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The Revelation of Our Inner Thoughts
Sermon by Rev. Sarah Buteux
for Sunday, 2003
Scripture: Luke 2:22-38
When Jesus was brought to the temple, his presence was a cause for much
celebration. Not only did his proud parents have a healthy baby to thank God
for, they were also greeted by two prophets, Simeon and Anna, both of whom
confirmed all that the angels had said about this special child. By their
words they declared that this baby was indeed the Messiah,
the “Salvation . . .of all people,” “the light to lighten the Gentiles and the
glory of Israel.” He was truly a blessing. But, as is the case with many
blessings, he was a mixed one. For Simeon, after singing his praise to God,
continued his prophecy: “This child is destined for the falling and the
rising of many in Israel,” he said, “ (he) will be a sign that will be opposed
so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.” He then turned to Mary
and said that, a sword would pierce her own soul as well. You can almost
feel the cloud passing briefly before the sun, and the chill his words would
have caused for all who stood in the temple courts that day.
Jesus’ presence would indeed bring healing, hope, and consolation to those
willing to receive him, but he would also bring sorrow and arouse anger in
others. I am most struck by Simeon’s words about Jesus revealing the inner
thoughts of people. His ability to do this would cause Jesus to be loved and
revered by some, and despised by others. You see, the revelation of our inner
thoughts is rarely a comfortable process. Jesus made a great deal of people
uncomfortable and angry, because by his very presence he drew people into the
light, and revealed to them who they truly were and what they truly loved. He
did not judge others, but something about the way he spoke and acted, brought
people’s true motives to the surface. He gave them the opportunity to see
themselves clearly, and people are rarely thankful for that kind of honesty.
Some took their interactions with him as an opportunity for spiritual growth
and did indeed rise up: Nicodemus, many of the disciples, Zaccheus, Mary
Magdalen, just to name a few. But there were also those who turned away,
clinging to their illusions rather than yielding to the truth. The revelation
of our inmost thoughts is a profoundly life altering experience, and rarely an
experience that we welcome with open arms.
Story of Zen Master
I saw something of this in action a few weeks ago, Doug, our sexton, invited
the Thursday night reading group to the Cambridge Zen Center to hear the
teachings of an American Zen Master. I really had no idea what to expect, but
it sounded like an interesting variation on our usual routine, so I encouraged
the group to go. We arrived in good time, shed our shoes at the door and
proceeded through the renovated brownstone buildings that have been joined
together to house the Zen center, until we reached the outer hallway of the
main meeting space. There we were given robes, which Doug taught us all how
to tie on properly, and then we were escorted into the room where we sat zazen
on cushions and meditated for a time. After a short instructional talk by a
member of the community the evening was turned over to the Zen Master. I
expected him to give a lecture, or sermon, or talk of some sort, but instead,
he just sat there. And then, after a short time, people began to ask
questions… all sorts of questions. Questions about life, government, civil
responsibility, meditation, love, death, war, and enlightenment. The Zen
Master answered each individual in turn with a calm assurance. I was
impressed with his wisdom. He was unflappable and honest in a way that was
both disarming and welcoming.
As I listened I had the sense that Jesus must have been a teacher like this,
as, I imagine was Socrates. There was a genuine affection for everyone
present that suffused this man. He was not judgmental, but he was
unflinchingly honest. I became aware that he was not one to send people away
with easy answers. He was not there to make us feel comfortable with
ourselves. In fact, his answers seemed to make people distinctly
uncomfortable. And, perhaps because of this, one thing I noticed rather
quickly was how reluctant those who asked the question were to hear his
answers. They had thought long and hard about their questions, mulled them
over, come up with answers of their own, and when the Zen Master would respond
there were some who genuinely had trouble accepting his words. Rather than
mull over the master’s response, they would often simply rephrase the question
and toss it back at him for another go.
