Jewish and Buddhist
Once upon a time there lived a young man called Han, who, because of a number of unfortunate circumstances in his early life, had become a thief. In fact, he was one of the most accomplished thieves in the city, but he had never become rich, because he was rather lazy and only stole enough to keep him going through the day. One day things changed for Han. He met a young woman and fell desperately in love with her, but she was horrified to find that Han was a thief and begged him to change his ways, promising that she would marry him should he succeed in adopting a different manner of life. So deeply in love was Han that he determined to do as she asked. However, there was one problem. He didn’t have enough money to buy a wedding ring, so he decided, as his last criminal act, to steal one. Sadly, love had clouded his judgement and blunted his perceptions, so, for the first time in his career, he was caught and promptly thrown into jail, where, it was feared, he would spend the rest of his days.
There was no way he could escape from the prison. The walls were thick; the small window of his cell was barred; the lock on his cell door was sturdy; the jailers were young and strong, and never seemed to leave their post; they never even opened the cell door to bring in food, but passed it through a thin slot in the wall. But Han never gave up hope. He told himself that soon he would get free. But how?
One day, Han finished eating his meagre lunch of a little boiled rice and an over-ripe peach, when he had an idea. Instead of leaving the peach seed on the plate for the jailer to take away, he wrapped it carefully in a piece of paper and put it in his pocket. When the guard looked in on him a little later, Han said to him, ‘Would you please tell the king that I wish to see him on a matter of great importance. I know a way to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.’ Han knew enough about the king’s personality to realise that an appeal to his avarice would be the only way to secure an interview.
Sure enough, on learning that a lowly prisoner had the means to increase his already abundant wealth, the king asked for Han to be brought before him. ‘What do you possess which will make me rich?’ he asked, with a smile, when Han was unceremoniously dragged into his presence.
‘I have in my hand the secret of untold wealth,’ said Han, and he offered the king the peach seed.
‘What’s this? A peach seed! How could this possibly make me rich?’
‘This is no ordinary peach seed,’ lied Han. ‘It is magic. It was given to me many years ago by a magician. When this seed is planted in the ground it will produce a tree that will yield golden peaches.’
‘If that is so,’ asked the king, ‘why haven’t you planted it yourself?’
‘Because there is a problem,’ said Han. ‘In order to produce the golden fruit, the seed must be planted by someone who has never stolen or cheated. In my former life as a thief, I never had the opportunity to meet such an exalted person, but you, your majesty, are different from other men. You are just the person to plant this seed and to reap its benefits.’
The king frowned, and his face grew red. Although he was more honest than most monarchs, he remembered that there had been times in the past when he had lied and cheated in order to secure some advantage to himself, and so he said, ‘No. I can’t accept your gift. It would be better given to the Prime Minister. He is a most trustworthy man.’
All eyes turned towards the Prime Minister, but he couldn’t meet their glances. Remembering how he had once told some lies about a political rival, he murmured, ‘I too am not able to accept the peach seed. Perhaps it should be given to the Chief Secretary.’
But the Chief Secretary, too, could easily recall incidents in his past of which he was now bitterly ashamed, and so he refused. So did all the rest of king’s advisors. A smile broke out on the king’s face. ‘You are a very clever man, Han. You have shown us that you have been thrown into prison for your crime, but that our crimes have gone unnoticed and unpunished. Now you may go free. Take your magic peach seed with you, and lead an honest life from now on.’
Han left the king’s presence, and returned to his home. But he never stole again. He married his fiancée, and they lived happily ever after. Their most treasured possession was the peach seed. It really was magic. It had secured freedom for Han, and it had shown the king and his court that no one lives a completely blameless life.

