It’s a Miracle
–an Easter Sunday service—
Rev. Mark Stringer
First Unitarian Church of Des Moines
4/11/04

 

Meditation -- “Small Majesties” by Kenneth L. Patton

That day I see a leaf is a marvel of a day.

Many days I see millions of leaves without seeing one leaf.

Or the day I see a pebble, or a fingernail, or observe the healing of a wound.

I am a small marvel, a penny mystery.

Generations of people have lived, bearing the same mystery as I, yet all are reducible to me, one [person].

I am as much a majesty as the whole race.

One gnat is as much a quandary as all of life.

I walked across the smoky bog, ugly with the filth of cities.

Crowding among the cinders were blades of grass, each blade a small majesty, as mighty as a forest of giant sequoias.

The bird was an English sparrow, drab, clattering, but it wore the majesty of all birds, pelicans, parakeets, flamingos, a zoo of clamoring birds in one sparrow.

To look at the sprouting eyebrow of a house cat is to be stupefied before the unquestionable.

Stay away from a microscope; it is a tunnel down which you can fall into unmanned worlds.

In the smallness of the small, beyond the eye’s coping, is majesty beyond majesty.

It is lightly hidden in the crevices of any day, enough wonder to strike a horde of angles dumb, and make Almighty God speechless.

What need have I of horticultural halls and botanical gardens, who have found a yellow dandelion flower, and the purple fire of the thistle?

I will ride up to heaven on a fragile sail of milkweed.

I cannot fathom the morning resurrection of waking, or the evening death of sleep.

Any hour is an eternity.

One glimpse of sunburst clouds on an [April] afternoon is more majesty than the coronations of all kings and queens of history.

Pardon me; I must attend to the universe.

There is an ant on my hand.

 

 

 

Reading

“Miracle Fair” by Wislawa Symborska

 

The commonplace miracle:

That so many common miracles take place.

 

The usual miracle:

Invisible dogs barking

In the dead of night.

 

One of many miracles:
a small and airy cloud
is able to upstage the massive moon.

 

Several miracles in one:
an alder is reflected in the water
and is reversed from left to right
and grows from crown to root
and never hits bottom
though the water isn’t deep.

 

A run-of-the-mill miracle:
winds mild to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

 

A miracle in the first place:
cows will be cows.

 

Next but not least:
just this cherry orchard
from just this cherry pit.

 

A miracle minus top hat and tails:
fluttering white doves.

 

A miracle (what else can you call it):
the sun rose today at three fourteen a.m.
and will set tonight at one past eight.

 

A miracle that’s lost on us:
the hand actually has fewer than six fingers
but still it’s got more than four.

 

A miracle, just take a look around:
the inescapable earth.

 

An extra miracle, extra and ordinary:
the unthinkable
can be thought.

 

Sermon

Earlier this year I was talking with one of my colleagues in UU ministry.  He was looking forward to his sabbatical and sharing some of his study plans with me.  One of the things he was most looking forward to, however, did not have to do with the travel he intended to enjoy or the time to write that he hoped to take.  He told me he was really looking forward to not having to write an Easter sermon. 

While I can’t say I share his displeasure at preparing a service for Easter Sunday, I do, however, understand where he is coming from.  Easter in UU churches, after all, is complicated.  I like how another of my colleagues, the Rev. Jane Rzepka describes it.  She writes:

 

Every year I fight the feeling that our UU churches just can’t win on Easter. Our familiar congregation will come through the doors, alongside a number of Easter visitors we’ve never seen before.  Why do they come?

To hear familiar, traditional, Easter music.

 

To not hear familiar, traditional Easter music.

 

To be reminded of the newness of spring, the pagan symbols of the season, and the lengthening of days, without a lot of talk about Jesus and resurrection.

 

To be reminded of Jesus and His Resurrection, without a lot of talk about the newness of spring, the pagan symbols of the season, and the lengthening days.

 

To participate in a family service, where children delight in discovering the many roots of our religious tradition.

 

To participate in a dignified service, where adults celebrate the undeniably Christian holiday, Easter.[1]

 

We do bring with us this morning a variety of perspectives and therefore a variety of expectations.  While the differences of our religious backgrounds and perspectives may be sharply drawn on a day like today, we also have reason to remember that it is the blending of these perspectives…the perspectives built upon the foundations of our religious pasts, constructed with the stuff of our present reality…our spring sorrows, joys, hopes and dreams…it is the blending of these perspectives that can make Easter particularly rich even here…in our church…where many of us may be more confused by the story of Jesus’ resurrection than uplifted.