The master was unflappable, patient, and uncomfortably frank. Afterwards I
mentioned to Doug that the master seemed like a rock; unshakable, absolutely
certain, impossible to offend, and opaque. He revealed nothing about his own
inner struggles or desires as he spoke, and seemed completely detached. But
the people who questioned him, I have to say it was almost too much for me,
because as they struggled to hear what the Zen Master was saying, rephrasing
their questions and trying again and again to understand, they revealed so
much about themselves: their fears, their desires, their temptations. Some
even became visibly angry. It was as if their inner most thoughts were laid
bare before the master, and the rest of us. I felt as though they were
running up against this man with their questions and that their egos, or as
Swedenborg would phrase it, their proprium, that which was proper to them,
shattered in the face of this man’s calm repose and compassionate wisdom. He
reflected their doubts and their fears as a mirror, and that mirror was often
shattered by his answer. People would either see the pieces and leave them
there on the ground, thankful that the illusion had been broken, or gather
them up again and glue their mirror together and have another go at him. Many
of them chose the latter option.
As I said before, he reminded me of Jesus. So many times during his
ministry, Jesus was approached by people who questioned him, but were unhappy
with his answers. The rich young man, the Pharisees, Peter: so many people
would rush up to Jesus seeking answers, or attempting to trap him, or simply
understand him better, and they would be overwhelmed by his quiet wisdom. Many
were unable to hear and accept his truth in their hearts. His truth was often
so hard to hear because it would reveal parts of people they were
uncomfortable with, parts they would rather have kept hidden. The rich young
man went away saddened because Jesus answer to him revealed that the young man
loved the security of money more than anything else. The Pharisees would
continually betray their own hunger for power at the expense of truth when
they would spar with Jesus. They would attack him, hoping to prove that he
was too proud, that he had overstepped his authority, or that he was out of
line. But in each of these conversation he would reveal in his own quiet way
that the evil they sought to find in him was an evil they had yet to confront
in themselves.
And then there were the others. People like the disciple Peter. Peter, who
was constantly stumbling, boasting, failing to live up to his best intentions,
and loving Jesus in spite of it all. Peter was a rare soul. A person who
could stare his mistakes full in the face, once he saw them, and love God
enough to seek forgiveness and try again. With his words, Jesus often held up
a mirror to Peter, and that mirror was repeatedly shattered. But Peter left
the pieces of his many mirrors on the ground and kept walking after Jesus. I
keep playing with this metaphor of the mirror and the idea of being shattered
because it truly was my first impression of the Zen Master. I was surprised to
see the verb used in Swedenbrog’s writings as well. But he does talk about
good people whose false principles must be shattered before they can ascend
into heaven. And this makes sense to me. Because it is not just a matter of
shedding falsities, but breaking their hold on us. It is a drastic, violent
verb, but God allows these falsities to be shattered for our own good. It
allows what is good in us to rise freely to the surface. It is an act of love.
And much like the Zen master, I believe that Jesus loved each one of these who
came before him, even if they found it hard to love him back. I believe that
Jesus loved them and forgave them, and longed for their spiritual healing. It
was all a matter of whether they could hear him and allow his truth to shape
their lives. I guess the more I study his words, the more I realize that
there was never a question of Jesus’ love and forgiveness, nor will there ever
be. The question lies in each individuals desire to accept love and
forgiveness. I am fully indebted to Doug for this sermon, because my next
quote comes from a book he gave to me for Christmas. The book by Stephen
Mitchell is entitled “The Gospel According to Jesus.” In the introduction
Mitchell writes:
(With)in Jesus sayings, it may seem as if God’s forgiveness is dependent on
ours. ‘Forgive us our (debts) as we forgive (our debtors)’… If you don’t judge
you will not be judged; if you do not condemn, you will not be condemned; if
you forgive you will be forgiven.” But these ifs have only one side... Jesus
does not mean that if you do condemn, God will condemn you; or that if you
don’t forgive, God will not forgive you. He is pointing to a spiritual fact;
when we condemn, we create a world of condemnation for ourselves, and we
attract the condemnation of others; when we cling to an offense, we are
clinging to precisely what separates us from our own fulfillment. Letting go
means not only releasing the person who has wronged us, but releasing
ourselves… In these sayings of Jesus, God is a mirror reflecting back to us
our own state of being. We receive exactly what we give. The more
openhearted we are, the more we experience the whole universe as God’s grace.
Forgiveness is essentially openness of heart. It is an attitude, not an
action” (p55).
