Day 8 - Just Stability
Living Christ Sangha - Advent Ango Practice Period
Readings
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Isaiah 5:1-7
2 Peter 3:11-18
Luke 7:28-35
Reflection
At the surface level, the three themes in today’s readings are
Isaiah: God planted a vineyard that yielded wild (bad) grapes, and he will no longer tend or protect it.
2 Peter: the old order will be dissolved in fire, and a new order (heaven and earth) will come. We should not lose our stability while we wait.
Luke: Jesus describes the greatness of John the Baptist and the vacillation of the “current generation” who demean John’s austerity but also condemn Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners.
What concerns are expressed here?
The readings share a common theme that something is lacking in the current state of things. The fruits of the vineyard disappoint, the old order needs to be erased and replaced, and the current generation cannot be satisfied. Isaiah names what is lacking: justice and righteousness. 2 Peter describes the situation as one of lawlessness and a lack of stability. And the “current generation” of Luke is compared to fickle children who find whatever happens to be unsatisfying and disappointing. I believe the common concern is that the people are unjust and unstable.
What is requested of us?
If the problem is that society and unjust and unstable, the request is pretty simple to understand. We are to seek a just stability.
Where is the hope?
The call to seek just stability makes sense, but as a species, we’ve spent several thousand years hearing this call without being able to realize it in anything but the most rudimentary way. I believe this is because we misunderstand what these two concepts really mean. It is tempting to think of them as states at which we can arrive, but this would be a mistake. Rather, they are processes that we enact in the world.
Justice originates with the recognition that it is needed, that something is unjust. Upon seeing injustice, the practitioner seeks to identify what is necessary to enact justice in the particular situation she has identified. She must do this in the midst of a concrete, given situation. Justice is not abstract. Because the recognition of injustice can be the ground and catalyst for the emergence of just action, justice and injustice inter-are. Injustice is the mud from which the lotus of justice is grown.
Similarly, stability originates with the recognition that we need it, that things seem volatile and out of balance. Again, the practitioner recognizes a concrete situation that calls for stability, and he brings it forth by embodying it in the midst of the challenge of instability. Stability and instability inter-are, and instability is the mud from which the lotus of stability is grown.
The interbeing of the mud and the lotus is one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s deepest teachings, and the truth it offers is that our deepest challenges can be the fertile ground for the growth of great virtues such as compassion, loving-kindness, justice, and stability.
This view offers us a radical reorienting of the idea of eschatology (the end of the present age or present times) and the apocalyptic events that usher in what is to come. If we take the insights of the mud and the lotus teachings seriously, the instability, injustice, and lawlessness of the current age are not a state to be destroyed and replaced with a new state of stability, justice, and lawfulness. Rather, this broken world is the ground from which the luminous world is grown. The truth is that this very moment is the eschatological moment, and our grace-given skillful actions are the apocalyptic events which usher in the age to come.
Prayer
God of transformation, give me the eyes and ears to see and hear the cries of need from the world around me, and give me the courage and wisdom to use the brokenness that I find to cultivate your healing gifts that our broken world so desperately needs. Amen.
You know that I love this!