 

I like to think this day can hold meaning for us regardless of our perspectives, as long as we don’t worry too much about the facts, and focus instead on the stories beneath the facts…the stories that might teach us, maybe even heal us, if only we will open ourselves to the wisdom not dependent on the particulars.

 

So this morning I do not wish to argue the literal truth of the Easter story of resurrection. The accounts of Jesus’ rise from the dead are varied and, to our modern sensibilities, they may seem beyond the realm of the possible.  But imbedded in these stories, these stories of life that transcends death, is a greater story, a story that can remind us that even in despair, even in death, there is the possibility for something new to emerge, something transformative, something maybe even greater than what came before. 

 

So I invite you to put aside your expectations and enjoy this morning’s celebration of spring, and resurrection…wherever you may find yourself in it, and let yourself be present to the miracle that we are alive at all and able to be together despite (maybe even because of) our differences.

 

I begin with a story from a few weeks back:

 

I had just finished sharing breakfast with a friend, an older gentleman who has seen the month of March at least twice the number of times I have.  Together, we walked out of the restaurant where we had dined into a bright and balmy morning, a light breeze pushing us gently toward our cars.  The sun was warming the blacktop parking lot and winter, which just a few days before had blanketed our corner of the interdependent web with white, was suddenly and surprisingly a distant memory.  “We did it again,” he said, pausing to fill his lungs with a deep breath of fresh air. “We made it to spring.”  I heard in his comment, offered as much to himself as to me, something more than just a friendly weather report.  I heard the recognition that spring is not to be taken for granted…that despite our belief that spring’s arrival is inevitable, there are no guarantees that we will be around to see it.  There are no guarantees that we will feel the sun rising higher in the sky each day, its light coaxing leaves to emerge once again from what might seem like lifeless sticks of wood.  There are no guarantees that we will see a palette of pastels and bright greens appearing in clusters all over town…no guarantees that we will enjoy the blossoming crab apple, pear, and magnolia trees for another season or have our eyes drawn to the fiery yellow of the forsythia once more…no guarantees that we will see the daffodils and tulips emerge yet again from their winter tombs six inches deep in the earth …no guarantees that we will hear the songs of birds reveling in the warmer air or the booming crash of thunderstorms churning in the warmer atmosphere.  I heard in my friend’s simple words “We did it again” a gentle reminder that experiencing spring is not a right; it is a privilege…a privilege of our always-limited lives.  I also heard in his humble victory statement an acknowledgement that some winters are harder to get through than others, and that each time we do make it, we are experiencing a kind of resurrection ourselves…or at least a rebirth…and we should be grateful for it. “We did it again…we made it to spring.”  Viewed in this way, the arrival of spring was and is nothing less than a miracle, something extraordinary and beyond simple comprehension.  So on your way home from church this morning, be sure to take in the sensations of spring unfolding all around you, pat yourself on the back and honor the miracle that you have made it to another Easter Sunday.  “We did it again…we made it to spring.”

 

I’ve thought a lot about that morning with my friend the past few days and the wisdom of his simple words, for as I shared in joys and concerns this morning, my father-in-law, John Thompson, died a week ago Wednesday, bringing the finitude of life (not only our individual lives, but the life we share with others) into sharp focus for me and for all those who felt close to him.  Susan and I were in Ames when John finally ended his battle with ALS, a battle we now know was probably waged over many years, even though it was most fiercely fought over the past few months.  Just after John took his last breath, I was struck by how intensely I felt his absence.  We all knew he was nearing the end of his life, but the crossing over was brutal all the same. 

 

I suppose this is how death must be for those left behind…for when someone we love is there one minute and gone the next, there is a palpable change in reality itself.  Everything looks, feels…is…different.  The extinguishing of life…both the life of the person and the life we shared with that person…can create an instant vacuum that pulls at our heart and leaves an emptiness that cannot be filled…at least not in the same way it was filled before.  Just as the fact that we are alive…thinking, feeling, creatures…could be seen as a miracle…saying goodbye to a loved one is a miraculous event as well: a time for coming to terms with one’s place in the grand mystery that is life…a time for reflection on all that was shared and, perhaps, on all that may have been left unsaid…and a time to recognize that we have choices in how we will live our lives in the days to come.   I believe this time of final goodbyes is one of the most holy times of our lives, for in the raw sense of loss that accompanies the death of someone we hold dear, we are forced to let go of some of our defenses…to open our hearts to the tightrope walk that is life itself.  We begin to see how intricately we are all tied to one another, how the impact of one person’s death can ripple through the lives of so many others.  It is a tender time of remembrance and reflection…but also a sacred occasion for the realization that while life may be a random circumstance (after all, none of us asked to be here), what we choose to do with our lives and through our lives is anything but random.  I also believe that death can open up new vistas to us…new ways of seeing our reality.  Our perspectives can be enlarged to include those of the person who is no longer where he was before…because he is now wherever we are.

