Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

Matthew 7:7-12 February 8, 2009

"Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."

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"There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she'll die." Some of the songs we teach our children are pretty curious aren't they. I'd be surprised if anyone here hadn't learned this song at some point along the way. We know this poor woman eventually went on to ingest an entire menagerie "She swallowed a cow to catch the dog, to catch the cat, to catch the bird, to catch the spider (that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her), and finally, after swallowing a horse, she died of course. Personally, I always thought she should have died after the bird, or at least the cat. But being rational is hardly the point. Sarah and James loved this song, just like I did when I was that age. We used to sing it with them all the time. Children take great delight in the absurd. And, it's worth noting, when Jesus says we must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, part of maintaining a childlike quality in ourselves is remembering to take the absurdities of human life playfully, rather than scornfully.

But, this song isn't only about being playfully absurd. It also teaches something. What it teaches, if we're paying attention, is that one thing leads to another. When this happens, that tends to follow. And when that happens, we can expect that the next thing won't be far behind. One thing leads to another. Like most of the lessons we learn as children, this is a critically important understanding for us to have. We have to learn that actions lead to reactions, that behaviors have consequences, that the things we do, think and say all have their natural outcomes, some of which are pleasant and some decidedly not. "If you touch that stove you're going to burn your fingers," my dad said. Of course I wasn't just going to take his word for it. And I still have the scar to prove it.

Pam's father likes to tell the story of how, when he was a kid, his mother always used to tell him not to run out into traffic. Naturally, there came a day when his ball bounced out into the street and he went after it, only to be hit and dragged by a passing car. As he was being dragged along the street he vividly remembers thinking, "I had better always do what my mother tells me or I'm going to die!" Actions have consequences. Fortunately, most of the time, the consequences aren't quite so serious. But the underlying message still applies; one thing tends to lead to another. We fail to learn that lesson at our peril.

In the Buddhist tradition there is a word for this; Karma. Karma means, essentially, what goes around comes around. One thing leads to another. Actions and reactions are related, they tend to follow the law of consequences. However, people often think Karma means something very different. Karma is often thought to have the same meaning as the word "fate." Fate implies that we have no way of changing, controlling or influencing what is going on in our lives. As the bumper sticker says, "Poop [just] happens." It was all decided long before we were born and try as we might, we can't really change anything.

The notion of Fate gives rise to the philosophy of Fatalism, which The Oxford Companion to Philosophy says is "The belief ... that deliberation and action are pointless because the future will be the same no matter what we do." The companion then talks about what used to be called the "idle argument." It goes like this: "If it is fated for you to recover from this illness, you will recover whether you call in a doctor or not; similarly, if it is fated for you not to recover from this illness, you will not recover whether you call in a doctor or not; and either your recovery or non-recovery is fated; therefore there is no point in calling in a doctor." In the idle argument, all actions and choices are "idle" because they cannot affect the future.

Now sometimes we get into thinking like this don't we. Life can be so complicated, and our problems can get to feeling so intractable that we begin feeling like it's worthless even to try. We become "fatalistic." We think there's no point in making an effort, so we don't try, and nothing changes, and we end up believing we've proved our point. That is fatalism, but it is not Karma. In the popular mind, Karma is all wrapped up with the idea that we are bound in this life by what we did in our past lives. But if we take this to mean that nothing we do makes any difference, we've missed the point.

Karma is more about habits; habits of thought and behavior. If you are a nail biter, for example, (insert your bad habit here) the easiest thing will be for you to continue to bite your nails. You might say biting your nails is your Karma, but that doesn't mean you couldn't quit if you wanted to. It might be hard. It might take a long time. You might backslide into nail biting time after time so that you come to feel you'll never be free of it. But that's just because habits can be really hard to break. You might decide biting your nails is your fate, your lot in life, something passed on to you by the accidents of your birth over which you have no control. But that's not Karma. If you say that nail biting is your Karma, it simply means that, because it's a habit, it's easier to keep doing it than it is to stop.

