Karma or Grace?
Hebrews 10:11-25
Rev. Patricia Barth
November 19, 2006
"Karma is a funny thing," goes the tag line from a TV show called, My name is Earl. Earl is a rough-hewn sort of guy — a petty crook who won a $100,000 lottery ticket, only to lose it when he is hit by a car. He hears about karma from a talk show while he's recovering in the hospital. Earl decides to turn his life around — so after he is released, he does some good deeds, and gets his $100,000 back. To continue getting good karma, he makes a list of all the people he has hurt, all the bad things he has done, and begins to cross them off his list. (1)
My Name is Earl is only one example of how pop Hinduism permeates our culture today. It's in the popular Simpsons cartoon show - the friendly convenience store clerk named Apu is a Hindu, and you can see statues of Vishnu and the elephant god Ganesha on display in his Kwik-e-Mart where he sells yummy tofu hot dogs.
Even Britney Spears had her baby blessed in a Hindu temple! Hinduism is a 6,000 year old, complex belief system, and it's even more complicated to adopt as a lifestyle, so in our quickie culture of today, we've just imported a taste of it. A sort of Hindu Lite. We like our diet sodas and our light beers, so why not Hindu Lite, too?
How about Christianity Lite? All of the taste with none of the cost! (2) Pop culture embraces diet Christianity almost as much as Hindu Lite. A big cross was a fashion statement just a few years ago. It's all part of our postmodern pluralism — a little bit here, a little bit there — and mostly it's a good thing. Old rigid barriers are breaking down. There is a new freedom to explore, to come together and move apart, to try on new ideas; to embrace different cultures and peoples and ways of life. I'm glad that we are able to adopt spiritual practices from other faiths, because I think they can refresh our ability to be present to God in Christ. For instance, yoga, an ancient Hindu practice, can calm my mind and body, and ready my heart for prayer to Jesus.
But the down side of all this postmodern fluidity comes in the area of theology. We tend to pick and choose whatever belief is appealing at the moment, and miss out on the depth of meaning that comes from choosing one belief system and sticking with it.
It's not as easy and as fun as wearing a cross one day, and chanting in a Buddhist Temple the next. Because if your religion has any depth to it, it is also going to have some cost. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's classic book on discipleship is titled, in the U.S. version, The Cost of Discipleship. According to Bonhoeffer, whose faith led to his martyrdom, "Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace." In other words, your faith should affect your entire life; even your death. If you are truly a disciple of Jesus Christ, your faith will be expressed in your pocketbook: how much money you spend on new technology and expensive vacations, or on the church and the needy. Your faith will make a difference in how you fill your spare time, what you say when you pray, what you do for a living and how you vote.
It's not easy to be a Christian, I personally find it difficult, but we're not expected to go it alone. God's presence will fill your life if you let it. Jesus goes before you to clear the way; he walks beside you in companionship, and stands beneath to lift you up. As the saying goes, "Jesus has got your back."
Jesus wants to forgive your sins and heal your wounds. Jesus has grace for you. That's the difference between diet Christianity and the real thing. Karma says, "what goes around comes around." If you do something bad in one life, you will suffer in the next if you don't suffer in this life. It's not a bad idea, it may even be true sometimes; it just doesn't go far enough. Because Jesus offers so much more. Jesus offers grace.
Unlike karma, grace is undeserved. No matter how bad we are, if we repent, and ask God to come into our hearts, we will be forgiven. Our sins are washed away as if they had never been. We are invited to change and given the strength to do it.
Through grace, Jesus is our faithful partner in all of life. No matter where we go, no matter what terrible thing we experience, we can trust that Jesus has been there. He knows what it's like to grieve the loss of a good friend. He knows what it's like to suffer pain and fear and even to die. Through the grace of his suffering and death, we have the opportunity to live a grace-filled life. And not only that, but to have life everlasting - life after death.
God's grace is extended not only to individuals, in the forgiveness of their sins, but to communities. Do you realize how grace-filled Takoma Park Presbyterian Church is? It's not a perfect church; no human institution is. But it is the Body of Christ. Here you can find someone to bear you up when you are down; someone to cry with you when tragedy strikes or when you just have had too much to bear. I heard about someone here who took a whole carload of active young adolescents to the zoo. Pure grace. I know someone who checks on a sick neighbor every single day. Amazing grace. I know a lot of somebodies who drive people to the doctor when they can't drive themselves. Some go out of their way to welcome visitors to the church. Some tithe or give even more from their income. Getting up early to feed the hungry at St. Stephens, or spending Sunday evening at the Shepherd's Table. Instead of brunch after church, getting fresh vegetables from the farmer's market to take to Shepherd's Table. All grace. Spending hours at meetings doing the work of the church when you'd rather relax at home — grace and more grace. Some write checks for other people’s medical bills, or make special donations for particular gifts. Deacons and others visit shut-ins. And countless others who help in ways too numerous to name. We can only list a sampling of the ways Takoma Park Presbyterian is a community of grace.
Our reading from Hebrews ends, "let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds….." (3) That's a great word, provoke. I like to think we provoke one another to love. Don't difficult people do that? Difficult people have their own peculiar type of grace that is just as needed as the easier kinds. They test our love, and help it grow. We are to provoke one another not only to love but to good deeds. I'm glad we are here to "provoke" each other to serve the poor — sometimes we need a kick in the pants to get us moving.
"Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some..." (4) Good deeds, and love of each other—these are the essential elements of a community of grace. But showing up at church, participating in the worship of God, is essential, too. People who think they are worshiping God on the golf course or at home usually aren't. We need this time together, in God's presence, as the Body of Christ. Members who come to church only as part of their routine Easter and Christmas celebrations miss out on so much of this community of grace.
Karma Lite or Amazing Grace? Diet faith or the real thing? The choice is yours. The reading from Hebrews reminds us to "hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful." As rock star Bono says in his book In Conversation, "It’s clear to me that karma is at the very heart of the universe." And yet, along comes this idea called grace to upend all that "as you sow, so shall you reap" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity. (5)
We don't have to depend on religiosity, or on ourselves. We have a great high priest, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice and teachings are all we need. We don't have to remain the way modern society would have us, isolated, flitting from idea to idea, amusement to amusement, sorrow to sorrow. We have grace; grace that lifts us up, forgives our sins and changes us for the better. Grace that give hope and meaning to our individual lives, and that brings us together in a community of grace like Takoma Park Presbyterian Church. Thanks be to God!
(1)Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia(Back to text)
(2)Homiletics, November 2006, p. 21 (Back to text)
(3)Hebrews 10:24(Back to text)
(4)Ibid.(Back to text)
(5)Homiletics, November 2006, p. 23.(Back to text)
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