An Excerpt from Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart by Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox presents 37 sermons by Meister Eckhart and commentaries on them. Here is an excerpt on justice.
"When we learn to respond to life and to God and to our inner selves with an our instead of a me consciousness, we learn some powerful and significant lessons about sharing the goods of the earth. Drawing on Saint Chrysostom's criticism of the me mentality that riches so often spawn, Eckhart warns: 'Bread is given to us so that not only we might eat but that we recognize others in need, lest anyone say "my bread" is given to me instead of understand that it is ours, given to me, to others through me and to me through others.' Here we have a beautiful summation of what the law of interdependence, the basis of what all compassion is about: an awareness of how energy flows to others through me—thus the divine importance of the work we do—and to me through others—thus the divine importance of a gift consciousness and a capacity to receive the gifts of others. Furthermore, the gifts themselves—the bread—are not mine but ours. The same holds for all things which are necessary for sustaining this present life—whether land or water, air or food, oil or rain, sunshine or laughter. All things. . . are given to us with others and because of others and given to others in us. Gifts exist for the sake of all of us, for we all are one and all in need. But our response is to be one of giving and of doing justice in order to see this sharing accomplished. It is not done by inheritance alone. We are not born into a world of justice and compassion, of we, not I. When we fail to act against injustice we are, in fact, busy stealing others' food, others' necessities. We are part of the problem of injustice instead of the healing that justice brings. 'Whoever does not give to another what belongs to the other, such a one does not eat his own bread but eats the bread of another along with his own. Thus when we justly eat the bread we have received, we certainly eat our bread; but when we eat evilly and with sin the bread we have received, then we are not eating our own bread but the bread of another. For everything which we have unjustly is not really ours.'
We are praying to receive and to give necessities, not luxuries. We are not commanded to pray for money or luxuries but for bread. It is bread and the other necessities that unite people as brothers and sisters, and not the luxuries of living. Advertising and commercials notwithstanding, our common prayer will always be a prayer for necessities. For it is around our shared needs that our humanity and fraternity is learned and built up. Furthermore, we do not need luxurious quantities even of the necessities. We do not want to have more than daily bread, Eckhart claims, underlining his plea for a simple style of living. We are in need each day, and it is this common need that forms the basis of our common humanity and our common compassion. Asking for bread today means in the present or during the time of our pilgrimage in this present age. For we are in need of material bread as long as we are mortal, fragile human beings. Being all alike, mortal, fragile, human beings, we ought to be busy about relieving one another of pain and indigency and deprivation of basic needs before we put any effort into luxury needs."
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