an Easter sermon by the Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak

Transcription

1 A Stone Rolled Away an Easter sermon by the Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak preached on March 27, 2016 First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia, a Unitarian Universalist congregation Whether it is escape or comfort, the time comes for us to roll away the stone and come out. You know, of course, where the "stone" metaphor we've recalled several times this morning comes from - in the gospel of Mark 16: 1-8, it says: When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb? 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 And these women, who had just encountered something rather unusual and unexpected, didn't run away or cower in fear, or think that perhaps they ought to go back and check with the men, the disciples. Before doing anything, these women just went right in. They found the empty tomb - no shrouded body lying there but rather they met a very different person - "a young man, dressed in a white robe". It was then that the terror and amazement seized them. A few years ago, a colleague of Mary s asked her what I was doing to prepare for this Easter-tide. Coming from a Catholic questioner, the curiosity of the questioner is understandable. The forty days of Lent were coming to a close: fasting, praying, thinking about the life and passion of Jesus marking the Good Friday journey to his death and burial... leading the way to the celebration of Easter, of Resurrection, of reanimated life. One prepares for this great miracle through the sacrifices and devotions of Lent. What did I do to prepare for this holy day? Well, I ve baked my traditional Hungarian bread [kalács] and pastries for my family's Easter brunch. I planted pansies. I prepared the Easter service and my sermon. I dipped into dozens of Unitarian Universalist reflections and sermons - some of them traditional Easter services, and others busy dancing around that tradition. Lately - perhaps it is a function of age or experience - I find myself less plagued by the general ambivalence I long felt about celebrating Easter. Still, what are we doing - we Unitarian Universalists - celebrating Easter? Yes, it is part of our heritage and our Unitarian Universalist tradition, but celebrating it is not as automatic, not quite a slamdunk like Christmas - or even Yom Kippur or Wesak - the Buddha s Birthday. March 2016 Page 1 of 5 Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak

2 Unitarian Universalist minister Barbara Pescan doesn't make it any easier when she writes: This time of year I always feel that if we haven't gotten it by Easter, we should all just stay home on Sundays clergy ought to gently hush and fold our robes, congregation members put the hymnals carefully in the hymnal racks and all of us leave the building. What is the it she expects us to have gotten? it is just the essential message of Unitarian Universalism: that's it's just us, here. That it's only we who are figuring it out, bit by bit; and we do it oh, so slowly, in human time. The reign of love is within us and will reign - or not - by our deeds. At heart, this is really the message I find myself preaching week after week - sometimes subtly, sometimes obliquely, sometimes directly. The titles, readings, themes are different and vary from season to season, week to week: our salvation lies not in the sacrifice of a resurrected messiah but the recognition of that possibility that lies within each human heart. How many Easters do we have to celebrate to get it? Maybe a lifetime's worth. Do we ever learn or accept anything once and for all? Aren t we always restless for some new discovery, some easier option, some pain-free solution? It seems, Reverend Pecan notes, like we ought to understand by now how we might live more lovingly, how we might treat each other more tenderly; treat our earth and its other creatures with more care. Information flies so fast it seems we also must be able to take it in, process, absorb and readjust at speed. But we come to our understandings, our learning s, and our best selves slowly, generation to generation. Every generation begins at the beginning not from scratch, but from what the last generation taught. And so each Easter I replicate that journey. Not the one through the hilly, rough crowded streets of an ancient city but the one that goes right to the heart of things. And it is not always so clear. Sometimes, that Easter-message is nigh invisible, impossible to decipher, inaudible to the ear. But it is there. Right in front of our eyes. Proof enough at our feet. The vernal equinox has passed. Descendants of the Persians of old celebrate Naw Ruz - a New Year as spring arrives - all green and growing and full of promise. Hope emerges out of the rubble of a hard season. Even if we ve skated by this winter without enduring weeks of freezing and sub-freezing temperatures, without significant snowfall that ties up the streets for days or strains our backs as we clear walks and driveways. It does not matter [except that I can t help but worry about climate change when we experience such mild winters this far north of the equator ] This Easter - our Easter - the one that s waiting right here. That is what we celebrate today. So here's another Easter story - and like a lot of Easter stories, I am not sure is true. But there is truth in it. And its power is such that I pass it on to you not as gospel truth or verifiable scientific fact but as a parable for the season. As with so many of such stories, a March 2016 Page 2 of 5 Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak

3 minister recounted it, saying he had heard it from another colleague, who heard it from a family member who heard it from a teacher who read it in a newspaper. In April of 1993, at Yamaguchi University, in Japan, a magnolia bloomed. This may not sound like news, but this flower was reported to have grown from a seed found 11 years before that, in an ancient tomb near the city of Hiroshima. Someone did tests and declared this seed to be 2,300 years old... harvested and buried in the tomb during the lifetime of Aristotle. A professor at the university soaked that seed in water, sowed it with loving care, and nature took its course. The seed sprouted and grew, and became the tree it was meant to be. Then one fall, years after its planting, when it had grown into a 7-foot tall tree, several buds appeared on its branches. And that following April one flowered, a delicate white bloom with eight petals, perhaps about as big as the palm of my hand. Through centuries of waiting in a tomb, forgotten, unseen, this small brown seed held on to the secret of life, keeping its genetic code intact against the uncertainty of the ages. Imagine - that seed survived the millennia, waiting. Time passed; civilizations of startling size and creativity came and went, building up and tearing down, flowering and decaying. Centuries of wind, rain, sun, flood and drought - the seed lay undisturbed in the darkness. Throughout the centuries, human intelligence and loving brought forth new life. Human depravity and intelligence brought forth new death. And the seed - buried and forgotten by humankind - carried still the potential to become a thing of beauty, a fragile, late flowering magnolia. We have yet to uncover all the mysteries of life; we don t know everything there is to know. This ancient seed remains filled with mystery even though we know why it bloomed and how. We are amazed by its complexity even as it does nothing more than fulfill the laws of nature, the lure of creation. Would we not stand before such a blossom in wonderment, reverence, appreciation, and perhaps with some humility? Invisible to us, within that seed, was a code, a recipe for its becoming, its blossoming and its reproduction. The means for its survival as a species waiting, packed in such a small seed, unfinished, in a state of not yet, waiting. That is Easter the seeds of our own longing, our own becoming. The human story of survival, of growth, of hope and possibility even in the shadow of death and human destruction. If you are alive, the Easter story tells us, your work on earth is not yet finished. There is a seed waiting in the tomb of your buried consciousness, waiting for the skilled, knowing and caring hands - our own hands or the hands of others - that will hold us and bring us to life again; that will coax us toward possibility, bring us to our potential. Do you believe the story of this seed? Do I? Do we believe the story of a man literally come back from the dead? Perhaps, perhaps not. Belief isn t required for us to get it. March 2016 Page 3 of 5 Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak

4 If we learn love, then all humanity comes that much closer to its becoming, its blossoming living into its potential. If all we learn is pain and humiliation, cruelty and indifference, then all of humanity steps back, away from that blossoming. These are days where I find myself longing, aching for some kind of Easter, even if I don t follow the traditional line of belief. Right now, we need a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Dr. King to perhaps make the way a little clearer. How are we bearing up in all this bad news? A political climate poisoned by crassness and intolerance... potential leaders who give little evidence of compassion or ability. And others who have those qualities to some degree or other left to slug it out in the mud. And a world away, suicide bombers and drone strikes creating carnage and fear. How do we gain strength for what we need to do - gird our loins, as it were... put on our work boots and gloves and be about creation's business? This Easter message reminds us that our resilience and our promise are needed more than ever. That the real resurrection comes in what we do after Easter morning. I may be worried to the point of distraction about the fate of the earth, about what it is I am to do, whose business I am to be about. My peace of mind is often shattered, fraught with concerns for family and friends. I need Easter, even though sometimes I am not sure what it is I am wanting, or what we are celebrating. And when luck or the universe shines its beneficent rays upon me, I find some seed of compassion deep within. I remember - and the remembering comes sometimes like a thunderclap, sometimes like a sigh - I remember that yes, my head is connected to my heart. And in that connection are the threads, the DNA code, all the makings of compassion, kindness, wholeness and strength. No, perhaps I need not hang up my robes at Easter. We need not give up on the persistence of spring, the throbbing heart of life that beats within each of us, and within each seed, and every mote of creation that surrounds us. The fragility and the deep insistence of life for more life - we are part of that - the persistence and the tenderness of this season. How deep are our hearts, and how tender. Reading - Resurrection by Sarah York The resurrection isn't the only supernatural event in the Easter story. The disciples of Jesus lived in a world of the supernatural. According to Matthew, when Jesus died, the earth shook and coughed up corpses all over and "many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised." After the resurrection of Jesus, these saints showed up in Jerusalem. Well, if just by dying Jesus could empty all those tombs, maybe his own empty tomb was no marvel. March 2016 Page 4 of 5 Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak

5 No, in a world where spirits rose up on a regular basis, there had to be something more special going on than just another corpse walking about. This was a resurrection of many souls, not from death, but from deadness. What do I mean by deadness? I mean the things inside that kept the disciples away from Jesus' funeral -- fear, cowardice, lack of conviction and purpose. And I mean those same things in our own lives that prevent us from feeling alive -- things like fear, cowardice, lack of conviction and purpose. And things like the loneliness, grief, and boredom that numb us to life. It's as if we let parts of ourselves die and stuff them away in a tomb of the soul. Sometimes that tomb is not such a bad place. It is like a womb -- safe and secure, comfortable and predictable. Our tomb-life may be nothing more than the safety and comfort of a nice predictable routine. Or it may be a shelter from the world and its problems -- a place to hide from the Jesus who called for a world where people care for one another. Whether it is escape or comfort, the time comes for us to roll away the stone and come out. [from Into the Wilderness: A Meditation Manual (Skinner House Books, 1990)] March 2016 Page 5 of 5 Reverend Dr. Susan Veronica Rak