Here in Southeast Asia, we frequently come across Buddhist temples. Many of them have adopted a secondary role of “tourist attraction”, and allow us to go in, look around, talk with the monks living and working there, and take pictures. I have also chosen to spend time in prayer at the temples: that the lost who enter those places would find the true God as their answer, that the temples would turn into simply cool cultural places to visit rather than the places of idolatry that they are now, and that God’s truth and light would take over those places and triumph in the spiritual battles taking place there.
One Buddhist practice I have found interest in observing is the morning alms ceremony. The monks serving at the temples will rise around 6 or 6:30 in the mornings and walk around the cities or the temple courtyards with baskets, in which they collect food that is offered to them from members of the community. This practice both teaches the people in the communities more about selflessness and giving as well as unifies the monastic community as they are living and serving together at the temples by giving them all the same provisions.
Recently, I also read a passage in the Old Testament that reminded me of this ceremony.
“At that time, the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister to Him, and to bless His name, to this day. Therefore Levi has no portion or inheritance with his brothers. The Lord is his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 10:8-9)
The Levites were given the responsibility to serve at the temples. They were not given their own land or own portion of Israel’s inheritance. Instead, they were allowed to eat the food that the rest of Israel brought to the temples. They were sustained on the portions that were tithed to the Lord. In reality, the Levites’ “portion”, their “inheritance” was greater than any of the other tribes’, for they received so much more than food, land, and money. When I think about them not having portions of their own, but instead relying on the Lord daily for provision, I long for the kind of trust that must have arisen in them. They were not distracted by pursuits of the world, like building better houses and earning more and more money. They were given what they needed, and that’s all. Their focus could be on the Lord and on serving Him. What better inheritance is there than that?
The similarities between the Levites living off of the portions given to them by Israel and Buddhist monks living off of the alms offered to them by the community struck me as opportune. The better I can understand the practices of those I have been sent to show God’s love to, the more capable I become of portraying that love well. I have discovered on this journey that it is easier to show someone the truth when you explain it in relation to what they already know and believe. This makes perfect sense, really. As a teacher, I can talk to other teachers using terms like “formative assessment” and “total physical response” and “inclusion” to describe how a student in my class is performing. If talking to the same child’s parents, who may not be used to educational jargon, I would likely avoid those terms or risk confusing the parents rather than helping them understand how their child is doing.
Spouting off a bunch of “Christianese” to people who have never studied Christianity or grown up in an environment where it is prevalent is not the way to show them Christ’s love. If however, I can relate what I believe to what they believe, whether that is a similarity or a difference, they are more likely to understand the God I serve and profess to them as the One True God.
Today, I got to spend some time in a temple where some monks were working. I silently prayed as I looked at the pictures describing the story of Buddha on the walls. I prayed that God might reveal Himself to the monks in that temple using their own acceptance of an inheritance not of earthly pursuits, but of a life of seeking the truth.