But forgiveness, whether it is the forgiveness of God, or the compassionate
guidance of the Zen Master, or our own attempts to reconcile with each other,
is, as David Steindl-Rast says, “forgiveness freely offered, not imposed” (The
Gospel According to Jesus, 71). And this is why Jesus made people so
uncomfortable, because often we don’t want to be forgiven, we want to go on
just as we are. God will not love us the less for it, for God’s love is
unconditional, but we will experience less of that love because those parts of
ourselves we would rather deny will cause us to turn away from it. Our true
nature, for good or ill, is revealed in the face of heavenly love. Our
proprium is shattered in the presence of truth. In the end we cannot hide
what we are because we are what we love. We see, reflected in Jesus our
inmost thoughts, fears, loves, angers, hopes. Like that little town of
Bethlehem “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in (us)” when we come
into his presence. Jesus is a blessing, but a blessing that comes at some
cost to that part of us we would rather hide.
Swedenborg, in Divine Providence 227, writes:
There is good and evil in everyone. The good is from God, but the evil is
the person’s own. Evil alone would squeeze all the life out of them: likewise
good, if it were alone, would smother the person in a Divine stranglehold. So
there is good and evil in everyone (that we might experience the freedom to
choose what kind of people we will be).
Everything hinges on which prevails – on whether the person is really hooked
on evil and only outwardly concerned with the good - or vice versa. Either
way, God sees to it that the distinction doesn’t become too blurred, and after
death good and evil are finally sorted. All that remains is what the person
has actually taken to heart, despite worldly appearances.
Jesus, the Zen Masters, and even honest assessments of ourselves can help to
reveal our inmost thoughts. If there is one message I would leave us all with
today, it is this. Jesus made many people uncomfortable because he revealed
their inmost thoughts, but we don’t have to fear anything within ourselves.
We don’t need to be afraid. There is no question of God’s love for us. We
are loved, we are forgiven, we are welcomed in the eyes of God. We have only
to love ourselves enough to be open and willing to look at ourselves
honestly. There will be times when our inmost thoughts are revealed to be
heavenly, and there will be times when they will be revealed to be hellish.
This is what it is to be human. Rather than fear this truth, or feel judged
by it, let us accept it for what it is and realize that even the hells within
us serve a use when they can be identified and turned away from. I think what
made people so uncomfortable in the presence of Jesus was the very fact that
he did not judge their inmost thoughts but allowed them to choose for
themselves who they wanted to be. This freedom has caused, and will continue
to cause, the falling and the rising of many, in Israel and beyond. But it is
not a freedom we need fear. It is a freedom we can lay hold of and use as God
intended, for our spiritual growth.
I would like to leave you with one last quote. It is from a book called “A
Winter’s Tale,” by Mark Halpern. Within the book a wealthy old man is about
to die and he is settling his will between his two sons. He loves both of his
sons, but he makes a curious decision. To the son who shows no sign of
becoming a responsible individual, he leaves all of his wealth. To the son he
is most proud of, he leaves only a golden platter on which are inscribed four
virtues, “honesty, courage, sacrifice, and patience”. Allow me to read:
The light on Hardesty’s face went from violet and blue to gold and silver. He
felt its warmth, and saw again the inscriptions – four virtues (honesty,
courage, sacrifice, and patience). Many times, his father had taken him to
read them, insisting that they were the most important things he could have,
and implying with a sharp dismissive gesture of hand and arm that wealth,
fame, and worldly possessions were worthless and demeaning. “Little men,” he
once said, ”spend their days in pursuit of such things. I know from
experience that at the moment of their deaths they see their lives shattered
before them like glass. I’ve seen them die. They fall away as if they had
been pushed, and the expressions on their faces are those of the most
unbelieving surprise. Not so, the man who knows the virtues and lives by
them. The world goes this way and that. Ideas are in fashion, or not, and
those who should prevail are often defeated. But it doesn’t matter. The
virtues remain uncorrupted and uncorruptible (sic). They are rewards in
themselves, the bulwarks with which we can protect our vision of beauty, and
the strengths by which we may stand, unperturbed, in the storm that comes when
seeking God.”
Let us pray:
Dearest God,
You have searched us and you have known us, and you love us. There is
nothing within us we need hide from your light and your love. Help us to love
ourselves as you love us. Help us to pare away all that would separate us
from you. Help us not to be afraid to look at ourselves openly and honestly,
but to love ourselves enough to seek after you in all things.
Amen
Copyright 2003 by Rev. Sarah Buteux
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