Week 7—Sunday 1 Corinthians 3:21-23
A DROP OF WATER ON A LOTUS LEAF—
THE SYMBOL FOR US?
If the Center of the Christian faith is not the Word, but the Word become flesh, then the sphere of the operation of the faith is the total Life, including the flesh, the material side of life. For in becoming flesh it meant that the total Life and its relationships would be the sphere of its operation and redemption. This is different from the Buddhist conception which has chosen the lotus as its symbol—the lotus leaf sits on top of the water, and the water does not soak in but rolls around on top of it, unabsorbed. This is an illustration of the religious person on top of the material but unaffected by it. But even the illustration doesn’t illustrate, for the lotus has its roots in the material and is made up largely of water in the structure of its being. No more can man reject the material, for he is in large part material.
The Greeks affected to despise “the body as an evil, a prison house to which the soul is shackled, a tomb in which the spirit is confined.” And Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic, urged his followers: “Despise the body . . . the whole composition of the body is under corruption.” And yet what happened? The Greeks who affected to despise the body glorified it. Never was the human body so glorified in sculpture as among the Greeks.
The Hindus and Buddhists say the material world is illusion—maya, like an optical illusion thrown out by a magician. It is lila, sport, a Divine Sport thrown out from Itself, but it has no reality. And yet the Burmans, an ardent Buddhist people, are the most pleasure-loving people of the world. The material is denied and then delighted in. The Japanese identify themselves with nature; the Hindus repudiate nature—maya; the Christians love nature because they love its Author. “All things were made by him and for him.” That changes our attitudes.
O blessed Savior and Redeemer, redeem us from wrong attitudes toward the material. For it is here, a part of us. Teach us to live with it. For a part of us is material, and we must know how to get along with that part of us. Teach us to live physically and spiritually as one. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: My body will not be deified, nor despised, but dedicated.