Rev. Mark Stringer

First Unitarian Church of Des Moines

4/20/03

 

Meditation (by Frances Craig)

Suppose that spring—this great awakening—came only once in your lifetime?

Suppose that just this time you’d feel the wind all sweet with pussy willow pollen.

That only once you’d find hepaticas and Dutchmen’s breeches answering the sun through the woodland’s leafless trees…

That only once you’d see the shedding of tree bark and dry husk sheltering the winter’s buds…and watch the blunt red buds of maples turn to flowerets…then wild plum thickets toss their creamy petals on the air…and quince burst into flame…

Suppose this were the only time you’d see the rushing freshets filled with melted snow…or hear the creaking song of blackbirds down at the brimming pond…and then watch the little evolution of wriggling tadpoles turned to hopping things…

Suppose that just this once you could stand on the edge of the world to watch and listen as the sun comes up…

When the stream dances and the bud stirs and the bird sings…

And out of it bursts, like morning, the cry of human life.

Suppose that spring and all new birth happen only once—

And then be glad that it comes on and on, with timeless joy, as old as the earth and as new as you heart’s awakening.

 

Reading

“Lent” by Lynn Ungar

 

What will you give up for this season,

To help life along
in its curious reversals?

As if we had a choice.

As if the world were not
constantly shedding us,
like feathers off a duck’s back--
the ground is always
littered with our longings.

You can’t help but wonder
about all the heroes,

the lives and limbs sacrificed
in their compulsion toward the good.
All those who dropped themselves
upon the earth’s hard surface--
weren’t they caught in pure astonishment
in the breath before they shattered?

 

Forget Sacrifice.  Nothing
is tied so firmly that the wind
won’t tear it from us at last.
The question is how to remain faithful
to all the impossible,
necessary resurrections.

 

Sermon

Easter morning in a Unitarian Universalist Church. In some circles of thought, those two things don’t go together at all.  And yet, here we are. Could it be that attendance rises in UU churches on Easter because people want to watch the minister squirm…they want to see how the minister of a church where the majority of members have doubts about the both the Resurrection and the divinity of Jesus, handles a religious holiday that centers on both of these things. So with the seats mostly filled and the congregation sitting quietly, waiting to see how I work my way though this, which road will I choose? Will I avoid the Resurrection and take a sprightly jaunt through the easy metaphors of spring: nature’s rebirth, leaves from a dry stick, bunnies, and blooming flowers?  Or will I approach the elephant in the middle of the room…the elephant in the middle of our predominantly Christian culture…and contend with the concept that on the third day after crucifixion, Jesus reportedly rose from the dead? 

 

Well…in true UU fashion, the answer is both…and neither.

 

I wouldn’t want to completely ignore the pagan side of Easter, the festival celebration of nature’s rebirth that has been at the core of spring-time rites and rituals practiced long before and after Christians appeared on the scene.  But, with Easter falling so late in April, much of the glorious potential and bounty of nature is self-evident.  Many of us have already been working in our gardens, tilling up the refuse of another winter past and prepping the soil for this year’s round of earthen miracles. And over the past week or so—certainly on the way to church this morning, at least—we have been treated to literally hundreds of unspoken sermons: the exquisite displays of nature’s resilience, reliability and renewal to be discovered in blooming crabapple and pear trees, the fiery forsythia and the freshly-emerging sprinkles of green now gracing the trees and bushes, which just a short time ago seemed barren and lifeless. Rather than spend our time together further describing this scene though, I suggest that we each set aside at least a few moments later today to go outside and silently take in the natural world ourselves, remembering, even marveling, that this earth is our home and perhaps the best teacher we have. Let’s breathe in the spring and allow its sweet example to remind us of the possibilities for rebirth and renewal that await us all…even when our lives seem most barren and lifeless.  As Frances Craig wrote in the piece I read as this morning’s meditation,
“Suppose that spring and all new birth happen only once—

And then be glad that it comes on and on, with timeless joy, as old as the earth and as new as your heart’s awakening.”

 

In the meantime, I do want to talk about resurrection this morning, but I should point out that I will not be grappling much with the dogma or details of the Resurrection with a capital “R,” as if I know any more than anyone else about what happened to Jesus after he died.  Indeed, how can any of us know for sure?  As one of my colleagues has suggested, perhaps the best advertisement for a UU Easter service would be a simple two-line statement. “Join us.  We’re not sure what happened.”[1]  Besides, I think we would be doing a disservice to the resurrection myth if we tried to examine it too closely under the lens of rational thought, if we tried to pin down the facts.  After all, a myth is not built to withstand scientific scrutiny.  To try to hold it to these standards is to miss the point.  A myth exists to express the experiences of a people, to convey through metaphor and story the existential realities of their lives—their struggles, hopes and dreams—the lived truths that simply cannot be measured by science or adequately described using literal terms. 

