thoughts out !oud

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Next stop: Karma Central

Posted by Mathew | 3 March 08

It’s a subtle reference, to be sure. Unless you’re in the clutches of the menace that is Melbourne’s public transport system, you are probably blissfully unaware. Fare evasion is nothing new to any transport system, but in Melbourne’s beloved train, tram and bus network, Metlink believe it’s a big deal. A big enough deal to presume guilt on its patrons before innocence. A big enough deal to launch a quasi-spiritual campaign against the ticket evaders and freeloaders that must ’surely be the reason’ for our failed and troubled transport system. A’la karmacentral.com.au.

Their whole campaign revolves around the simple notion that if you don’t buy a ticket or otherwise avoid paying your way on public transport, somewhere, somehow, something bad is going to happen to you. Their billboard advertisements plastered all around the stations and on trams show images of: suited men with stripes of paint on their jackets after having sat on a wet-paint park bench; or of a woman in a cream skirt having been splashed with muddy water by a passing car; or of golfers getting struck by lightning on the green; or of ladies walking down the street with their polka-dotted knickers showing. (Though that last one is probably more due to bad dressing than bad karma, like some old friends I know.)

Metlink’s latest advertising campaign, running from Sunday 24 February, reminds us that the universe is always watching and is ready to exact retribution if you cheat the public transport system.

Oh, goody. A universal watch-dog. Exacting retribution on those who dare cheat the system.

The notion of Karma, a philosophy prevailant in Indian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism, is that process by which those who do wrong or evil, are repaid for their wrong doing at some point later in their life (or the next) by an equally bad or worse situation/event happening to them. ‘What goes around, comes around’ is the westernisation of this philosophy. The Law of Cause and Effect, is another label you might see given to karma.

For the most part, it is a nice little mantra to remind yourself of when you’re in traffic and some absent-minded, V8 hooning P-plater cuts you off for going at the posted speed limit; you can console yourself that at some point, it’ll all come back to him. That 15 years down the track, he’ll be the one who’s ticked off by a V8 hooning P-plater cutting him off in traffic. It’s nice to think that those who do you wrong, will at some point be paid back for the wrong that they do do. (But that thought doesn’t help you on the day!)

It’s nice to think, but it’s also flawed thinking. And this is why.

Firstly, it seems to suggest that bad things happen to those who do bad things. Take once brief look at the injustices of this world and you realise straight away that this simply does not happen. Many good people suffer for the wrongs of others, while the perpetrators get away with a fine living. Secondly, karma is very limiting. In the immediate sense, a person can exploit and take advantage of others for their entire life and never be struck with sickness, grief or tribulations of any kind and live a grand, luxurious life. Now those who adher to karma saw the roadblock to their reasoning here; which is where reincarnation steps in. Reicarnation is that process which says that if you did bad in your previous life and nothing bad ever happened to you, rest assured, in your future life, you’ll be reincarnated as a slug or some such as due penance. Reincarnation also allows those who adhere to it to reason away why bad things happen to you now, even if you’ve done nothing wrong in this life - you’re simply paying retribution for crimes and wrongdoings in your last life.

Great logic. Except one would have to wonder, if you’re reincarnated as a slug - where do you go from there? How can make atonement for your past? Slime well? Don’t eat people’s lettuce leaves? What does a slug have to have done in order to be doused with the kitchen table-salt by a 6 year old boy?

Karma cannot quantify justice.

There is no comfort in karma. By whose law is your karma benchmarked against? What is good and what is bad and who decides? How do you know if you are being appropriately punished? There is no justice. Consider all those millions of Jews who suffered the Holocaust. I don’t care what the sins were of those people, that event in human history is one of the most tragic injustices yet.

This morning many thousands of passengers on Metlink’s trains, and a good healthy proportion of which would have been faithful in paying their fares for a substandard service, encountered a ‘delay’ in their regular Monday morning peak-hour service. For me personally, it meant a half hour’s delay in reaching the office, standing in a cramped train for 20 minutes with somebody else’s bad flatulence. I have a paid ticket! For the better part of my train-traveling life, I, like most people, have a paid ticket!

Explain this statistic then, Mr Metlink:

Ninety per cent of passengers do the right thing and buy a ticket, but for the 10 per cent who don’t, fare evasion karma will have its day.

Where Metlink’s target-the-fare-evaders campaign has failed miserably, and for the problematic philosophy of karma in addressing real-life concerns, Christianity has had the answers for all of the sufferings and hurts and injustices for the last 2000 years.

We are a fallen creation. In the beginning, God had created all life and pronounced it all good. When we created man and woman, He pronounced it ‘very good’. And then Adam and Eve fell from grace, and all of humanity has since inherited a sinful nature; we sin by nature and by free-will. There is ’cause and effect’ but we cannot hope to right the wrongs by choosing to do good (although that’s a good start); we are still sinful by nature. Crap happens. To good people and bad. King David, for much of his early adult life, was injustly persued by King Saul for the crime of being better-liked by the Israeli people; all his life, King David was faithful to God and God credited him as being a man after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14).

Jesus likewise tells us that God causes the sun to rise on those who do evil as well as those who do good (Matthew 5:45) - this is out of God’s graciousness to unrepentant sinners, in order that they may be ashamed of their evil ways and repent. God graciously delays His judgement for out of His love for us, He does not wish for any to perish.

So bad things happen in the world because we are sinful creatures and the world was cursed along with us. We therefore have to suffer through wickedness and natural disaster (even those of us who are repentant) because we all have sinned - and if we have all sinned, we are all burdened and we are all in need of God’s offer of help which He lovingly, freely gave in the life, death and resurrection of His Son Jesus.

The worries, concerns, pressures and train-delays of this world all wear us down. They are meant to. We cannot save ourselves, and that is the crux of the Gospel message. Jesus calls to us to submit all our cares and anxieties to him:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Only Jesus can give you the rest and the peace that your heart yearns for. If you follow the karma-mantra, you will always be on the rat-wheel of trying to outdo your past wrongs; Jesus has already taken full punishment for your past wrongs.

Trust in Him because of it.

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