The Sacred Other

Every day when we read the newspaper or watch TV we are inundated by the world’s violence.  Unthinkable violence happens not only in war-torn countries or dangerous cities, but even in small farming communities and peaceful places.  No one and no locality is immune to murder, violence, and abuse.  What makes a person prone to such thoughts and actions?  Generally it is the fact that they’ve begun treating the other person as another person.  What do I mean by that?  Jesus said in Matthew 25:40 that whatever we do to another person, we do to Him.  In other words, we are all connected.  Just as surely as I am created in God’s image, so are you.  When I treat you with violence, I’ve forgotten the image of God that dwells within you.  I’ve failed to see God’s presence within you, and the divine thread that connects you to myself.  In Acts 9, we read about Saul of Tarsus, the persecutor of Christians, who likewise forgot that the other person is also sacred.

Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. ² He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains.

³ As he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. ⁴ He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”

⁵ “Who are you, lord?” Saul asked.

And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! ⁶ Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

⁷ The men with Saul stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice but saw no one! ⁸ Saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes he was blind. So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. ⁹ He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink.

Eternal life begins with a conversion of the heart. Saul’s Damascus Road experience is a dramatic version of what every believer goes through when Jesus takes hold of the soul.  We realize the oneness of our relationship with the Sacred Other.  It isn’t simply another person that Saul is persecuting–it’s Jesus.  And if Jesus is in the Other, then Jesus is in the Self.  So Saul has been doing violence to his own soul at the same time that he has been murdering others.  To receive Jesus is to receive others–even the parts of them that you don’t like.  To receive Jesus is to receive myself–even the parts of me that I don’t like.  It’s to forgive others and myself.  It’s to love others and myself.

This immense love is not always easy.  Christian author Richard Rohr says,

“You do not need or demand anything back from them, because you know that you are both participating in a single, Bigger Gazing and Loving–one that fully satisfies and creates an immense Inner Aliveness. Simply to love is its own reward. You accept being accepted–for no reason and by no criteria whatsoever! This is the key that unlocks everything in me, for others, and toward God, so much so that we call it “salvation.”¹  

To love, without demanding anything back–to accept being accepted–these things take the kind of conversion that Saul experienced.  They take becoming blind to my own ego, and being healed by Christ.  They take a full transformation of self.  As Saul changed his name from a kingly one to a humble one, so my attitude needs to change as I lay down my Self for the Other.  What about you?  What attitudes in your life need to change—so you can stop doing physical or emotional violence to the Sacred Other who is near you?  How can you learn to love as God loves?

(Endnotes)

1 Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (The Crossroad Publishing Company: 2009), 140-142.

© 2016 by Greg Smith.
Reprinted with permission from revgregsmith.blogspot.com