 

So I invite you to suspend your disbelief for a while and think about the Easter story as a myth that has much to teach us about the lives of those who have come before us, and, in turn, our own lives.  

 

The notion of resurrection, that someone could rise from the dead and begin a new life, seems so foreign to our modern sensibilities, and yet, if we stop thinking about it so literally, it may not be that hard to believe after all. When Jesus died, his disciples and followers needed a way to overcome the sense that everything had been lost.  They stood in the midst of crushed dreams and hopes and invited something new to emerge.  They came to see that the end of Jesus’ life could actually be a beginning…a time of transformation…a time of renewed hope and possibility that emerged from the loss.  The story of the Resurrection, then, can be seen as a powerful metaphor for the truth that life goes on, even in the midst of pain…even in the face of death. To be clear, I don’t think the Easter story is about resuscitation, the revival of the life that was, the rising-from-the-dead stuff that many of us may find difficult to accept.  The Easter story is about resurrection, the idea that something new can arise from death…new life for the people left behind after someone who was loved and admired has died…new life that allows these people to translate the gifts of the life that was into a legacy that can withstand the ravages of time.  The Easter story reminds us that death is not always an end to the story.  It can sometimes be a beginning as well.

 

Still, I’m sure we can all agree that death is real. When a person dies, we know that his physical life has ended. We know that the hopes and dreams we had for our lives together have ended, too.  We know it if for no other reason than the empty space that is left behind.  The empty space, when it appears, beckons to us, often leaving us with more questions than answers.  It is not an easy place to be…no matter how confident we might be in our beliefs.  In the depths of this empty space we may even find ourselves contradicting things we once held as truths. 

 

One of my mentors, Barbara Pescan, reflects the new perspectives that death can bring in her poem “She Speaks of Death”:

Pescan writes:

 

Oblivion, she said
in a weary voice,
is what is after death.

    There is nothing after death
    but nothing
    and that’s all right with me.

 

It made good scientific sense,
nailed to the cathedral door
of her religious childhood.

 

And when her husband died
a few years later
oblivion
pinned against eternity
sagged in the middle
and in its folds
sweet disbelief surprised her
and the hope
she hadn’t seen the last of him yet.[2]

 

Pescan’s poem speaks to me because no matter how much my reason tells me to be certain about the finitude of death, there remains a hope buried somewhere that there might be more…that there must be more.

 

I was with sitting with a family recently, hearing their stories and remembrances of the family matriarch whose memorial service would be held later that week.  We talked for a couple of hours, in between fits of laughter and tears and silence.  These times are often quite poignant for the family members present and for me as we prepare for a service by weaving together memories of the life that was…hearing in the stories that rise to the surface a greater common story that we all share…this mysterious life itself.  Sometimes in these meetings, talk turns to theology…especially if not everyone present is a Unitarian Universalist.  During this not-so-long-ago meeting, the middle-aged devoutly Methodist son asked me a question, with a tone that implied it was time for this minister to step up to the plate.  He asked,  “Where do you think my mother is?”  Maybe it was the student in me wanting to show my homework, or perhaps I was just stalling for time, but I began to respond to his question with his mother’s own words.  You see, not long before her death, I had asked her where she thought she would go when she died, and I figured her response would be as valid to her son as anything that I would say. I figured wrong.   As I rifled through my notes to find the answer, the son grew even more persistent.  “No, Mark,” he said, leaning forward now, verbally pointing his finger at me, “I want to know where you think she is.”

 

I looked up and met his eyes with mine.  In his eyes, red with emotion from an immersion into the empty space his mother once filled, I saw his need to prove something…maybe to himself…maybe to me…maybe to the universe.  So I told him the only thing I felt I could tell him:  the truth.  “I don’t know,” I said.  “I don’t know.”  He dropped the palms of his hands onto his lap, sat back in his chair, and exhaled…a gesture commonly seen during baseball games when a batter for the home team has struck out.  I then gave him the most appropriate UU response I could conjure up:  “Where do you think she is?” 

 

“I think she is in heaven,” he answered… “[paraphrase] with others from the family who have died.”

