Sermon: What Does Our Death Mean? By Rev. J.D. Benson, first delivered at First Parish Brewster-East, April 10, 2011.

Transcription

1 Before going any further I want to acknowledge that some among us are in this moment dealing with their own potentially lifelimiting illness or that of a loved one, or have recently lost a family member or a friend. For others of us the subject of death is, in this particular moment, more abstract. So we are, as is with most subjects, bringing into this space our own curiosity, our own familiarity, our own very current grief. Let us hold one another in love as we travel together this day. Ours is a death-denying culture. In many countries and cultures people die at home as once upon a time they did here. In our country today people most often if they are not struck dead on the streets or in some other sudden situation die in institutions: hospitals and care facilities and not in the natural environment of home and family life. We distance ourselves from death. We 1

2 sanitize it. We are conditioned to see death as separate from life rather than, like birth, a part of it; death an isolated and isolating abrupt falling off, the end. Like many of you I am sure, as a child I wondered about the world and beyond. I couldn t then understand the concept of a beginning and an end of the world, or the solar system, or the universe-- whatever is out there, not in terms of time or space. In my own smart way I would ask how the world began, and would get an answer of some kind and then ask, well what was before that? and get some answer and then ask and before that? and so on, never getting much satisfaction from the journey because when the answer was nothing, there s nothing before that it didn t make any sense. I didn t understand beginning or end or nothing in time or in space and I still don t. 2

3 Beginnings and ends are at best conceptual conveniences. Lawyers and doctors and bioethicists---impacted by various factors not the least of which are advances in technology that extend life through medicine and machine decide and later re-decide what death means. It isn t a static thing, there isn t a static answer to the question. Science and the law deal with death in terms of one s physical being. In that way, for me, the term death is so very limited. Yes, you and I, we are limited, in the physical sense. And we cannot know more than that, the what-was-before and the whatwill-be of us, not like we know that this pulpit is here, that you are sitting in a chair if indeed you are, that we are in this very room. Those who believe in heaven and hell or an afterlife of some other kind or rebirth, see death as a next step on the road to some other, for lack of a better term, life. As the poet John Donne wrote in Death Be Not Proud, One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. ; that is: death s 3

4 sleep lasts but a brief time and then we awaken to eternity, following his Christian theology, thus death is dead to us once we move out of time! Death is a move out of the realm of time---as far as we can tell. And for Donne that immeasurable eternity will do. The promise of an eternity close to God has carried many people through life crises, through imprisonment and enslavement, through hardship and suffering. [Sing Soon I Will Be Done with the Troubles of the world]. The promise of a special closeness to God and of freedom and justice in that promised land, has saved many a people in even the cruelest of times. And then there are those who know no promise. Julian Barnes, an atheist, writes that the Christianity of his childhood tells " a beautiful lie that life is a tragedy with a happy ending. We are "units of genetic obedience and nothing more, he proclaims. Barnes admits he himself is extremely fearful of death, and is 4

5 preoccupied with it day and night. Interestingly he says he misses that God he learned of in Sunday school, he d like the comfort he sees believers experience--but he no longer believes. What do you believe? What is death to you? What does the promise, the inevitability of your own death mean to you? Listening to people who have faced their soon approaching death has given me much to reflect upon. I wish I would die already. I m tired of the pain. Growing old isn t for sissies. I m afraid of death. I m ready to be with God. I m looking forward to achieving a higher state of consciousness. I don t know what to think. Brett was an 18 year old, a gang member for half of his young life. He had spent time in juvey, a badge of honor. Now in the hospital 5

6 for a long stay, he d been shot, he had multiple gunshot wounds to the stomach, and his arm had been so damaged it had to be surgically removed at the shoulder. Death, if not a constant companion had been a frequent visitor as his friends and family, and neighboring gang members lost their lives. Walking out into the street in his neighborhood meant facing violence every day. Now death didn t seem a risk to avoid but a way out. What he had managed to escape through skill and luck and wit had become the object of his hope, his ultimate escape, the one thing that could take him out of this time and place and circumstance. Death seemed the better prospect, an heroic alternative for a street warrior who may have been a leader before but who would now be considered weak and vulnerable. Edward was in his late 60 s. He had been a minister and had been defrocked some years back. He d spent time in jail. He was alone 6

7 in the world. No one wanted to visit him. He was inappropriate with one visitor from the church he attended had sent and she stopped coming. There was no one else. When the time came that he was given a choice, that he could continue treatment with little hope for cure or stop the treatment, he decided. He was grateful he would have pain management and nothing more. The prospect of his death seemed a relief to him too. Penny was a woman in her 40s who had two small children and a husband at home. Her fear was for her family. How would they get on without her? How would her husband manage combing their little girl s long hair each morning before getting her to school and himself to work? What about their pre-schooler? Penny had been a stay-at-home mom. She thought about and experienced her fears in terms of how her death would impact the people she loved most. It was only much later as she got closer to the end of her life, as 7

