Sermon Library
“Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Benedict, Luther, and Michael Sattler”
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
May 20, 2007
Service Theme: Easter VII - 2007
Easter VII – 2007 May 20, 2007
Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, Benedict, Luther, and Michael Sattler
Moses
1500 years before the time of Christ, the pharaoh of Egypt was disturbed that the Israelite population was growing more than the Egyptian population. To prevent this Israelite growth, the pharaoh ordered all male Hebrew children killed. The mother of Moses could not bear to have her new born child killed so she hid him in a basket and placed him in the flow of the river Nile. He was found in the rushes on the banks of the Nile by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in Egyptian privilege and luxury. After many years he realized his Hebrew origin and fled to the desert to join his people. Moses had an encounter in the desert with a burning bush when he heard God calling him to return to Egypt to free his people. He felt unworthy, but humbly trusted in that call and went back to Egypt. He freed his people from slavery. They returned to the desert. During that time he had another revelation on top of Mount Sinai which became the world’s greatest and most solid statement of ethics called the Ten Commandments. They were in the wilderness for forty years. This mythology or history was approximately 1500 years before Christ.
Buddha
Five hundred years before Christ, Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini, what is known today as Nepal, to the king Suddhodana and Queen Maha Maya. His birth was immaculate, conceived in a dream by a white elephant with six white tusks. His mother sacrificed herself at birth for his life. A hermit seer named Asita heralded the news that Siddhartha would become the Buddha, meaning the fully awakened and perfectly enlightened and anointed one. By the way, Messiah also means the anointed one. Siddhartha lived as a prince and was kept isolated from the ways of the real world which included poverty and suffering. But Siddhartha became curious as to what life was like beyond his own protected temple. He was shocked to learn that the rest of the world outside his well-kept walls was comprised of poverty and suffering. A special revelation motivated him to leave his walls of wealth to experience life among the people. He chose to live as an ascetic, denied his plush past and meditated in the desert for 40 days. During that time he received a divine revelation of Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths in simplistic definition are (1) life means suffering, (2) origin of suffering is attachment, (3) cessation of suffering is attainable, and (4) the path to the cessation of suffering is un-attachment. In other words we are to let go and trust in the reality and flow rather than trying to control and dictate a certain path in life. From this revelation of the four noble truths follows the Noble Eightfold Path, which is “right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”
Jesus
Five hundred years later Jesus was born. Again, it was recorded as an immaculate conception by the angel Gabriel. It was a divine conception, but this time the messiah was not born of a noble birth, but a most humble birth in a manger. Yet, kings, wise men and shepherds came to visit the new born messiah. Angels heralded him saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased.” They soon interpreted Jesus to be the “Prince of Peace.” Soon after his humble birth, Jesus was sent out into the wilderness for forty days to be tested. He passed. Not long after this retreat, Jesus delivered a new message which we now call the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes. Those sayings have become the basis of Christianity and, by the way, the origin of this Chapel. Jesus also reiterated the essence of the Ten Commandments when asked which is the most important law, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22: 37 – 39)
Muhammad
A little more than five hundred years later Muhammad was born in Mecca, in southwestern Arabia. His father died before his birth and his mother died when he was a child. His grandfather and later his uncle, became his guardians. For a time, Muhammad lived with a desert tribe. He learned to tend sheep and camels. At the age of 25, Muhammad entered the service of Khadija, a wealthy widow. She was 15 years older than Muhammad, but he later married her. The most sacred shrine in Mecca was the Kaaba. It had a black stone, believed to be sacred in one corner. When Muhammad was 35, a flood damaged the Kaaba. Because of his moral excellence, Muhammad was chosen to reset the sacred stone back into place. Later, when Muhammad was meditating alone in a cave on Mount Hira, a vision appeared to him from the angel Gabriel who called Muhammad to be a prophet and proclaim God’s message to his people. At first, Muhammad doubted his worthiness and the vision. But his wife Khadija reassured him. She became his first disciple.
