“The Miracle of Life Before Death”
Rev. Greg Ward
Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North
April 16th, 2006 – Easter Sunday

Meditation   - Inspired by Mary Farr

If I could resurrect your world…
I would weave together the ragged edges of your threadbare life
And soothe your pain
Treat you for shock
and the ravages of despair
and a dozen counts of betrayal

I would invite you to touch your sorrow
And run your fingers along
The jagged edges of your broken dreams
And remind you that you need not always be strong
Or capable
Or composed
To hold a valued place in the world

I would stand guard as you licked your wounds
As you picked out the splinters
And shards of life’s shrapnel
As you examined the lining of your soul
That has been torn by doubts
by anger
by losses too numerous to name
by fears about the future

You may be carrying the weight of more than a single hurt,
I know that cleaning one injury
Points to other sorrows
The various unbidden Good byes
and thorny adjustments
still cluttering the corners of your soul.

I would let you throw your pointed questions
Your sharp accusations
And hurl your blunt disagreements
And toxic regrets
I’d make room for you to talk of all you might have done wrong
Or, the various things that kept you from doing what was right

If I could resurrect your dreams
I would promise not to say things like,
“look how well you’re handling things…”
Or
“Cheer up, God wouldn’t give you more than you could handle,”
Or
“You’ll be over this soon.”

Instead I would affirm for you that,
“We live in a fragile and imperfect world
Tinged in brokenness
And cloaked in unanswered questions.
Some things truly aren’t fair.” 
I would admit for you,
“This is hard.”

I would tell you
“Getting over it – rising above it” isn’t what it’s all about
And would ask
“Can you try to let go of that idea?”

For I don’t think reconciling loss is about ‘rising above it,’
Or ‘leaving it behind’ 
Or any other way of escaping pain.
But instead, it’s about staying afloat in a rising tide
of doubt or despair
Asking the silence, “WHY?”
Suspecting the answer suggests some surrender
Of what were once non-negotiable dreams
And knowing that your next step will be a miracle
Just because you find a way to take it
With nothing but a depleted spirit to prop you up 

If I could resurrect your dreams
I would push against the closed doors of doubt
Until something shone through
That helped you see that anything can be fashioned into joy
Even if all you have to start with is pain.

I would set before you a secret
That joy is not only for people who walked the road all the way to the dance
But instead for the people who learned to dance on the way there
Even in the potholes
And the places where the road was washed away.

Transformation uses us
To join together fear and love
Joy and sorrow
Tragedy and triumph
And asks that these two old foes
Meet
And merge
And learn to forge some lasting peace
In our soul.

The resurrection that’s possible
Waits not in the predestined places
For the privileged few
But anywhere there is someone
willing to make a little room
plant seeds of a new vision
Amidst the rows of private tragedy
And wait for a world of possibility to take root

The resurrection that’s possible
lies at the far end of night
Just past the furthest point we can see
Where faith is poised majestically in the dark
Waiting to pull up a reluctant dawn

Sermon:
The answer is ‘joy.’  That’s the final word.  The take away.  The message we’re here to share.

I just thought I would try to explain that up front so no one got confused as to where this sermon was headed.  See, some of you look anxious.  So I thought it was worth a little extra reassurance. 

I know it’s Easter.  Because we’re a different congregation this morning.  If you’re not a member of this church, Easter may be the only Sunday you decide to come to church.  That’s okay.  Because for some of the members here, Easter may be the only Sunday they decide to avoid coming to church.  So it sort of evens out.  But, either way, Easter can be a confusing time.  A time when many of us are still trying to piece together the events that led to where we are.  Not quite sure if there was something we could do to have avoided this.   But pretty certain, at this point, we can’t get out of it.  Now we just want to know what to expect next.  

That’s okay.  I’m pretty sure those are the same thoughts Jesus had at the very first Easter.  

So let me save us all some guesswork and tell you that the answer is ‘joy.’  Because that might not be obvious to everyone.  I don’t think it was obvious to Jesus. 

And I suspect it might also be a little hard to swallow for most people who attend UU churches.

Some of you know that Unitarians have, for some time, struggled to make sense of Easter.  And that confusion only seems to get worse when we try to explain it to others on Easter morning. 

So let me at least be up front and state that some confusion exists regarding the Easter message.  Which is why we sometimes find it hard to show up.  Something just seems to be missing.  We know that Easter is big.  That it calls for some celebration. That it’s something to be thankful for.  And we know, basically, that the final word in the Easter story is ‘joy.’ 

