MEDITATION TIPS (No. 273)
— 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time,
October 12, 2025

"Jesus, Master, have mercy on us" (Luke 17:13)

　The ten skin-stricken men who cried out were with skin disease once called leprosy or Hansen's disease and in Jewish society at the time were considered sinners and forbidden to have contact with others. Furthermore, illness was a result of sin, and according to the Pharisees and those in authority, they, like the Gentiles, were excluded from salvation. Jesus, while in Jewish society at the time had connections with the Pharisees and those in authority, opposed them in order to keep the true God's commandments, becoming a sign of rebellion.

　In the late Edo period, there was an agricultural policy expert and thinker named Ninomiya Sontoku (Kinjiro). He is famous for the statue of a studious boy reading a book with firewood on his back, and his bronze statues were often found in old elementary schools. One day, in a village where rice planting had just finished, he tried some pickled eggplant. He commented that it tasted like autumn eggplant and warned that winter would soon arrive. Even though rice planting had finished in early summer and summer was just around the corner, he predicted the coming of winter. With a grim expression, he ordered the uprooting of all the newly planted rice seedlings and the planting of barnyard millet, which is more resistant to the cold, instead of rice which is more susceptible to the cold. That year was indeed a cold summer, and that marked the beginning of the Tenpo Great Famine, a hellish famine that ravaged Japan. However, not a single person died of starvation in his village, and the villagers distributed the excess barnyard millet to nearby villages. He did not ignore the cold summer, but rather used it to his advantage by planting barnyard millet, which is resistant to the cold summer.

　Ninomiya Sontoku often used the analogy of a waterwheel when thinking about what it means to be human. The lower half of a waterwheel cannot turn unless it follows the flow of water, that is, the power of heaven (nature), but the upper half cannot function unless it goes against that flow. In other words, a waterwheel fulfills its mission by half following heaven and half going against heaven. Sontoku emphasized the meaning of going against heaven precisely because, during the Tenpo famine, people had lost the strength to survive by going against heaven.

　In other words, in the "waterwheel analogy," we ourselves are the waterwheel, and the reality and people we face are the river. The waterwheel jumps into the river and starts to turn, but instead of being swept away by the water, it stays in place and moves in the opposite direction to the river. In other words, we initially accept any reality or opponent, but in order to live righteously, we must resist it with our own will. This is because any reality has the power to bear fruit. Like the waterwheel and the river, two distinct entities, mutually contribute energy, yielding abundant harvests.

　Sontoku emphasized the importance of "not having one's own measuring stick." In other words, he was admonishing them not to take this situation for granted, but to carefully observe the present moment in which they are living, and to always be aware of what is about to happen. Paul expresses this idea of "not having one's own measuring stick" in the following words: "If we died with Christ, we will also live with him" (2 Timothy 2:11). In other words, rather than using oneself as a measuring stick or standard, one should use Christ as the standard. This is because "even if we are not faithful, Christ is always faithful" (2 Timothy 2:13).

 　　　　　(Contributed by Father Yutaka Akabae)