The following is a reflection I shared at the "Faith at Eight" service at our church on Sunday, November 6, 2022.
"Those who...are considered worthy of a place...in the resurrection of the dead...cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."
It's almost as if Jesus is saying that death isn't real, and that it doesn't exist. But I believe that death is real, and that it does exist.
Death is certain. Each one of us will die one day. Every living thing and every living being will die one day. There's no one who has ever permanently avoided death. Each day of our lives, we're drawing closer to death. And death is always on the horizon, drawing nearer to us, although we don't know precisely when it will arrive. The horizon of death may indeed be a background for whatever gives life its meaning.1 Death is an inescapable reality.
So I'm wondering why we as Christians are so attached to the concept of the eternity of life, while other religious and philosophical traditions, such as Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, and the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, teach the importance of non-attachment to the things of this life and to things that are temporary. I think Christianity shares with those traditions the teaching that we shouldn't be attached to temporary things like money, property and possessions, but I think that we as Christians are particularly attached to the concept that life is eternal.
Now, I'm not a scholar of Buddhism, so I hope I get this right, but Tibetan Buddhism teaches that there are four kinds of attachment. The four attachments are attachment to the temporary, attachment to the cycle of life and death, attachment to solitary liberation, and attachment to misconceptions about reality. According to the bodhisattva Manjushri, "If you have attachment to this life, then you're not a Dharma practitioner. If you have attachment to the realm of samsara, then you don't have renunciation. If you have attachment to your own benefit, then you don't have the thought of enlightenment. And if clinging arises, then you don't possess the view."2
Buddhism teaches that everything is impermanent. All things are temporary, and if we're attached to temporary things, then suffering arises when we lose them. The path to the cessation of suffering is the eightfold path of righteousness: right views, right intentions, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Although we may be attached to all sorts of things, such as wealth, property, belongings, social status, prestige, power, and so on, attachment to such things will cause us to feel frustrated and disappointed when we lose them.
I think that in Hinduism the concept of moksha is analogous to the concept of nirvana in Buddhism. Moksha is release from samsara, from the endless cycle of life and death. Moksha is freedom from ignorance, and from misconceptions about reality. Moksha is freedom from illusion, and from mistaking the temporary for the eternal. Moksha is liberation from bondage to the cycle of life and death, a kind of release rather than a kind of attachment.
The ancient philosophy of Stoicism, as taught by philosophers like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, also teaches the importance of non-attachment to things that are temporary. Epictetus teaches us that if we're attached to things that are beyond our power to control, then we won't be able to retain our equanimity. He says that wisdom involves knowing what is within our power to control and knowing what is not within our power to control. Wisdom also involves knowing what is within our power to change and knowing what is not within our power to change. Wisdom thus enables us to accept those things that are not within our power to control or to change, and it also enables us not to be attached to such things.
Against this, I would argue that there are good kinds of attachment. I think that attachment to loved ones and to friends and family is good. I think that attachment to social ideals like peace and justice in society is good. Not all kinds of attachment are bad. But clearly there is a place for non-attachment or detachment as well.
So I'm wondering why we as Christians are so attached to the concept that death has no power over us and that we can live in an eternal dominion or kingdom ruled by God. I'm not sure we fully acknowledge the reality of death or that we really acknowledge death as such--death as death.
Whenever someone dies or passes away, we say they're not really dead, and that they're still living in our hearts, and that they'll remain with us for all eternity. We see death as a transitional stage leading to another kind of life.
Last week, in a death notice for the Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, instead of saying that Pastor Butts died or passed away on the morning of October 28th, the notice said that Pastor Butts "peacefully transitioned" on the morning of October 28th.3
In Christianity, there's this whole theological framework around the concept of the eternity of life. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." Romans 6:23 says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus." John 11:25-26 says that before Jesus raised Martha's brother Lazarus from the dead, he told her, "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, though they die, yet shall they live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." And Romans 6:8-10 tells us that if we've died with Christ, then we'll also live with him. Death will have no power over us, if we're dead to sin but alive to God.
But I wonder whether we can ever be truly mindful and fully aware of the present moment if we believe that life simply goes on forever! How can we truly appreciate the preciousness of life, and how can we truly realize that life is a gift, unless we realize that life is temporary? And how can we find peace in death, unless we're ready to accept death when it arrives?
Life and death are inseparable. They're everywhere and all around us.
But maybe this isn't at all what Jesus is talking about. Maybe he's talking about something totally different, because he's not talking about an earthly life, he's talking about a resurrection life! And maybe a resurrection life is totally different from life as we know it! And maybe it's even beyond our knowing or understanding! What then is a resurrection life?
FOOTNOTES
1Lama Jampa Thaye, "The Stages of the Path: Parting from the Four Attachments - Part 1," online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80xvCcq0pMI.
2Lama Jampa Thaye, "Parting from the Four Attachments: Attachment to the Temporary," Tricycle, March 2014, online at https://tricycle.org/dharmatalks/parting-four-attachments-0/attachment-to-the-temporary/.
3Adelle Banks, "Calvin Butts, Leader of Harlem's Historic Abyssinian Baptist Church, Dies at 73," The Roys Report, October 31, 2022, online at https://julieroys.com/calvin-butts-leader-harlem-historic-abyssinian-baptist-church-has-died/.
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