Who Tells the Story? October 2, 2016

Transcription

1 Who Tells the Story? October 2, 2016 I cried when I learned that Richard III would be buried at last with the honors due to a king. You see, I have been a fan, a partisan, of King Richard since reading Josephine Tey s mystery novel about him, Daughter of Time, when I was 15. Have any of you read it? It s consistently listed as number 1 on the top mystery novels of the 20 th century. In it, her detective Alan Grant is stuck in hospital as the English put it, when a friend brings him a pack of postcards of portraits from the National Portrait Gallery of people associated with murder and other crimes. One of the portraits is of Richard III. Grant remembers what he learned of Richard s villainy from his schooldays, and thinks that the king doesn t have the face of someone who could commit such crimes with the glee and lack of conscience attributed to him. He thinks he has the face of a judge, not the face of a monster. I have his portrait here if you d like to look at it later yourself. A friend of my parents brought this poster back from England for me probably 30 years ago as my college graduation gift. She also gave me my favorite high school graduation gift a membership in the Richard III society, which promotes research into the life and times of Richard III. Though her gifts weren t always so scholarly her other memorable gift, for my graduation from divinity school, was a black lace camisole and slip! It is hard to see in his face the evil which characterized the portraits left to us in Sir Thomas More s history and Shakespeare s play. In both versions, the evil of his heart shows in the body: More wrote, he was little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favoured of visage ; he was malicious wrathful, envious, close and secret, a deep dissimuler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not letting to kiss whom he thought to kill. And Shakespeare gave him the famous speech, Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

2 Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous. In other words, evil Richard, unhappy under the peaceful reign of the Sun of York, his brother King Edward IV, and angry that he is so ugly, is spinning plots to spread enmity and death. In the course of More s history and Shakespeare s play, Richard kills a king and his son, a duke (his brother), a queen (his wife), and the crime he is most known for, orders the murder of his nephews, the princes in the tower. Why am I telling you all this about a long-ago king of a far-off land? What do his life and possible crimes have to do with ours? As we think about Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, when the books of life lie open and deeds of goodness and wrong-doing recorded, when people think about their lives and the stories they want to leave behind, and as we do all that in the setting of this election year, I think the story of Richard in his time and the way it has continued to evolve, can offer us some insight and some hope. And today is his birthday: Richard was born on October 2 nd in 1452, 564 years ago today. An appropriate time to remember him. I am not going to give you a history lesson on Richard III s life and time during the Wars of the Roses. If you re interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading The Daughter of Time. Instead, I want to think with you about how the story of his life has been told. Richard reigned as King of England for only two years. During that time, he worked with Parliament to pass laws protecting people from corrupt sheriffs, justices, and courts, and curtailed the king s own power to collect money without the authorization of Parliament. He pardoned people who had opposed him and even awarded pensions to some of them. He cared for his extended family and grieved when his son died and then shortly afterwards his wife. As I tell the story, influenced by the histories I ve read, it s the story of a good man and good king trying to do the best for his country. But after Richard was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth Field and Henry Tudor took the crown as Henry VII, the laws and collection of money changed. The Tudors did not uphold Richard s commitment to do what was best for the people. The people did