Muhammad began to preach the existence of one loving God in keeping with earlier prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Jesus. When Muhammad began to preach in the 600’s, Arabia was a wild, lawless land. The fierce tribes of the deserts fought continually. In Mecca there was great poverty and suffering among the poor. Many of the people worshipped many gods and prayed to idols. Muhammad taught that there is only one God and preached against the injustice of the wealthy classes in Mecca and tried to help the poor. He preached equality and central allegiance to God, the God of Abraham and Jesus. This was met with great resistance by the powers that be. In 622, Muhammad fled for his life to the city of Medina, then called Yathrib. The people of Yathrib or Medina welcomed Muhammad. His message of peace and equality won many followers in Medina. He became the spiritual and political leader. He abolished the customs of worshiping idols and killing unwanted baby girls. He limited the practice of polygamy and restricted divorce. He reformed inheritance laws, regulated slavery, and helped the poor. He banned war and violence except for self-defense. He spoke about and offered forgiveness. His teachings were slowly gathered into the book called the Koran which cites the stories of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. It has been said that Muhammad’s writings were assisted through the spirit of Gabriel. He was considered to be a prophet from God. Muhammad died in Medina. His tomb is located in the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina.
Benedict
About the same time, actually a hundred years earlier, there lived another prophet in Italy named Benedict. The only source for the life of Benedict is recorded in the Dialogues in 594 written by Pope Gregory the Great. According to Gregory, Benedict was born in Norcia or Nusia, Italy, near Rome. He was the privileged son of a Roman noble and was well educated. His studies led him to seek a higher purpose so he left his father’s house and wealth, with a mind only to serve God. He traveled 40 miles from Rome. For God’s sake he deliberately chose to work with the poor and disenfranchised. He then dedicated a period of his life to live in solitude, in fact, in a cave near Subiaco in Central Italy. During his three years of solitude, he met a monk named Romanus, whose monastery was on the mountain above the cliff overhanging the cave. Romanus became his connection to other people and told others of Benedict’s thoughts and view of life. After Benedict’s time of contemplation in the cave, Romanus asked him to join the monastery and later became the Abbot. This first time in the Monastery actually did not go well. In fact legend has it that some of the other monks tried to poison him. So he returned to his solitary life. But his teachings were still becoming known and more people approached Benedict to share his view of life and Christianity. This developed into his own Monastery in Monte Cassino between Rome and Naples. There he established his Rule for a life of monastic Christianity. There are 73 short rules about living out the life of Christ and in community. 12 other monasteries immediately sprang into existence from the Rule of Benedict. Today there are 1200 Benedictine monasteries around the world which still utilize the Rule of St. Benedict.
Martin Luther
One thousand years later Martin Luther was born in Germany to an affluent family. His father owned and operated copper mines. His father wanted to give him the best education and then attend law school. He was an excellent student. Martin received his Bachelors and Masters degrees and began law school, but one day he became very frightened in a severe lightning and thunder storm and vowed to become a monk if his life was spared. His life was spared and he kept his promise.
Luther dedicated himself to monastic life, devoting himself to fasts, long hours in prayer, pilgrimage, and frequent confession. Luther tried to please God through this dedication, but it only increased his awareness of his own humanness and frailty. He would later remark, “If anyone could have gained heaven as a monk, then I would indeed have been among them.” Luther described this period of his life as one of deep spiritual despair. He said, “I lost hold of Christ the Savior and Comforter and made of him a stock-master and hangman over my poor soul.” Johann von Staupitz, his superior, concluded that Luther needed more work to distract him from excessive introspection and ordered him to pursue an academic career. In 1507, he was ordained to the priesthood, and in 1508 began teaching theology at the University of Wittenberg. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Biblical studies on March 9, 1508, and another Master’s degree in the Sentences. On October 19, 1512, he was awarded his Doctorate of Theology and, on October 21, 1512, was received into the senate of the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg, having been called to the position of Doctor in Bible. He spent the rest of his career in this position at the University of Wittenberg.
Through his background of the monastic life, the way of Benedict, and studies in Seminary, he became very cognizant of the gap between the wealth of the church and the poverty of the lay people. The church was charging indulgences for baptisms, weddings, forgiveness, salvation, securing the lives of the deceased from purgatory and more. He declared his concerns in 95 Theses which he pounded on the door of the Castle church in Wittenberg. He declared that the way to God was not through the church alone, but scripture alone and we are reconciled to God through God’s grace alone – not through indulgences and the Pope. He also referred to the Pope as the anti-christ and, of course, was excommunicated. Many others followed and they became known as the protestors or Protestants.