But we get stuck trying to figure out where the joy came from.  What led to the joy?  How did it get there? 

When Easter is examined up close, you have to admit, it’s not immediately obvious.  Looking at what immediately precedes the arrival of joy, we notice a very somber sequence of events: An outcast reformer, working to reform a culture of ideas much bigger than him, experiences poverty, ridicule, oppression, collusion, betrayal, arrest, brutality, conviction, denial, humiliation, despair, surrender, torture, crucifixion and death.  Pretty much in that order.  That’s a difficult ending to accept.  But even more difficult to accept – is the epilogue that is attached.  The very last word.  Joy.  How does joy emerge out of that scenario?

I was talking to my mom about this a few weeks ago.  I was whining which she is used to from me – especially regarding sermons.  Especially before Easter.  I was trying to figure out what slight of hand I could use this year to reach into the dark and pull forth joy.  The conversation turned to death.  Not because I was thinking of faking my own death to get out of the sermon.  But because she brought it up.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately,” she said.  “Oh?” I said, carefully, sensing that we were opening an important door.  “I’m not as afraid of it as I once was,” she said.  She went on to explain that there were times, when she was younger, when the thought of death was unbearable - mostly because she had so much to live for.  To make sure her children were all well.  Her career developed.  That sure made some impact on the world. 

“Mostly, I don’t want to live through pain,” she said.  And then she told me – in a very clear tone – “when that time comes, I want you to make sure I don’t live any longer than I have to.”   There was an expectant silence.  My mom gave me power of attorney.  It’s moments like that when the thought of having to be there and exercise it is hard. 

The meditation this morning was inspired by the work of Mary Farr.  Mary Farr is a pastoral counselor at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul, MN.  It was from her that I took the lines,

“… I promise not to say things like,
“look how well you’re handling things…”
Or
“Cheer up, God wouldn’t give you more than you could handle,”

I’m not sure exactly what I will say when the time comes.  If there is pain, what will help her through.  I’m pretty sure it won’t be – “Cheer up – God wouldn’t give you more than you could handle.”  My mom would hate that.  Jesus – at least the Jesus I know – would have probably hated that too.   Yet it seems like something is needed to allow joy to come.  To help it rise out of the pain of the situation. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about what my mom said to me in that conversation.  Why it has stuck with me.  Why it has bothered me.  And what I’ve figured is this: I worry that my mom – in having learned to fear death like most of us have – in thinking about it as only so much pain - which many of us do – is hoping to avoid it.  Outsmart it.  To check out early.  It sort of reminds me of the way Woody Allen feels when he says, “I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.” 

What that tells me is that even though I struggle mightily with people who are so quick to latch on to the Easter message – so quick to buy into that transition from death to life and joy – I won’t let myself dismiss it either.  I have been present at enough deaths to know that there is something compelling and holy that calls to us from that moment.  In the same way that our lives feel holy to me – and certainly the idea of birth – the beginning of life - that feels holy to me – it strikes me that there must be something at life’s end that is holy as well.  Something worth showing up for.

It dawned on me that what might be bothering me in my mom’s case is that in our inability to imagine what holiness might be hidden underneath our fears of death we all to often fail to show up.  In the same way that in all our UU rational thinking about the Easter message, and our inability to imagine how any UU service can logically tie together life with death and make it a joyful celebration, we sometimes fail to show up.  I realized what might be bothering me is that we might be missing something.

Thomas Jefferson was an important contributor to Unitarian thought on this matter.  He was someone who had a difficult time with how the progression of Jesus death led to life and joy.  In fact, he had a difficult time with any such ‘miraculous’ claim.  So much so that he was famous for taking a razor blade to the gospels and removing the ‘extraordinary’ healings and transformations.  And he ended the gospels after the crucifixion, without exploring the tomb.  He felt that Jesus’ life – with its ethical wisdom his unceasing practice of moral justice – was enough.  That it didn’t need any unexplainable addendum to be significant.  That his work as an ordinary man was enough to grant him immortality. 

But for others that is not enough.  Again, Woody Allen captures the outlook of some when he says, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.  I want to achieve it through not dying.” 

Life is certainly a hard thing to let go of.  Especially when we infuse it with all our hopes and dreams.  Because it’s precisely those hopes and dreams that make us hold on so tenaciously. 

My earliest memories of my mother was watching her in the hospital.  My younger sister was born with life threatening kidney problems that required multiple surgeries.  My mom knows what it feels like to wait with someone as they go through pain.  To hold out for miracles. 