 

I like how this idea is expressed in an excerpt from an essay by Philip Hallie entitled “An Apology to My Mother.”  I shared it a few years back in a Mother’s Day sermon, but it seems equally poignant on Easter because I think it is about resurrection…about life that emerges from death.  Written in the form of a letter, Hallie reflects on his mother’s passing which had occurred just nine days earlier.  He writes:

 

Your death has done some strange things to your son.  And I feel what it has done more sharply now, here in Connecticut, than I felt it while I was burying you in Chicago.  One of the things it has done is to make it impossible for me to lie to you anymore.  Before…[you died], I used to say to myself, “She is there, in Chicago.  She’ll never find out.”…No more.  I once thought that death is only parting, but it is more strange than that.  Now I feel that you were separate from me before you died.  While you were alive you were there, outside of me, there in Chicago, or there across the table stroking your right eyebrow and dreaming,  I could think my own thoughts, I could plan my own travels, and I could feel my own guilty disdain for your fears.

 

But now you are within me as you have never been before.  Now there is nothing you cannot find out about my thoughts.  Sometimes I am like an empty house that is full of your spirit, your fears, and your sense of humor….  It was only your body we buried in that hole on that rainy day in May, your body, which was always separate from me, ever since you gave birth to me.  I feel your soul as I never felt it before you died.  Life parted us, not death.[2]

 

Hallie’s experience is evidence of the kind of resurrection that can occur for those of us left behind when a loved one dies.   It’s as if we suddenly have access to places we didn’t know we could enter.  Places of connection to life…places of wisdom…places that we would not have known in the same way if not for our loss.

 

As I prepared for this sermon, I read the account of Jesus’ last day as told in the gospel book of Mark, where it is written that just after Jesus breathed his final breath on the cross, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (Mk 15.38) This struck me as a curious addition to the narrative of Jesus’ death.  What did the curtain in the temple have to do with something that was happening across town? I wondered what the importance of this curtain tearing might have had for the people of the time and what we might draw from the symbolism.  For ancient Jews, the temple was an especially holy place, a place of reverence and respect.  Within the temple, the most sacred area was a square room known as the Holy of Holies.  God’s presence was thought to be in this darkened, holy room.  No one was allowed to pass through the thick curtain that separated the room from the rest of the temple, except the Jewish high priest so that he could make sacrifices on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement…the day when Jews are encouraged to make amends to those they have wronged and to grant forgiveness.  The curtain, therefore, served to separate the rest of the world from the holiest of places.  When Jesus died, this curtain was instantaneously torn in two.  A miraculous event and, even more importantly, a poignant metaphor, perhaps signifying that those who were left behind would now have direct access to God…or as some of us might put it, to the greater wisdom of what it means to human…to be a creature that can know love and loss and what it feels like to have to pick up the pieces when everything falls apart.

 

Everything falling apart is a prerequisite of nearly every resurrection, it seems to me, because only when we have experienced a crumbling of our assumptive world—a death to the way we always thought or hoped life would be—can we understand what it means to reconstruct our reality to fit our new circumstances…to rebuild our lives from the rubble of our shattered hopes and dreams.  Perhaps each of us has already experienced a Good Friday or two…a time when we felt that we were left alone to endure to brutal blows of our own mistakes or missteps…the cruel actions of others…or just the random whacks of life gone awry…a time when we have not only thought what once seemed unthinkable, but we have lived it.

 

The good news of Easter is that despite the hardships we might face:  the little deaths or the big ones: addictions; relationships turned sour; the deterioration of our physical or mental state; poverty, violence and war; great tragedy and great loss, the possibility exists that we might choose how we interpret our circumstances for ourselves and those we love.  The story of Easter, then, is that even when life is at its most bleak or our loss is most intense, the possibility…not the certainty mind you, but the possibility…for resurrection, redemption, and hope for the future remains…no matter how miraculous our hope might seem.

 

After all, who are we to not believe in miracles when we are surrounded by them every waking moment of our lives? I like how Wendell Berry puts it.  He writes:

 

 “…the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence.  It is our daily bread.  Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine—which was, after all, a very small miracle.  We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”[3] 

 

The anticipation of the possible…the possible even above and beyond  the probable…is what both springtime and Easter are all about.  So this day and in the days to come, may we be grateful for the morning resurrection of waking, and as we face the evening death of sleep, may we have reason to say the words of poet Stanley Kunitz: “I can scarcely wait until tomorrow, when a new life begins for me…as it does each day…as it does each day.”[4]