What we call "bad Karma," like bad habits, tend to build up on themselves. In a book called The Way of Zen, Alan Watts puts it this way: "Man is involved in karma when he interferes with the world in such a way that he is compelled to go on interfering, when the solution of a problem creates still more problems to be solved, when the control of one thing creates the need to control several others. Karma is thus the fate of everyone who 'tries to be God.' He lays a trap for the world in which he himself gets caught."

That may sound complicated, but I can give you a perfect example. I'm reading a book right now called "The Omnivore's Dilemma." It has some fascinating things to say about where our food comes from in this country. The author talks a lot about corn. Corn, he says, is now grown in vast fields that stretch out all over the Midwest. Growing it like this has given us the ability to feed a great many people all over the world, but the way we grow it creates more problems than it solves. It diminishes the soil, it requires vast amounts of petroleum fertilizers, which get into our rivers and are killing off fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

In order to keep the cost of our food down, we're subsidizing artificially low prices through our taxes, which means that the corn actually costs more to grow than it can be sold for. The corn is fed to cattle because it's cheaper than allowing them to eat their natural diet of grass. But a diet of corn tends to make cows sick, so antibiotics are mixed in with the corn to keep them healthy. But then, the overuse of antibiotics is making them less effective in treating our own illnesses. On and on and on. One thing leads to another. It's a vicious cycle. That's karma.

We're not fated to get our food this way, but the longer we do the more committed we become to this system and the easier it is to keep it up. Alan Watts was right. "[We are] involved in karma when [we interfere] with the world in such a way that [we are] compelled to go on interfering." I'm not saying I have any ready solution to our dependence on corn, although the book has some wonderful ideas. Still, the first step to changing a habit is to recognize that you have one. The first step in getting out of a cycle of bad Karma is to realize that you're in one.

So how is it then that Karma is not just for Buddhists anymore? Well, the truth is, it never was in the first place. The word Karma does come from the traditions of eastern wisdom, but the idea behind the word is common to all religions. Listen again to Jesus. "In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you." How is that different from the notion that good actions lead to good consequences? Good treatment of others leads to our being more likely to receive the kind of treatment we would hope to have in return. What Jesus is saying is that if we are persistent in our efforts, we can break any vicious cycle of bad habits and replace it with a precious cycle good habits. We can learn to treat others with the same respect and care we would hope for in return. And in doing so, we increasingly move closer to being the people God wants us to be.

We're not fated to be who we are and what we are right now sitting here this morning. No matter how long we've been wrapped up in our current patterns, we always have the ability to change ourselves for the better. That doesn't mean it's easy. When we've been doing something for a long time we can expect it to take a long time to stop. Changing habits can be a long and frustrating process. Nonetheless, we are not fated to fail. From the standpoint of our faith change is always a possibility. And what's Christianity about if it isn't trying to change things for the better? Hopefully, we're always trying to improve our lives and the world around us. We're always trying to treat others the way we hope they'll treat us. In that process, it's actually quite helpful to know that what goes around comes around. Cast your bread on the waters, we say. It'll come back to you. You can call it karma if you want to, but it's every bit as much Christian as it is Buddhist.

There is a little story that helps make this point. A farmer whose crops always took first prize at the state fair had the habit of sharing his best seed with all the farmers in the neighborhood. When asked why, he said, "It is really a matter of self-interest. The wind picks up the pollen and carries it from field to field. So if my neighbors grow inferior crops, the cross-pollination brings down the quality of my own. That is why I am concerned that they plant only the very best."

Let me ask you. Should it not be our concern that our neighbors have the same kinds of opportunities that we aspire to ourselves? I believe it should be, certainly because God seems to want it that way, but if that's not reason enough, it might help to remember that it is in our own self interest. Remember the law of karma; what goes around comes around. And the next time you find yourself singing, "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly," and the small person you're singing to wants to know what on earth this crazy song means, you can just smile and say, it's about karma.

Amen