Fourth Wednesday of Advent
And the messenger of the covenant whom you desire.
Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
But who will endure the day of his coming?
And who can stand when he appears?
For he is like the refiner’s fire,
or like the fuller’s lye.
Lo, I will send you
Elijah, the prophet,
Before the day of the LORD comes,
the great and terrible day- MAL 3:1-4, 23-24
Wait… what? This is the 4th week of Advent, right? We’re almost there… the zenith of that radiant and fulsome anticipation that has become the predominant focus for pre-Christmas practices. What’s up with this invocation of fear and trembling, of rites of intense purification?
Well, I am an avowed Buddhist working and studying in a Christian seminary, a situation I continue to find both intriguing and bewildering, although not necessarily alien—I was confirmed as a Roman Catholic as a child and consider myself a follower of Christ’s teachings in full resonance with the Buddha’s teachings. I have learned that, when scripture is baffling, it is best to look for commentary on the passage, to bring a variety of contextual lenses into consideration. (Just to be transparent, I follow this same protocol with Buddhist sutras.)
The first flash of insight for me came from the writings of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an Advent sermon he preached in 1928, “The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for every one who has a conscience.” Oh, right! that adorable infant in the nativity scene is the incarnated Divine who will grow into Jesus, the “messenger of the covenant.”
And, the emphasis here is on the Coming, the impending arrival. Prepare, not just for an important event, but THE profound event. Being in the presence of the Divine is not to be considered casually. Prepare, for all of who we are will be illuminated. Purify with rigor to receive with steadiness unconditional Truth.
Bonhoeffer continues, “Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and of death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love.”
Well. Terror and Kindness, in confluence. This is where my Buddhist heart/mind awakens.
A necessary segue. I am writing this commentary in response to an end-of-Advent scripture reading during the early days of October 2020, experiencing events within a few days that already feel like months, years ago. This particular week thus far: the continued exposure of more and more corruption, collusion, and obstruction at the federal and presidential level. The debacle of a presidential “debate” that portrayed such abusive vitriol that it disgusted and reactivated trauma for a wide swath of beings. The announcement of POTUS’s illness with COVID-19 and the increasing list of those infected through arrogant disregard of pandemic protocol. I can’t even speculate on the world in which you will read this.
My Buddhist heart/mind awakens in contemplation of MAL 3:1-4 in this late stage of the year 2020, ongoingly filled with pandemic, suffering, death, hypocrisy, and the exposure of systemic, social, and spiritual betrayals that have been building for centuries on many intersecting levels. This inescapable state of affairs has broken open my heart and my awareness into fraught consideration of the extent of evildoing in the world… and the actuality of how fierce and relentless accountability and atonement need to be for any hope of… well, frankly, any thriving life at all to be sustainable.
To use a Buddhist principle that provides deep and transformative insight to me, we are summoned with penetrating insistence to face the accumulation of Karma at personal, interpersonal, cultural, systemic, and planetary levels. Not Karma as penalty or just deserts. Karma as the inescapable Truth of interconnected outcomes from a plethora of beneficial and destructive actions. Actions and outcomes accumulated over time and peoples, theologies and colonizations, advances, depletions, and exploitations. Karma, not as an extraordinary event, but this time as the simultaneous arrival of consequences that have been perceivable for decades and impending for even longer.
For those of us paying any modicum of attention—whatever our stirrings of conscience—have come to recognize the multidimensionality and mutuality of our world: Self-knowing is intersectional. Issues, whether problem or intervention, are interdependent and systemic. Pulling any thread of insight begins to unravel the weave of what had appeared as a cohesive whole.
We are at the fiery crucible of reckoning, apocalypse, a great and inescapable revealing.
So. Terror is now more discernible. Where is the Kindness?
I think we’ve all encountered the value of discomfort as we lean into the dismantling of harmful perspectives and behaviors, within and between ourselves. Terror is obviously beyond discomfort and I wish to step mindfully here between awareness of trauma and the language of spiritual purification as a ritual for readiness. Engagement in the realm of Divine Reckoning requires language that can appear harsh, judgmental, and bordering on abusive... when imaging any of it enacted by a human personification. The reckoning addressed in MAL 3: 1-4 and in the dharma teachings on Karma are about preparing one’s mind and soul to be faithful in the fullness of Truth illuminated, inescapably and completely. Faithful to our communal intention (covenant) to bring Love, Equity, and Justice into fullness for all beings. Faithful to God’s intention for our world. Faithful to the path of Compassion and following the dharma teachings to end suffering for all beings.
The Kindness of this Divine Reckoning is its ineffable capacity to bring us fully out of hiding from our suffering and our complicity, whether inherited or enacted, beyond punishment or harm, blame or guilt, into the beauty of our inherent goodness. Our essential Self that revels in acts of accountability, collaboration, understanding, and intentionality to bring forth goodness for all beings. In my experience, although Karma has no personification, the essential nature that propels actions and outcomes always brings the Compassion of our awakening to our power of intentional action and accountable outcomes.
Thus Terror and Kindness: the requirement for all-encompassing revelation, the transformation from ignorance into empowerment.
One quick reflection in closing… This time we are not awaiting The One. As Buddhist teachers such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Han have speculated, this time The Coming is Community. We are All in this Together: not having the same experiences, not facing the same revelations. All suffering at different intensities. And All essential to the possibility of transformation. We are witness and family to one another, inextricably interconnected. As a dear friend says, “Radical inclusivity is messy and annoying AF and absolutely worth the effort.”
Terror and Kindness indeed.
