual home.”

I had already read a number of books by Karen Armstrong. I had not yet read the one she talked about that evening, “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.” After hearing Armstrong speak, I appreciated her on a whole new level. I had appreciated her scholarship as a theologian, especially because she was able to write in a clear and fresh and even personal way about how God is understood from a variety of theological perspectives.

Likely, you are very to be familiar with the TED talk series. When I first heard of those talks, I actually wondered who Ted was, until I realized TED stood for “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” OK, I had my head buried into the practical aspects of Parish Ministry. There is also a TED prize given each year to an exceptional individual. They receive $100,000. But even more important, they are asked what their wish is that would change the world. The TED organization then tries to help the recipient make that wish happen. Karen Armstrong is one of those TED prize winners.

Armstrong clearly knew the focus of her wish. It had, been a source of deep frustration for her that even though the major world religions; the eastern religions and the monotheistic Abrahamic religions had all developed a wonderful ethics of compassion, they at the same time, had become one of the major sources of violent conflict.

Looking around the world, it is hard not to see religion as a chief cause of world violence. The Sunni and Shiite Muslims are battling one another. The Roman Catholics and Protestants fought and killed one another in Northern Ireland. Conservative Christians and religious liberals fear and mistrust each other. Fear and hate exist between many Muslims, Christians and Jews. We sit in front of our TV stations listening to the violence along the Gaza Strip and hear of innocent children being killed and mutilated by bombs. In India and Pakistan fear and hate exist between Hindu and Muslim. In Myanmar or Burma there is violence between Buddhist and Muslim. The list goes on and yet the major religions all talk about compassion.

Armstrong emphasizes that all the major faiths have at their core an ethic of compassion. The Opening Words demonstrated this. The ethic of compassion has been verbalized in some variation of what has been called the Golden Rule in which we are exhorted to not treat others in ways that we would not like to be treated our self.

The test of true spirituality, I believe, is for religion to take us beyond our selfishness and greed into the presence of the love which many call divine, Nirvana or the Dao. Yet, all too often religions and religious leaders focus more on creed than deed and more on some isolated sexual ethic than on the deeper need among human beings for compassion.

Karen Armstrong clearly says that unless we now learn to implement the Golden Rule globally so that we treat all peoples, all nations, as we would wish to be treated ourselves, we’re not going to have a viable world.” Let me repeat those words, unless we now learn to implement the Golden Rule globally so that we treat all peoples, all nations, as we would wish to be treated ourselves, we’re not going to have a viable world.” This I believe is clearly the task of our time, to build a global community where people of all persuasions can live together in harmony and respect.”

Armstrong’s wish for the world is to establish a “Charter for Compassion,” written by leading thinkers from six different faiths, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism as a lasting agreement.   The Charter already had many partners around the world when Armstrong wrote her book “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.”

The title of Armstrong’s book intentionally draws on the tradition of Alcoholics Anonymous with the twelve steps. Her view is that we human beings are addicted to feelings of dislike and hate toward both things and people. She posits that the struggle of the fittest to survive may be the basis for this human tendency. Unfortunately, we all harbor elements of the reptilian brain that can be triggered to dislike or hate those who seem to threaten us, our family or our tribe.

Armstrong points out that we can easily become dependent upon little or big hates and prejudices. We need them because they have helped form our sense of self. It isn’t hard to understand what she means. The other may be that annoying colleague, possibly a sibling, a parent or child, maybe a past partner. We can even project our anger to the other as an ethnic group, a religion or a whole country. Armstrong says, “When we utter these uncompassionate, dismissive, or unkind or unjust remarks about one another, we often get a kind of buzz, rather like the first drink of the evening—a sort of glow.”

We know that we can be addicted to mood-altering drugs, but we can also become addicted to mood-altering behavior or activities such as gambling, sex, high-risk behaviors or even surfing the internet sites that reinforce hate and encourage violence. Armstrong makes a strong case that we humans have become addicted to the process of uncompassionate, dismissive, unkind and downright hateful behavior.

An addiction to alcohol, tobacco or other drugs can slowly poison us from the inside. Yet we do not seem to give up such behavior easily. Similarly, an addiction to behavior like being uncompassionate and downright hateful can slowly poison us from within.   We do not seem willing or able to give up such behavior any easier than we can give up drugs. It can turn one race, ethnic group or religion against another. It can even turn siblings or other family members against one another.

World politics is often based on one country opposing another country to gain its resources by taking advantage of the other in some way. In our country, one state or city opposes others competing for federal grants, business and tax ratables. Even sports fans have turned from good natured competition to being verbally threatening and even physical violent to those who dare support another team. Political parties here in the U.S. no longer seem willing or able to work together to make compromises for the common good of our nation. How long can such a winner take all mentality last?

I agree with Armstrong, we need to ”…wean ourselves step by step away from this addiction by integrating habits of mind and action and thought into our daily practice.” She points out that we need to start by learning and talking more about compassion. We don’t see much compassion from our political leaders, business leaders, news sources or even many of the most powerful preachers in our country.

We the people need to start leading from below. Common people need to learn more about compassion and then we need to talk openly about its importance. We can start doing that by looking at our personal worlds of family, congregation, school, neighborhood and work place to see what we can do. There are things we can do as an individual to increase the amount of compassion in the world. Write a Letter to the Editor. Support compassion in your family, community, county, state or nation. Talk about compassion with your neighbor. Help someone in need. Be compassionate to someone you like. Be compassionate to someone you don’t like.

Only then can we look beyond the larger world to see what needs to be done to increase compassion and decrease fear inequity and hate. We the people can make a difference if we join with others in organized ways to increase, even if by just a little, the compassionate behavior in the world.

Compassion has to be a major factor when we as communities deal with things like healthcare, public education, job training, poverty relief, the justice system, affordable housing, immigration, and yes even illegal immigration not to mention our national tax system.

I don’t think we the people; in our families, in our congregations, in our communities, in our country and in the world can any longer afford our addiction to the me first attitude where others come last if at all.

Just think about the fact that Confucius introduced the Golden Rule during a difficult and violent time. It was about 500 years before the story of Jesus. He said to his followers, “Look into your own heart, discover what gives you pain, and then refuse, under any circumstances whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Never treat others, as you would not like to be treated yourself.” Pretty sound advice then and pretty sound advice now.

It was an equally difficult and violent time when a pagan elder, approached Hillel, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth and a respected Pharisee. The man said that he would convert to Judaism if Hillel could recite the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. The story goes that Hillel stood on one leg while saying, that which is hateful to you do not do to your fellow man. That is the Torah, and everything else is only commentary. Go and study it. And it was during those same difficult and violent times when Jesus advised his followers “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Years later, during another difficult and violent time the Prophet Muhammad advised his followers, “None of you have faith until you love for your neighbor what you love for yourself.”

Why do you suppose there has been this consistency down through the ages? The answer is simple it worked then and it will still work today.

CLOSING WORDS: by Dalai Lama

My message is the practice of compassion, love and kindness. These things are very useful in our daily life, and also for the whole of human society these practices can be very important.”

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”