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. Aldous Huxley

A few months ago Morag and I were walking up Bride Street towards Dublin Castle. It was the evening rush-hour, about 6.30 pm, and the traffic was backed up all along the street. A cyclist was trying to make his way along the cycle path, but it was blocked here and there by inconsiderate motorists who had drifted into his lane and were now stationary. He dismounted, and walked along bashing his fist on the roof of each of the offending cars, alerting the driver to his error. ‘He’s quite right,’ Morag and I thought, ‘they’ve no business being in the cycle lane’. However, Bride Street splits in the middle, turning from two way traffic to one way traffic, and if you want to continue your northward journey you have to make a detour. The cars had to do this, but the cyclist decided that it was too much trouble for him, and promptly began to cycle the wrong way up a one way street on the pavement! It was a perfect demonstration of the principle by which we all seem to live – there’s one law for me and another one for everybody else. Indeed, motoring demonstrates this aspect of our nature as well as anything. When I hear the sound of car horns – and I seem to hear them constantly in Dublin – I can’t help thinking that the enraged motorist is generally pointing out an error that he himself has committed in the not-too-distant past. We all feel tempted to honk the horn at the slow driver in front, forgetting that last week or last month we too were in an area that we didn’t know terribly well and had to proceed slowly so that we could read the street names. When we honk at the driver who changes lane at the last moment, we forget that we have done the same on numerous occasions.
I seem to be particularly offended by litter these days, and I often want to confront the youth who drops his sweet wrapper on the road, but I have to admit that I’ve done exactly the same in my time. One particular incident sticks in my mind, even though it took place about forty years ago. I was standing in a shop doorway waiting for a friend when I dropped an empty cigarette packet on the floor – something I’m sure I did frequently in those days. The shop keeper who had seen what I’d done came out and booted the packet out of his doorway and into the road. Shamefacedly I went to retrieve it and put it into a waste-paper bin. I’ve never forgotten this incident, this graphic demonstration of my youthful indifference to litter, and it comes back to me whenever I self-righteously feel like ticking off a contemporary culprit.
As I get older I find myself becoming increasingly sensitive to noise, and living in an apartment building alongside people in their twenties and thirties means that there are a few occasions when exuberant partying will disturb my sleep. ‘Have they no consideration?’ I shout. ‘Don’t they know that some people have to get up for work in the morning?’ Then I invariably remember how I had been similarly indifferent to the rights of others to enjoy a good night’s sleep when I was in my twenties. We would occasionally party in the apartment of a friend, completely ignoring the banging on the floor which indicated that the person below was being disturbed. I also hate queue-jumpers, but once I inadvertently jumped the queue in Asda, only to be alerted to my misdemeanour by the tutting of the man whose place I’d taken. And these are just a few of my peccadilloes! I shudder to think what you would make of my sins!
Some years ago in a sermon on this topic I mentioned an incident I’d seen on television. This is what I wrote:

One Sunday night, as I was idly flicking through the television channels in search of distraction, I came across the Jerry Springer Show on TV3. The Jerry Springer Show is undoubtedly the nadir of popular entertainment. Social misfits and psychological inadequates are encouraged to argue and fight in front of a moronic studio audience. It is gladiatorial combat without the blood, but it is disconcertingly compelling, probably because we like to think that the characters who appear on it have lives that are even more confused than our own.
In that particular episode a man called Dan was told by his wife of three years that she had been having an affair with his best friend who also, as it happens, was called Dan. The aggrieved boyfriend, (Dan 1), was understandably shocked and hurt by this revelation. His bottom lip began to tremble; he choked back his tears; ‘How could you do this to me?’ he breathed through the sobs. When Dan 2 was brought on, Dan 1 flew at him like a frenzied animal and he had to be pulled away by a couple of hefty bouncers. It was extremely sad, and I felt genuinely sorry for the man – betrayed by his wife and his friend, and humiliated on national television.
But that wasn’t the end of the story. When Dan 2’s wife was introduced as the fourth member of this quartet, she too reacted to her husband’s infidelity with disbelief and anger, but then she made the most startling revelation of all: for the past six months she had been carrying on with Dan 1! Suddenly he ceased to be a wounded innocent, and my sympathy for him became a general sadness for people caught in such a web of tawdriness and deceit.

