“Love Kindness”
Psalm 103:1-8; Luke 6:32-36
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
February 5, 2017
Jeannie-B the ministry dog and I rushed over to Edwards Hall from the office building at 9:50 on Tuesday morning, just in time to greet folks arriving for Gentle Yoga. As we got out our mats and blankets, one of our regulars approached me. “I have a question for you,” she began.
I stopped to listen, expecting her to point out a sore shoulder or a stiff back and ask me about modifications to our yoga postures. Instead, she asked about compassion. “Are we really supposed to show compassion toward everyone?”
It was an unexpected question, but it made a lot of sense in the context. Open Spirit is about 15 days into our “One Hundred Days of Loving-Kindness,” and I had emailed the Gentle Yoga class that our practice for the next three weeks would center on Micah 6:8: Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God. Reflecting about compassion–loving-kindness–was in the air.
I didn’t have time to ask Carole more about what was behind her question, but I assumed it also reflected the broader context of our divided nation and world. It doesn’t take a lot of scrolling through Facebook news feeds to prompt questions about compassion. There are so many horrible things being said–what does it mean to show compassion toward people saying hateful things? How do we respond with compassion when we discover family members see the world in such different ways than we do? And when public officials do things that seem cruel, what does it mean to show them compassion? Carole’s question was a good one.
I took a stab at a partial answer: “Showing compassion toward someone doesn’t mean approving of what they say or do–or letting them get away with it.” Then we started our warm-ups.
When class was over, another yogi approached me. “I’ve been pondering the different between ‘love kindness’ and ‘loving-kindness,’ she said. “Love kindness,” of course, is the title of today’s sermon and the way the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible translates the Hebrew from Micah 6:8. “Loving-Kindness” refers to a particular kind of Buddhist meditation, and is also a common translation of the Hebrew word hesed.
“Love kindness,” Marge continued, “suggests action. Loving-Kindness seems more a feeling or an attitude.” It was a helpful insight. What is the connection between love kindness and loving-kindness–between action and emotion?
I have found myself pondering these two conversations this week–searching for answers or at least insights into loving-kindness. The Bible’s answer to Carole’s initial question is clear. Both Jewish and Christian traditions speak with one voice. In a recent Open Spirit blogpost, Rabbi Katy Allen quoted ancient sages regarding the meaning of hesed. “Rabbinic sages,” she wrote, “describe hesed, loving-kindness, as excess in one’s practice, but mostly as excess in active goodness and kindness. This refers to acts of loving-kindness both toward those who have no right at all to claim them from us and toward those who deserve them in even greater measure than we might imagine. In most cases the prophetic books use the word hesed in the sense of practicing beneficence toward one who has no right at all to claim it from you.”
Jesus’ bold command, “love your enemy,” draws upon the ancient Jewish traditions that shaped his life. The call to offer loving-kindness, or compassion, toward others is unrelated to whether they deserve it or will reciprocate it. If anything, the bible calls us especially to show loving-kindness to those we don’t think are worthy.
The reason for this call is simple: we are created in the image of God. God shows loving-kindness even toward, as Jesus says, “the ungrateful and the wicked.” Just as a child tries to imitate a mother or father, so we are children of God when we seek to imitate God’s loving-kindness.
It’s an unequivocal answer to Carole’s question: Are we supposed to show compassion toward everyone? Yes, we are. The answer begs more questions, starting with ones raised by Marge’s post-yoga pondering. What does “love kindness” or “loving-kindness” mean? Is it about acting with kindness, even toward those we don’t have kind feelings toward? Is it about somehow managing to feel warm feelings toward a person we don’t like? Is it about feeling or action, thought or intent?
There are many places we could search for a definition of loving-kindness. Today I will begin with wisdom from another faith tradition. Several years ago I learned the Buddhist loving-kindness meditation from our Sri Lankan monk friends. The meditation consists of concentric circles–intentions or prayers that begin with oneself and emanate out to include all beings. The first section goes like this:
May I be well and happy. May I be free from jealousy and envy. May I be free from hatred and greed. May I be free from harm and grief. May I find courage, patience, understanding and determination to overcome failures in my life. May I achieve (or receive) ultimate peace. These words are repeated five or six more times: for family, friends, strangers, enemies, and ultimately all beings.
The meditation doesn’t actually include the words “loving-kindness,” but it does suggest a definition: to show loving-kindness is to long for, and perhaps work for, someone’s wholeness and peace–not that they become rich and successful but that they might be free from the traps that make human life small.
The meditation offers an interesting model for the connection between thoughts and feelings and actions. It begins with a conscious decision–a choice to repeat these words on a regular basis, in order to establish a new pattern of thought in one’s own mind. As the words create a new pathway, feelings follow, and ultimately lead to action.
This Buddhist model, perhaps, needs to be balanced with one that reflects the active nature of the Hebrew word hesed. The conscious choice in this case is to act with loving-kindness–to make a habit of baking bread for a new neighbor, saying hello to a stranger, complimenting someone you don’t like for something they have done well, recycling and gardening, writing a thank you note every day. Just like the repeated words in the Buddhist meditation, repeated actions can create those new pathways through which feelings of loving-kindness follow. In both cases, the starting point is a choice to practice loving-kindness.
When, and for whom, do we make that choice? I am led back to Carole’s initial question–or actually to the question I imagined to be behind it. In this highly charged world, where anger and hatred and fear co-mingle, it is hard to know how to put loving-kindness into practice. When we see injustice being done, what does it mean to show compassion–loving-kindness–to the person committing the injustice?
To address this question we need to return to the biblical context. In the Hebrew Bible, almost every time we read about God’s loving-kindness, we also read about God’s justice. Just before singing of God abounding steadfast love, the Psalmist proclaims that God works justice for all who are oppressed. In God’s very being, justice and loving-kindness come together. God insists on the righting of our wrongs, even as God loves and understands us with all our flaws and mistakes.
The words of Micah 6:8, as proclaimed in our Call to Worship, challenge us to follow God’s example in holding justice and loving-kindness together: Do justice, love kindness. Recognizing that our capacity to live either one of those is limited–and that our capacity to live them both at the same time is even more limited, Micah adds a third line: walk humbly with God. Only with God’s help can we begin to hold justice and loving-kindness together in our lives.
Even when we do rely on God’s help, we will find ourselves, at times, erring on one side or the other. Our justice easily turns into rigid legalism; our loving-kindness can devolve into insipid niceness. If, in our passion for justice, we dehumanize the people we see as our opponents, we are called to stop and recall Jesus’ command to love our enemies. If we excel in empathy, recognizing the pain and fear at the root of another person’s hateful actions, and if our empathy keeps us from confronting them, then we need to stop and reclaim our God-given yearning for justice.
In yoga class, I like to say there is no such thing as being in balance–at least not for human beings. Instead, there is the on-going process of balancing and rebalancing. Perhaps that is equally true as we seek to hold together justice and loving-kindness. We will frequently find ourselves leaning in one direction; as we practice we will become better and better at gently restoring balance.
My Tuesday morning pre- and post-yoga conversations point to four insights into Micah’s call to love kindness:
–To love kindness means to long for, and work for, wholeness and peace for ourselves and others.
–To love kindness is a life-long process that begins with a decision and involves creating practices that transform our thoughts and feelings and actions.
–We are called to show loving-kindness even–and especially–toward the people we don’t think deserve it.
–We are called to hold justice and loving-kindness together in our lives and in our actions.
Love kindness. It is a daunting calling, for which we must rely on God’s help. It is a joyous calling, for as we practice loving-kindness, we claim our true selves–created in the image of God who is love. Amen.