Michael Sattler
One person who became one of the first Protestants was Michael Sattler. Prior to becoming a protestant, Michael Sattler was the Abbot of St. Peter’s Benedictine monastery in the Black Forest in southwest Germany. This particular monastery was challenged with the influences of Roman Catholicism, the Benedictine Way and the writings of Fr. Martin Luther. In certain villages the Roman Church used various monasteries to collect taxes and indulgences, yet due to the Rule of Benedict there was conflict. The peasants around St. Peter’s monastery protested against such taxes and indulgences. They simply refused to pay any further and “demanded that the Word of God be purely proclaimed to the common man.”
As a monk and Prior of St. Peter’s of the Black Forest, Michael Sattler was caught in the crossfire of reform in the monastery and peasant’s oppressive plight. These concerns seemed to drive Fr. Michael Sattler to take the dramatic step of leaving his Benedictine vows and monastic community and learn more about Martin Luther’s teachings. The reformation and Protestant movement, which inspired people to think for them selves and be released from the authoritative dogma of the Roman Church resonated with Michael Sattler.
A so called by-product or sub-movement of the reformation was the AnaBaptist movement. When people began to think for themselves, they began to rethink the understanding of the initiation into Christianity which was baptism. It was a basic question about infant or adult baptism. The Roman Church baptized infants in order to protect them from any eternal damnation. The Roman Church also indoctrinated people into believing that if they did not pay an indulgence associated with Baptism their child would not be “saved.” The Roman Church made a lot of money performing baptisms. The Anabaptist movement was an associated movement with the Reformation. When Protestants and Reformers were allowed to think for themselves, they began thinking of numerous ways of being Christian without the ecclesiological authority of the Roman Church.
A significant branch of Protestantism developed along side Luther’s protestant reformation. It was over a matter of baptism. This particular sect of Protestantism became known as the Anabaptists. The definition of Anabaptists is to be “re” – baptized after one’s given and Roman infant baptism. From the Anabaptist movement evolved the Baptists, the Amish and the Mennonites. Michael Sattler is simply one of the founders of a movement which influenced another leader named Menno Simons who attracted followers who became known as Mennonites.
Michael Sattler was the primary author of another significant statement of the Protestant Anabaptists which is called the Schleitheim Articles because they were presented in Schleitheim, Switzerland in 1527. The Schleitheim Articles have become the foundation of the Mennonites. Now remember the fact that Michael Sattler was first a Benedictine Monk, became influenced by Martin Luther’s writings, became a primary initiator of the Anabaptist Protestant movement which eventually led to the Mennonite movement. Both Sattler and Menno Simmons were gruesomely killed as heretics.
Mennonite Benedictine Spirituality
A modern day Mennonite named Weldon Nisly has developed a paper in which he compares the Rule of Benedict to the Schleitheim Articles and clearly makes the case that the very core of the Mennonite religion is directly influenced by Michael Sattler’s Benedictine roots. The paper is entitled Hidden in Plain Sight: Mennonite Benedictine Spirituality. As far as I can tell, it was first delivered at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, a place frequented by our friend Cynthia Bourgeault. In fact, if you go to the Abbey’s website, both of their names are listed side by side as past presenters and lecturers.
The point is that to be talking about the life and theology of Benedict of Nursia at this ecumenical Aspen Chapel, which was predominantly founded by a few Mennonites, is not only appropriate but absolutely necessary. I took the long way to make this point; from Moses to Buddha to Jesus to Mohammed to Benedict to Luther and to Michael Sattler. I trust that the commonalities of these great prophets and saints were obvious. They all were wanting to make a change in the status quo, they all had a personal revelation, they were all for the oppressed and common person, they all had a period of isolation and study, they then lived among the people, they were all disciplined, they were all controversial and they all left a message for future generations.
I look forward to learning more about the Way of Benedict and how it can be applied at the Chapel in the year 2007. The fact that we live next door to one of the 1200 monasteries in this world is utterly amazing. The lives of all these spiritual giants are amazing. Life is amazing.
Amen.
Rev. Dr. Gregg R. Anderson
Aspen Chapel
0077 Meadowood Drive
Aspen, Colorado 81611
970 925 7184