Back to Sermon List

“Traveling Third Class (The Gospel According to Gandhi)”

March 14, 2004
Sermon by Peter Terpenning
Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:1-20

            You might call this sermon the Gospel According to Gandhi, for my area of study this week has been Mohandas Gandhi. I watched movie again, and read many of his letters and part of a biography. I was inspired to do this by Paul’s comment in I Corinthians about how he never expected the people to support him, but always worked as a Tentmaker. For some reason this got me thinking about Gandhi’s humility. In the movie his awakening to non-violence and humility happens when he is traveling on a train in South Africa. I found the reference to this in his biography. A white passenger noticed the Indian “coolie” sitting in first class and complained. Conductors were called and he was told to move back to Third, the only place for niggers and coolies. He replies that he has always traveled first class and that he had a ticket. This made no difference and he was told to move or be thrown off the train. He refused and was thrown off at the next station. There he spent a cold night for his luggage was locked up by the station master until morning. In the course of the movie and his life we see a transition of Gandhi, the young, English trained barrister traveling First Class to the simply dressed Mahatma traveling always Third Class. He changed his dress gradually until he dressed as the poorest of Indians. He developed a way of living simply. Gandhi said, “All men are created equal by God and therefore entitled to an equal share of food, clothing and housing.” Therefore, we should, “minimize our needs, keeping in mind the poorest of the poor in India”. “True humility”, he wrote to a friend, “means most strenuous and constant endeavor entirely directed toward the service of humanity.”
            Traveling Third Class was by no means pleasant in India, nor is it today I suspect. There has always been this tendency among people to divide us up by level of privilege based on birth, money, education or some other division. Gandhi believed this was against God’s law, and so, I believe, does our Christian faith. I did not see the movie Titanic but I heard that there is a hair raising scene where the Third Class and Steerage decks were locked as the ship was sinking to ensure that the First and Second Class ticket holders got first dibs on the inadequate number of lifeboats. This is a graphic example of the fact that divisions by class and wealth result each day in the deprivation and death of those assigned to lower class. In our country it usually means deprivation based on less money and health care, but racism and prejudice still raise their ugly heads as well.
             I think we are talking here about humility. We are called by all major world faiths not to set one person over another. Our scripture reminds us of this. The Sermon on the Mount, Gandhi’s favorite, says, “Blessed are you poor, (or you poor in Spirit), blessed are the meek, blessed are those who mourn…” “Do not store up treasures on earth, but treasure in heaven…where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “No one can serve two masters; you can not serve God and wealth”. Jesus says elsewhere, “If you wish to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” “Who is the greatest? It is the smallest child – the least among you is the greatest”. “What you do for the least of these, our brothers and sisters, you do for me”. “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” Mary’s Magnificat predicts the Messiah will “bring down the powerful and lift up the lowly, the hungry will be filled with good things and the rich sent empty away.” The Old Testament is full of such calls to equality and humility. Isaiah 11 reads, “with righteousness the Messiah will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth”. Micah 6 reads, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” Even Paul of Tarsus gets in the act as he calls for neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, Male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus.
            In Buddhism there are many such references. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of “engaged Buddhism”, which means Buddhism that is engaged in serving people. Hazan Alan Senauke of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship said, “All people, whether perpetrators or victims, are the same family, like it or not, and how you treat people is pivotal.” I did not do exhaustive research but I am fairly sure we would find the same sentiments in every religion; that all people are equal, and equally entitled to food, shelter and love. Part of loving God is loving our neighbor as ourselves, and serving humanity.
            Gandhi made this the goal of his life. He called his autobiography, “Experiments in Truth”, and saw his life as one big experiment. He tried to consider other people, their happiness and justice in every aspect of his life: how he ate, where he lived, what he worked on, how he prayed, what political position he took, everything. Sounding almost Buddhist, Gandhi wrote once about humility. He wrote, “But if we shatter the chains of egotism and melt into the ocean of humanity, we share its dignity. To feel we are something is to set up a barrier between God and ourselves; to cease feeling that we are something is to become one with God. A drop in the ocean partakes in the greatness of its parent, although it is unconscious of it. But it is dried up as soon as it enters upon an existence independent of the ocean.” In another letter he wrote, “If we could erase the I’s and the mine’s from religion, politics, economics, etc… we shall soon be free and bring heaven on earth.”
            Most people know that Gandhi led the non-violent revolution that gave India and Pakistan self rule from England. He also spearheaded a campaign to end entouchablility in India. He lived simply, and after about age 35 he lived on communal farms that are called Ashrams in India. He was a strict vegetarian and was always experimenting with his diet to determine what was healthy and what was just, using the least amount of resources. He had many faults, which he was always the first to point out. He had a temper, and was sometimes almost cruel in the disciple he required in those who followed him. But he truly sought to live a virtuous life and inspired Albert Einstein to remark on the occasion of Gandhi’s 75th birthday, “future generations will scarcely believe that one such as this ever walked upon the earth.”
            Not long before his death at age 78, in August, 1947 Gandhi wrote to a friend; “I will give you a Talisman. Whenever you are in doubt; or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen, and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore to him a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj (relief) for the hungry and spiritually starved millions? Then you will find your doubts and yourself melting away.”
            The witness of Gandhi and also of Christianity is; as we devote ourselves to service of others, and embodying love, we will find our egos melting away and not only will the division between us and other people diminish, but we will also diminish the division between us and God.