 

 “I like that idea,” I told him.  Another truthful response.  I told him I liked his idea of heaven because I did…and I do.    But I also acknowledge that when it comes down to it, none of us can be completely sure what happens when we die. No matter what our beliefs, though, whether we believe in some form of afterlife or not, we do know that the memory of those who have died can continue to touch our own lives.  The lessons learned in their company, painful or positive, can take on their own life, guiding and influencing the lives we have yet to complete. And the things we do in this world can have an impact on the lives of those left behind when we die.  These are important themes for any memorial service…particularly the idea that although the loved one is gone, those who are left will carry a piece of that life with them as long as they live.  That’s why I often read a short poem at these services, a couple of lines from St. John Chrysostom, who wrote, “She whom we love and lose is no longer where she was before. She is now wherever we are.”[3]  She, he, they whom we have loved and lost are no longer where they were before.  They are now wherever we are. This is one way that I understand resurrection.  And why I believe in it.

 

Another way I understand resurrection comes from its Greek word of origin, anastasis, which I have learned means “standing up again.”[4]

 

I believe in this kind of resurrection, too…this resurrection with a small “r,”  this resurrection of “standing up again” because it is clear that these resurrections happen all around us…and not just in blooming trees and emerging tulips.  Every day people rise up from the depths of their despair to begin new life…to stand up again.  People faced with seemingly insurmountable circumstances find the strength to carry on, to move beyond that which held them back…addictions; unhealthy, even abusive relationships; physical and or mental handicaps; poverty, violence and war; great tragedy and great loss.  Sometimes they are nudged forward by their own will…and sometimes they find the courage to begin again as the result of a touch or simple words of comfort and understanding from a friend or stranger who believes they can do it.  Sometimes people find their lives resurrected as a complete surprise…in their darkest hour…as a moment of illumination or grace that comes from who knows where:  from God, or from the life force, or from some random twist of events.  This is not to say, of course, that resurrection happens for all of us.  We need only open our eyes to the suffering in our communities and around the world to know that sometimes people succumb to their pain, fall victim to violence or illness, or simply give up hope and never find the means to recover what has been lost or destroyed or what they never knew existed in the first place.

 

And yet, the possibility for resurrection…for standing up again remains.  And this possibility is where I choose to place my loyalty, my allegiance…my faith.   I believe in resurrection because I believe in not only the inherent worth and dignity of each individual.  I believe in the inherent resilience of each individual.  Resilience to endure whatever this mysterious, exhilarating, pain-filled, disappointing, finite life dishes out. 

 

I believe in resurrection because I believe that new life is possible…even in the face of death.  I believe that whenever we are faced with the painful ordeals of our lives—the blows of disappointment, illness, and loss, that scatter our dreams and our hopes for the future, the possibility of new life always awaits…not the same life that was before…but new life built upon the rubble of our past expectations.  Of course, there are no guarantees; yet, the possibility remains. And it is this possibility that can keep us looking long enough to endure the challenges, to find new life, to embrace it, and to bring it to others.  To me, that is the real story of a man named Jesus and the real good news of Easter: the possibility of resurrection that awaits us all…if we can find the strength to be faithful to it.

 

That’s where this morning’s reading—the Lynn Ungar poem that Dan read earlier—comes in.  Perhaps Easter morning is a little late to read a poem entitled “Lent,” but I couldn’t resist sharing it…particularly the last few lines:

 

“Nothing is tied so firmly that the wind
won’t tear it from us at last.
The question is how to remain faithful
to all the impossible,
necessary resurrections.”

 

The question—the primary inquiry posed by our very existence

The question is how to remain faithful—how to remain engaged, how to remain loyal and devoted to that which cannot be seen or logically proven

 

The question is how to remain faithful to all the impossible, necessary resurrections—even when this life lets us down the most. Even when to have faith…when to believe in life…seems like the most absurd thing we could do, a choice remains.  Will we choose hope?  Hope for ourselves, and hope for those who will follow us?  Will we remain faithful to all the impossible, necessary resurrections or not?

 

This is a question we each have to answer for ourselves.  And make no mistake:  we answer it every day.  We answer it by how we love our families, our neighbors, our planet, and ourselves.  We answer it by how we use the gifts we have been given…how we share our wealth and our resources.  We answer it by how we protect the rights of the downtrodden and the despairing.  We answer it by how we work for justice, by how we spread compassion, by how we spread hope.

 

The earth, of course, is giving us its answer.  As Spring spreads her beauty right outside our door, we can see that the earth says yes to possibility…yes to new life emerging from that which once seemed dormant…yes to resurrection.

 

So, this Easter morning, and all the mornings to follow, what will your answer be…and what will it call for you to do? 

 

Will you be faithful to all the impossible, necessary resurrections?

 

Will you be faithful to the possibility of new life?

 

You can bet there is someone, somewhere hoping that you will answer yes.