We didn’t have that Robert Munsch book but I know that instinctively, my mom knew the words:

I’ll love you forever
I’ll be with you always
As long as I’m living
My baby you’ll be.

My mom is not a Christian.  She is one of those Unitarians who struggles with parts of the Christian message.  Who sometimes skips the Easter service.  But I know she understands what it’s like to stand next to the cross when someone who means the world to her is struggling.  I know, in her situation, she couldn’t help but imagine a tomb and what might hold.  And struggled for enough faith to see joy on the other side. 

My mom probably asked that my sister get a chance to experience some sort of resuscitation.  But for herself, I imagine, that she asked for a resurrection.  For no one can go into such a dark place and come out the other side as the same person.  There is something that changes in you when you allow yourself to be in that holy place.

Mary Farr talks about how it is the same for families even when they experience tragedy.  In her work, in the toughest of situations, she tries to help people understand resurrection properly. 

She tries to tell them
“Getting over it – rising above it” isn’t what it’s all about
And she asks them
“Can you try to let go of that idea?”

The resurrection that’s possible
Waits not in the predestined places
For the privileged few
But anywhere there is someone
willing to make a little room
plant seeds of a new vision
Amidst the rows of private tragedy
And wait for a world of possibility to take root

We wait.  Because joy is not always obvious.  But unbelievably important.   Which is why I think we need Easter.  Why we need to pay attention to what it is trying to help us see.

In the words of Unitarian minister, Max Coots,

We need a celebration
That speaks of the spring inspired word
About life and death
About us
As we live and die
Through all the cycling seasons,
days and years
We need a sense of the holy
to crack our own hard, brown December husks
And push new life out of inner tombs
And outer pain
For unless we move
In rhythm with the seasons of the self
And spring can come for us
Our Winter will go on and on and on
And Easter will remain a myth
And life will never come again
Despite the fact of spring.

It is wonderful, I’m sure, for those who have figured out a way to make Easter work instantaneously.  Who manage miracles of fastening joy directly onto the backside of death.  But I suspect that the people who do that are never changed in any significant or important way.  I suspect that they never spend enough time in the tomb to really understand how the holy resides there.  I suspect that most of them are really talking about resuscitation. 

Because resurrection usually requires waiting – and a faith that can survive the long haul – and a true understanding of what is meant when you say, “I’ll love you forever.”

It’s important for us to understand – we who struggle with the sudden appearance of joy after death – that it didn’t happen instantaneously in Jesus’ case either.  The first gospel – the first account of Jesus’ resurrection – was the one written by Mark which didn’t appear until 40 years after his death.  And it had the least to say about joy.  Matthew and Luke had a little more to say about joy, but those gospels didn’t appear until 60 years after his death.  John, who was the most emphatic about joy being an integral final piece of Jesus’ suffering, took over 100 years to be written. 

Joy is the final word.  But it may take a while to become apparent.  Which is why I think I became alarmed when I heard her say that she wanted to ‘be sure that she didn’t live any longer than she had to.’  I was afraid that in her hope of avoiding the pain she would try to cut out that last part of her life.  Thinking that miracles aren’t believable or worth waiting for, she wouldn’t not miss anything. 

And if it’s resuscitation she’s thinking about, I understand.  But resurrection is another matter entirely.  Because it doesn’t happen for everyone.  It won’t happen unless we help it.  Unless we do something on the level of true miracles.

That is unless we find the strength to show up.  The strength required to take them in our arms and rock them back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  And say we will love them forever.  And mean it.  Because without that – without those moments around the cross – without those visits to the tomb, we might miss the thing that will help us most fashion gratitude for their life out of the pain of their death; celebrate the emergence of their spring of what they planted in our winter.  Without those chances, we may never recognize that much of the love we have to offer was planted in us by people who’ve long since left us.  And sometimes, because of the love that was passed into the people who rocked us back and forth, we can share love that came from people we never even met.  And if that isn’t immortality and resurrection, then Easter really is only about death. 

But we know that it is not.  Because we know that we love reaches us even across tragedy, even across time, even across death itself.  And to know that for sure, always brings joy.  If we are willing to wait.  

It’s Easter.  We are a different congregation today.  Any time any of us makes it this far into the story, most everything about us is changed.

The resurrection that’s possible
lies at the far end of night
Just past the furthest point we can see
Where faith is poised majestically in the dark
Waiting to pull up a reluctant dawn

To the Glory of Life.

Copyright, Wardswords, 2006