8 she slowed down and her interest in worldly matters began to slip away, that she wanted to talk about her impending death. It s lingering in pain I m afraid of. About death itself--she expected-- she d probably---she hoped she would go to heaven. Penny believed in heaven and hell. She said she thought she d been a good wife and mother and she hoped it would all count. Ann was a woman in her 70 s with three grown daughters and two grandchildren. You could see in the photographs in her room that she had a striking, a beautiful smile before the cancer took over. When we first met, her mind was still pretty sharp and we discussed her beliefs and her aspirations. She wanted to be sure that her adult children were all doing well. She wanted to be sure her affairs were in order. What did she think about death? She was concerned that she not be in pain and that her children not see her that way. And what did she believe about death? That it was a transfer point that, once traversed, would allow her consciousness 8

9 to leave her body, and she, this consciousness, would go on to the next level of awareness and understanding. If she had an ounce of concern about death, she didn t show it. She looked forward to exploring what was next. I wonder about this business of being in time and space in the way we are and what happens when we have stepped out of time into who can say? Another dimension? Nothingness? The arms of God? Tertullian said that life and personhood are determined in relationship. And so is not our end, our death, this part of life, determined in relationship too? Once I m pronounced at least by that point it s the what I ve left behind that will matter. The relationship I have had to life itself, the love I have shared. I will 9

10 not be present in the way I am now but in the hearts of others perhaps I will live on. There is a species of jellyfish that is able to go back and forth in time, in a sense, from older to younger then grow older again and even younger yet again, a perennial Benjamin Button. I am no immortal jellyfish, but I will have a life beyond my mortal being through any good works I have done, however small, whether recognized by others or not. While my bones and flesh may feed the soil and sustain new growth, as Wendell Berry suggests, it is the love shared in the time of my life that will nourish the people I have loved who are left in time. We don t need our physical form to stay alive in a loved one s heart and sustain them. Viktor Frankl wrote that even as he worked 12 hours a day under the watch of his German captors in a World War II death camp, his mind, he wrote, still clung to the image of his wife though he didn t know if she was alive or not. He knew 10

11 that love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. He continues, It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual self, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not she is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance, and Frankl goes on to quote from the Song of Solomon, 8:6, Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death. Love is as strong as death, the text says, maybe love is stronger still. What does it mean, that we die, that our time is done, that we run out of time? What does it mean to you? If life exists within the bounds of time, but time has neither beginning nor end, maybe there is something to it, maybe we do exist, in some sense, before birth and after death? We just haven t the ability to understand some things, no words. Maybe that is where faith comes into play. We cannot come up with the words because we are limited in that 11

12 way; we cannot fully comprehend the immeasurable expanse of which we are a part. What appears to be our ultimate earthly limit, our mortality, our death may be a new beginning paradoxically in a continuous loop of time, who can say. What we can say: People come into our lives for a reason. They bring something we must learn and we to them. We let one another in and leave the imprint of love upon one another s hearts. We are born and someday we die and live on in one another for whatever good we have been a part of. A comet, a long-flowing stream, we are changed by our shared love, for good. 12

13 Note to Group Members and Group Leaders: How to Approach the Questions These questions are offered as a spur to your own memories, feelings, and imaginations. It is best if you don t try to answer every one of them, but pick the one or two that seem to call most to your imagination, and let these one or two questions work inside you. Let the ideas percolate without trying to find an answer. What memories arise as you consider your question? Is there a memory, a story, or a feeling you would like to share with your SGM group? Please do not think of these questions as homework. It also works if you don t think about them at all until you are in the circle with your SGM group. Rev. Mary and Rev. JD Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers... you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. --Ranier Maria Rilke 1. When do you think you will die, at what age, of what cause? 2. What were you taught about death as a child? What have you discarded of that and what have you continued to feel you know or believe? 3. What does the fact that it is inevitable that one day you will die (at least in a medical/legal sense!) mean to you? 4. Do you believe in something after the moment of death, some other consciousness, life or rebirth, being reunited with family and friends who have predeceased you, or do you believe there is absolutely nothing? 5. Do you allow yourself to wonder about death and what might come next? Do you avoid thinking about the prospect of your own death? 6. When someone in your family dies, how is the person memorialized? How is his or her death talked about? 13

14 Sources and Inspirations: -My many hospice and hospital patients who faced death in their own ways -Nothing to Be Frightened Of Julian Barnes -Nothingness- Benning Genz -Denial of Death Ernest Becker -Man s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl -The President s Commission for the study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavior Research National Geographic News, October 28 th, 2010 issue. Immortal Jellyfish Swarm World s Oceans- by Ker Than -Song from Wicked (the play): For Good 14