3 not love them. To consolidate their power, when the Tudor historians told the story of Richard s reign, they told it to make their king look better and told it in ways that strengthened his claim to the throne. And all who would tell the story differently were killed or suppressed. Only glimpses of contemporary judgments survive, as in the official book of the City of York which recorded King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City. A bold epitaph, considering that Henry VII now ruled the land. So the story that Henry VII s and Henry VIII s historians told was the story of an evil king, who killed and terrorized, and of a land saved by the Tudors. Although for hundreds of years, historians here and there argued that Richard s story hadn t been well-told, it wasn t until Josephine Tey s mystery novel was published in 1951 that this understanding of the story was brought to a larger public. Her telling of Richard s story led others to follow her research paths; it led to the revival of the Richard III Society, which then funded the excavation of that parking lot, the discovery of the body of the king, and the finding that he didn t have the physical attributes described by Thomas More and Shakespeare, but probably had suffered from scoliosis as a child. Richard s story ripples on. As Francis Bacon wrote, Truth is the daughter of time, not authority. Even the authority of kings could not suppress forever the truth of Richard s life. So as Rosh Hashanah opens again in this year of 5,777 in the Jewish calendar, of 2016 in our calendar, I invite you to think of the stories we tell not just of our own lives but as a church, as a community, and as a nation. How can you understand the story of your life as a mix? gems of goodness, as our children s curriculum phrases it this year, along with rocks of repentance. How can you acknowledge the reality of this mixture, but not let it define the meaning of your life? How can you bring more gems of goodness into the story you will look back on next year, and in years to come? Moving into larger circles, how can we take the national story, the story of a people committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, acknowledge the ways this vision is indeed being lived out among us today and the ways its fullness has not been and is not now available to many, and then offer a story which redresses wrongs, keeps the good, and moves us forward together? It s a tall order for a story, but one which each of us is called to take our part in telling and re-telling for the good of each of us and for the good of all. So on this Rosh Hashanah, let us not look back on a story of despair or look forward to a story of cynicism for the future; let us look back at the sweetness which has been ours and look forward to sweetness which will still be ours and for all people. Let us celebrate the sweetness of our stories, the sweetness of our

4 common story, the sweetness of the life that is ours now and to come in our apple communion. Let us sing of that sweetness now in our hymn, We sing now together, #67 in your grey hymnal. - Pamela M. Barz Readings It Matters by Robbie Walsh from Noisy Stones: a Meditation Manual I knew a man who had printed on his stationary this proverb: Nothing is settled. Everything matters. It established a certain ambience for reading his letters, as if to say: what you are about to read is to be taken seriously, but is not final. I remember him and his proverb sometimes, especially when it seems impossible to change the world or myself in any significant way. Times like the beginnings of new years. Sorry Jim, I say. It s not true that nothing is settled. In the past year choices have been made, losses have been suffered, there has been growth and decay, there have been commitments and betrayals. None of that can be undone. A year ago no one knew whether during this year one person would become pregnant, another would get cancer, another would take a new job, another would have an accident, but now it is settled. One day this year I was present just when someone needed me; another day I was busy doing something else when I was needed. One day I said something to a friend that injured our relationship; another day I said something that enabled a person to see life in a new way. The best and the worst of those days is now written. All my tears, of joy or sorrow, cannot erase it. If I stay with my meditation long enough, the reply comes. Robbie, says Jim, You have misunderstood the proverb. It is true that you cannot escape the consequences of your actions or the chances of the world. But what is not settled is how the story turns out. What is not settled is what the meaning of your life will be. The meaning of a life is not contained within one act, or one day, or one year. As long as you are alive the story of your life is still being told, and the meaning is still open. As long as there is life in the world, the story of the world is still being told. What is done is done, but nothing is settled.

5 And if nothing is settled, then everything matters. Every choice, every act in the new year matters. Every word, every deed is making the meaning of your life and telling the story of the world. Everything matters in the year coming, and, more importantly, everything matters today. Richard by Carol Ann Duffy Carol Ann Duffy is the poet laureate of England. She was asked to write this poem for the occasion of the interment of the bones of King Richard III in the Leicester cathedral in March of Richard had been killed at the battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485, and buried in an unmarked grave in a nearby churchyard. Over time, the church fell into ruin, the land was built up, and the location of Richard s grave lost. In 2012 archeologists thought they knew where the church had stood and began to excavate under what was now a municipal parking lot. Five months later, they found a skeleton and dna matched it to descendants of the king. One of his descendants built a coffin for his burial. Another, the actor Benedict Cumberbatch, read this poem at the ceremony. Richard My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil, a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown, emptied of history. Describe my soul as incense, votive, vanishing; your own the same. Grant me the carving of my name. These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie a broken string and on it thread a cross, the symbol severed from me when I died. The end of time an unknown, unfelt loss unless the Resurrection of the Dead or I once dreamed of this, your future breath in prayer for me, lost long, forever found; or sensed you from the backstage of my death, as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.