There’s a name for this sort of thing – hypocrisy – and even the best of us are guilty of it, and we know we are, that’s why it hurts so much when we are accused of it. In yesterday’s Guardian colour supplement there was an interview with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. ‘What’s the worst thing anyone has ever said to you?’ asked the interviewer. ‘Hypocrite!’ replied the archbishop. The word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek word for actor, that is, someone who is pretending to be what he isn’t. The Gospels, which, as I’ve said before, are insightful treatises on the psychology of the human being, contain the disturbing story of the Unmerciful Servant, which is as good an illustration of human hypocrisy as you are likely to find.
A man who wishes to get his accounts in order, calls in one of his servants who owes him a vast sum of money – ten thousand talents, the text says, i.e. well over a million euros in today’s values. The servant begs his master to give him more time to pay, no doubt excusing his dilatoriness by claiming an extravagant spouse, excessive school fees, increasing interest rates, and the like. His master, who had threatened him with debtor’s prison, takes pity on him, and instead of giving him more time to pay, actually cancels his debt completely. However, as he leaves his master’s office, the servant comes across a colleague who happens to owe him a few pounds. Grabbing him by the throat, he yells, ‘Where’s the money you owe me? Pay me back, or else!’ Indifferent to the man’s pleas for more time, he has him and his family thrown into jail. But his actions are reported to his master who angrily reverses his previous decision and has him banged up in the debtor’s prison too. (Matthew 18:21-35)
Jesus tells this story in answer to Peter’s question, ‘How often should I forgive my brother? Seven times?’ ‘Not seven times,’ says Jesus, ‘but seventy times seven.’ It’s interesting that the Lord’s Prayer, which we recited together just a few minutes ago, reinforces the teaching of the parable. ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ we say, blithely, and automatically, seldom realising that we are offering God a criterion of judgement: ‘I would like you to forgive me in the same way and to the same extent that I forgive others.’ If you think about it, you will appreciate that these are probably the scariest words you will utter all day!
Unfortunately, this is how we are – all of us. Remember today’s children’s story? There’s nobody who can plant the magic peach seed, because there’s nobody who hasn’t done something wrong. ‘There’s no one righteous, not even one,’ says St Paul (Romans 3:10). Let’s begin from that point and stop pretending that things are otherwise, that some people are beyond reproach, with no skeletons in the cupboard, and nothing about which they are deeply ashamed.
The political world seems so full of self-righteous posturing that one doesn’t even know which examples to choose, but here are a few recent ones. Last year Gordon Brown became the British Prime Minister, after waiting almost a decade for his colleague Tony Blair to relinquish the position. He eventually got the job, only to be criticised by the opposition for not immediately holding an election. ‘He hasn’t been elected Prime Minister, the job’s been handed to him. He should go to the country in order to secure a mandate. This is the democratic way.’ And so on. But is there a single person above the age of forty – that is, someone who is too old to be taken in by political rhetoric any more - who would think for one moment that the Conservatives would have held an election under similar circumstances, especially when the polls were showing that the Prime Minister’s party was becoming increasingly unpopular? And now throughout the capitalist west we have opposition parties blaming governments for the current downturn in the economy when they know perfectly well that, for the most part, factors beyond the control of individual governments are to blame. ‘We will combat sleaze,’ says the party in opposition, just to be up to their necks in it after a few years in government. ‘When money talks, even the angels listen,’ someone has wisely observed. Why do we keep on pretending that some people are immune from the common human frailties? ‘All have sinned,’ says St. Paul. ‘There’s no one worthy to plant the seed.’
We really should pay heed to the instruction that we hear as the plane gets ready for take-off. ‘In the event of loss of air pressure an individual oxygen mask will drop from above your head. Place the mask over your mouth and nose and breathe normally. Those travelling with young children and babies should attend to their own masks first.’ It comes as quite a shock when we hear it for the first time. Surely, we think, we should see to the children before we look to our own safety, but a moment’s reflection will show that this is the most sensible order in which to do things. After all, you are no use to others if you collapse while trying to help them. But, ‘Fix your own mask first’ should also be a slogan of the spiritual life. You are no good to others while you are pretending to be something you aren’t. You are no good to others while you continue to do what you are constantly condemning. You are no good to others while you have so little self-knowledge that you are volubly intent on removing the speck from your brother’s eye while pointedly ignoring the log that is in your own (Matthew 7:3-5).
Incidentally, the English word ‘person’ - along with its derivatives such as ‘personality’ ‘personal’, and ‘persona’, - comes from the Latin word for the mask that actors would wear in dramas. An evil person required an evil mask, a happy person a smiling mask etc. So, ‘hypocrite’, ‘actor’, ‘mask’, and ‘personality, are all connected; they are all to do with pretence. Our personality is the mask we wear in public, the disguise we hide behind, the cover we employ to veil our true selves. The primary aim of the spiritual life is not the transformation of a corrupt world; how can corrupt people seriously hope to stop corruption? Rather, the spiritual life is an attempt to get behind our individual mask, to look at what lies beneath, to try to put this right before we start pointing the finger at others.
‘Fix your own mask first,’ is sound advice on an aeroplane, and in life.

Rev.Bill Darlison
Dublin Unitarian Church June 29th 2008

Darlison, B., (2007), Enlightenment and Ice Cream, page 32
Guardian Weekend, 28th June, 2008, page 11