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