Tanomoshi Ko

Acts 4:32-35

In our high school's Social Studies class we're learning about the early days of plantation life in Hawaii. We're especially taking a very close look at how, through plantation life, the many different cultures of other countries make up current Hawaiian culture and how it began as a way for people to better understand one another.

Imagine, if you will, you decide to take a job in a place where you don't know anything or anyone. You don't know what the land looks like or how the weather patterns are. You don't know what kinds of foods are eaten. You don't look like, dress like, or sound like anyone around you. In fact, you don't even know the language.

You travel with a few friends, so at least there's some comfort among those with whom you are alike. When you get to your new job's destination you find yourself settling into life with many others like you. As your first week progresses you notice there are others; and these others don't look like you, dress like you, sound like you, nor do you know their language. Yet, you need to work with these people day in and day out as well as live side by side with them.

You find your job to be not what it was indicated to be, making far less money than you were guaranteed. Your grand idea to bring the rest of your family into the new world which was promised is now only just that; an idea. So, because you don't have enough money to get home, or to get out of your situation, you continue to work this job with the hopes that one day you'll find a way out so you can be reunited with your family, friends, and loved ones.

You awaken one day to watch as others from a nearby camp say goodbye to a couple who have been working in the plantation for 10 years. You ask a friend how it is they saved enough money to finally begin a new life somewhere else.

He answers, "Tanomoshi." You smile, not understanding what he just said.

He explains that tanomoshi ko is what the Japanese plantation workers did to support one another financially so that, in time, all of them would eventually find a new home outside of the plantations. How tanamoshi works is that an account was created and supported from whatever monies could be spared by the people within a village. When the monies were enough it was given to the one for whom it was agreed to save the money for. This person would enter society outside of the plantation to start a business. Then, when the business did well it would give back to the village who helped them in the first place.

That cycle of giving and receiving continued until everyone from that village was out and able to enter society as a contributing citizen.

Our story from the Acts of the Apostles describes the exact same thing. Early Christians lived in settlements where food and supplies were scarce. They often found themselves outcasts from their original homes or villages because of their beliefs, and as such found themselves living away from city centers where life was a little simpler. The sharing of their possessions made for the best, and most just, living conditions for all.

For the early plantation workers of Hawaii, the sharing of their monies made life for all of them better, it offered hope. For the early Christians, the sharing of their possessions was a result of hope. In either case, hope and sharing go hand in hand.

Today, when we take a look around we are witness to a lot of hope being lost for those who just can't seem to make life better. They work 2 or 3 jobs and save and scrimp were they can. They sometimes have to choose between the rent, medication, or food on the table. In many cases none of the three can be met, and when they look for assistance their government leaders say they need to just try a little harder.

They sit at the bottom of the hill and watch as those at the top of the hill keep shoveling dirt onto them, making that hill bigger and bigger, almost impossible to climb out of.

I'm not saying that we begin living a communal life, what I am saying is that we recognize there are those within our village, those who work in the same plantation as we do, who need our help. Whether it's donating food to the food bank or hygienic supplies to a shelter or giving our time volunteering in retirement homes, or something else, we, as a society called to care for the sick, poor, and widowed, need to start doing something.

When all hope seemed lost because the realization that a better life wasn't going to happen, the neighbors within a plantation village found a way to make people's situations better in order to restore hope; and they did so
one life at a time. Shouldn't we find a way to do the same?

Compassion Friday (aka Good Friday)

Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9

If you look up the word "compassion" in the dictionary you'll most likely see a definition that looks something like this:a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. In other words, when we think of compassion we think about feeling sorry for someone's circumstance and try to find a way to help better that circumstance.

We've allowed the meaning of compassion to sway far away from its origins.

Compassion comes from the combination of two words. Com is the word for with. Passion comes from the root word pasio which means to suffer. Compassion, therefore, is to suffer with. It does not mean to feel sorry for and to make something better because of that sense of remorse. Compassion is the human response to be a presence in the midst of suffering while doing our best to understand the suffering we make the decision to share in.

Jesus lived compassionately.

We are reminded in this passage from Hebrews that "we don’t have a high priest who can’t sympathize with our weaknesses but instead one who was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin." We don't have a Christ who feels bad for us, but who lived as we do, in every way. Jesus was born into poverty, grew up without a father, lived his last few years houseless, was despised and plotted against by those in power, turned against by his friends, when it really mattered was left alone to fend for himself in a trial for his life, and in the end he died a brutal and painful death.

Through it all Jesus never stopped loving. Through it all he never broke from the relationships between God, others, or himself. Through it all Jesus continued to live a life filled with compassion which in itself transformed lives. Jesus didn't force those transformations onto anyone by declaring he was here to be their savior, nor did he command anyone to believe that it was through him and because of him that all sins will be forgiven. Jesus did not say to the social outcasts, those considered unclean and sinners, you must change your lives and conform to one truth, but instead encouraged everyone, everyone, to share in the love of truth in oneness.

Jesus' message until death was this: through one love show love to all and in love unify all into one love. As Christians we are Easter people and as such we believe in resurrection. More to the point we believe that resurrection is renewal of life. As such we need to find a way to stop waiting for the second coming of Christ and realize that Christ is still here, always has and always will be. As such, and to be faithful to our Easter tradition, celebrate life, celebrate love, and on this Good Friday, celebrate compassion.