Lenten Message

We have been travelling through a Lenten series characterized by the prayer, 
“Lord, Open My…”         

The first week was “Open My Eyes”                                                                                       The second was “Open My Hands”,                                                                                        And the third week was “Open My Ears”.                                                                                     This week the prayer will be   “Lord, Open My Heart”.  

I remember working through the first week’s prayer – Open My Eyes – and wondering what it would be like if the petitioner were in the presence of God asking this very thing… to have their eyes opened.  

I imagined God hearing this prayer request – 

“Lord, open my eyes!”                                                                                                         And then God responding                                                                                                 “Do you really want me to open your eyes?   Do you know what you’re asking?”    

Do you know what you’re asking? 

Jesus told a story of a man with two sons.    The youngest son asked his father for his share of the inheritance… the inheritance sons would customarily have received after the death of their father.   Once received, he took it and went off to a “foreign land”.   There he squandered his money on that era’s version of parties, prostitutes, and drugs with all his new friends    At some point, his money ran out, and then so did his new friends.   Looking for a way to survive, he hired himself out to a local farmer feeding the pigs.   For an Israelite to be working with ritually unclean animals demonstrates how far this young man had fallen; from his family, from his land, from his people, from his traditions.   

Coming to his senses, he recognized this fall from grace.  Going home is his only option.   He knew he would return in disgrace!   He planned out a speech, hoping it would convince his father to let him back home.   With head bowed in shame, he rehearsed, “I have sinned against God and against you!   I am no longer worthy to be called your son” – he recognized he’d lost his place as a family member!   “Please take me back… even if it’s just as a hired hand!   I want to come home again!   I want to come home!”

As the story goes, his father saw him coming while he was still far off – he knew his son so well he was able to recognize him while he was still just a distant figure in the horizon.                                   

“That’s my son!”   He ran out to greet him.   As they got closer, the son, who had steeled himself to face his father… to reveal his shame… to ask… to beg… to be allowed home again – was interrupted by his father’s welcome!   He threw his arms around his son, told the servants to bring out some clean clothes and put a ring on his finger.  (Rings had some emblem on them, symbols of identity, of belonging.)   

And the father got his servants to throw a party for his returned son.    

However the eldest son was  understandably very upset about all this.   He pulled his father aside to question him about the wisdom of celebrating the return of a son that took his father’s money, wasted it on prostitutes and drugs, and now was returning in shame!    He even reminded his father that he (the father) hadn’t even given him (the eldest) even a small calf to have a small party with his friends – and here, his younger, irresponsible, brother was being celebrated for doing nothing more than come back home.

The father responded –                                        

“Son, everything I have is yours!   Always has been!    But your brother… he was gone!     In so many ways, he was gone.   Dead!     But now… he’s back!    He’s alive again!   It doesn’t matter what happened before!   He’s back with us again!    He’s home, alive!    We have to celebrate!”    

What a show of compassion!

The following story is so old, it’s in the shadows and fog of history and legend.  No one can be sure what’s real and what’s not real anymore.   It starts back around 2,500 years ago.    A boy-child was born to a great king in India… the king’s first-born.   This occasioned great joy throughout the entire kingdom.  When the appropriate time had passed, the king threw a tremendous party to celebrate.   There began days and days of joyous festivities.  As was the custom, astrologers were called to determine the child’s charts – to guide his life.    A sage, a holy man, was invited to come bless the kings son.  

On the day of the blessing – amidst all the festivities and joy, the sage… who had by this point seen many, many years of life… slowly and deliberately made his way forward to where the king and his little baby prince waited.  As he did so, a tremendous quiet laid itself down across the whole scene.  What had moments before been a scene filled with noise and celebration, was now utter quiet.

The sage accepted the baby boy from the king, embracing him into his arms.  He entered into a kind of prayer… not talking prayer, but listening prayer.   Listening… listening… listening for the potential paths the child could travel – paths as yet undetermined, but solidly evident.   Sages know of these kinds of paradoxes… Holy people know.

So this Holy Man listened.   In that silence… he listened.  He listened for what could be uncovered, he listened for what could be revealed.    It revealed itself… but the sage needed to find the right words.   The sage did indeed bless the child – with a hand gesture over the little boys head, with words spoken in that ancient, holy, language very few knew any more.     

Completing this simple ritual, the sage turned to the king and spoke.                     “Your son will either be a strong leader, a military leader… a great king… like you.  He will be one of the strong rulers of the known world!     Or…   or… or, if he sees the suffering of the world…  he will be its savior.”  

By the kings orders, the boy would grow to be a strong and skilled young man...  never allowed to leave the royal compound, never allowed to see any suffering.      No sadness, no death, no suffering of any kind was to be expressed around him.   This however did not go unnoticed by the young man – he could feel something missing.   

So one day, accompanied by his trusted assistant, he left the royal compounds under the protection of stealth… and entered an unknown world;   a world of extraordinarily ordinary people doing extraordinarily ordinary things.    And… for the first time… he saw suffering.

He saw starving people, people begging for scraps of food to fill empty stomachs.   He had never seen these effects of hunger.     

He saw crippled people – people for whom some of their limbs, for whatever reason, either didn’t work, or weren’t there at all.  

He also saw death.                                                                                                   

He stumbled upon a funeral service.  He saw the grief of the family as they stood near the funeral pyre as the flames consumed the body wrapped in white cloths.   He saw mourners –their grief, their sorrow, their pain.                                                                                                                                          

“What’s happening?” asked the prince of his attendant

“They are mourning a death.” 

“What is death?”    

“It is the end of life in the body.”          

These expressions of suffering deeply troubled the young prince, so much so that he felt compelled to enter again into this world, to do what he could to learn about life – in all its joys and sufferings… so he could alleviate all beings of suffering.

The prince…  heir to the throne…   heir to the kingdom… gave all these worldly trappings up.  He bade his father and family good-bye, leaving behind the royal compounds forever and embarked on this new life; a life characterized be the disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation… and being compassionate… compassion coming from an open heart…  open to life in the fullest, most grounded sense.  

After decades of fasting and prayer, and meditation and practicing this kind of compassion for all life…  after decades learning the secrets of life… and teaching them to any who would listen and learn – ways to alleviate suffering and living more freely…   after decades of this, as the legend goes, sitting under the boddhi tree…   he finally woke up!... and spent the rest of his life helping others to wake up through these disciplines of compassion brought on by an open heart.  

An open heart.   

I’ve met people who have been hurt by life, by other people, too many times, too much!   So they decided to close their hearts to pain.     Open hearts can certainly be the doorway to pain.    And I can sure understand that!    I have been on both ends of this myself.    

But the thing is, by closing the door of the heart to pain, they have also closed the door of the heart to joys of life, to the ability to reach out to others in compassion.   

“Lord, open my eyes!   I want to see!” 

“Do you really want to see?...   see life in all its fullness…   and see life in all its pain?     You’ll see.    

Open your eyes!   But don’t just see just with your eyes – see with your heart as well!    Don’t just open your eyes – open you’re your heart too!”         

Like the father who let his son go – in the bible story… the father who let his son go – even though he brought the father pain…. he let him go because he loved him that much!       Like the same father who welcome that same son back, that broken and humbled son… welcomed him back because he loved him that much!

The challenge of compassion…   the challenge of an open heart… that is indeed a challenge!    There are a million-and-one reasons to not be compassionate!     These reasons are very easy to find!    

Sometimes what is hard to find is compassion itself!     Compassion…   found in an open heart.    

“Lord, open my heart!” – We pray…    

“Do you know what you’re asking?”  Says God.