WE RISE AGAIN (PIETA) REV. AMY RUSSELL EASTER SUNDAY, 2017 When I look at this image, I feel all the pain of loss and the agony of grief of this mother. How much she aches with the loss of her child. This image depicts what I have experienced as grief. On my recent trip to Italy, seeing this statue of Michelangelo s was the highlight. It brought tears to my eyes. Tears of grief. And then, at the same time, this image gives me tears of joy as well. How, you might say, could this possibly give you joy? Because it reminds me that at the root of my grief is that deep, unexplainable love that we carry for our loved ones. We could not grieve if we had not loved. Joy at the fact of that love. Joy at the possibility of that love. Joy that my heart contains the capacity for such a love. What can this magnificent and sacred work of art tell us about Good Friday and Easter? Well, first of all, this work tells us something about the human being, Michelangelo and his relationship to his faith. Michelangelo, a Renaissance sculptor, was only 23 when he began this commission for a French cardinal. He had lost his own mother when he was quite young. Looking at this youthful face of Mary, you could imagine that this figure could be Michelangelo s own recollection of his own mother. Page 1 of 5
Irving Stone, in his biography of Michelangelo describes the work like this: Because the Madonna was gazing down on her son, all who looked must turn to her face, to see the sadness, the compassion for all men s sons, asking with tender despair, What could I have done to save him? He goes on to say: it was Michelangelo s desire to blend the classical Greek concept of the beauty of the human body with the Christian ideal of the immortality of the human soul. He banished the lugubrious death throes of the earlier Pieta s, bathed his two figures in tranquility. Human beauty could reveal sacredness as clearly as could pain. At the same time it could exalt. This work exalts the faith of Michelangelo in his belief that Jesus s sacrifice, the terrible burden that it is for his mother, is also an act of love for humankind. And as Unitarian Universalists, we don t necessarily believe in the resurrection of the bodily Christ as being an act of God s love for our salvation, but we can believe in the metaphor of resurrection. Resurrection of our spirit coming back to life after times in which we thought all was dead. When the women come to the tomb and find that Jesus body is not there, they are told that they should not look for the living among the dead. Because Jesus is not dead, he is risen. He has not been defeated by death, they are saying. He has risen even above death. He is resurrected. The obvious metaphor of resurrection is the one we see coming to life outside our windows even as we speak. The resurrection occurring in each bud as they burst forth with new life. The green sprigs and pink blossoms that revive our spirits every spring as the world awakes from its winter slumber. I think most of us can feel that stir in our bodies and our souls as we witness this awakening. But resurrection happens in the least likely of places in the least likely of times. It happens when we think that life is over. It happens when we have reached the end of our rope, the time when we feel we have no more to give. There are stories of resurrection told every day. Traci shared hers with ours today and that was truly inspirational. We human beings do this all the time. Life is a series of losses and hardships. Buddhism says that life is dukkha - suffering. And it s what we do with that suffering that creates the meaning in our lives. We don t choose to suffer, but we choose what we do with our suffering. We can choose to give in to our suffering. Or we can choose to use it to become better, more compassionate human beings. Understanding suffering allows us to have an intimate relationship with everyone else who also suffers. Page 2 of 5
There are many times in our lives when we go looking for the living among the dead. When we get stuck in parts of our lives that are stuck and we keep looking there for life, when it is no longer there. There was a time in my life when I felt completely stuck. I was in my early thirties, was married and was raising my two kids while working full time. I had no time for myself as many of you young parents know about. There was no time for my marriage. Between our two busy careers, being involved in a Buddhist organization that was very important to us, and taking care of two young children, there was no time left for each other. I felt like my marriage was dead. I kept looking for my husband to be a different kind of person. I kept wanting him to be this person who would want to talk to me about how I was feeling. I kept wanting him to be a person who could be my supporter and confidante. And I wasn t getting anything from him but a reflection of what I was putting into the relationship which was frustration and complaints. I blamed him. He blamed me. And we were stuck. I was looking for a marriage that would give me energy and life, but I was investing nothing in making that happen. After much frustration, I did go for some counseling. And it was recommended to me that if I didn t invest time in the relationship, it would be dead. So, against my desires, but out of desperation, I took the counselor s suggestion to my husband that we spend one night a week as our date night. That we hire a babysitter, and spend one night just spending time with each other. Neither of us wanted to do it for a myriad of reasons. We didn t have enough money, not enough time. We didn t know a babysitter who we could get every week, etc. etc. Excuses. But we decided to give it a try. We advertised for a babysitter and found a grandmother type we really liked and hired her for every Saturday night. And we d go out to our favorite restaurant. And then we d look at each other and not know what to say to this stranger we were married to. Often, we d end up talking just about the kids. But after three months of doing this, things began to change. We started talking about our careers with each other. We started describing to each other what we wanted in our lives and in our marriage. We started enjoying our time together. We began to fall in love again. With a new understanding of our relationship, we resurrected our marriage. It was really a different marriage now because we were different people by that time. The old marriage was dead. We weren t the people we had married. So, we needed a new relationship. And we had begun to build it. We stopped looking for the living among the dead. Instead, we found new life in a new marriage. That s what I think it means to find resurrection. To find Easter after a long hard Good Friday. Many of you have had experiences like this. There s a book I ve been reading about a woman who was a Syrian refugee whose story could be said to be one of those resurrection stories, although a much more difficult time than my story. Page 3 of 5
Basharr al Assad began his tenure as president of Syria in 2001, taking over from his father who had been a very repressive president. There was hope that the son who had been educated in England would be open to more democratic reforms. But sadly, that was not to be. The oppression of the people continued under the excuse of political opposition. In 2007, a severe drought in Syria made the lives of the people much more difficult and discontent that was already building began to rise. Then came the event in Tunesia with the trigger of the self-immolation of a young street merchant causing an eruption of street riots and the eventual overturning of the government. Arab spring had begun. Doaa Al Zamel was born and grew up in a city called Daraa, a Syrian city near the border with Jordan Doaa was a young girl of 16 living in Daraa when some of this political unrest against the oppressive regime began to be evident in street demonstrations in her city. Some young boys, frustrated with the government, wrote some critical remarks in graffiti on the walls of their school. The boys were identified, rounded up, and put into prison. Soon, the families of the boys and community members went to the jail to protest the arrest of these young boys. Instead of letting the boys go, the regime decided to hold the boys. A month later, when the boys still hadn t been released massive demonstrations were held in the streets in Daraa and surrounding towns. At first, police fired tear gas at the protestors. But later, the citizens of Daraa watched in horror as the police opened fire killing dozens of the protestors. Violent demonstrations erupted all over Syria as the people took to the streets to protest. Doaa could not sit by and watch as this happened in her country. Despite warnings from her parents, Doaa began to participate in some of the protests. She reacted as everyone did in horror when the boys who had been imprisoned were finally released but had great evidence of torture all over their bodies. Eventually, Doaa s family was harassed due to her protesting. The family grew scared as they watched more and more people disappear in jails and police came to their doors to question Doaa. The family decided they had to flee. They fled to Egypt. After a year in Egypt where the refugee families had much difficulty finding work, Doaa accepted the marriage proposal of Baseem, a young Syrian man who had helped her family. They married. After another year, Baseem could not find work and felt that he needed to get out of Egypt and get to Europe in order to provide for his new wife. Doaa reluctantly agreed that they would pay smugglers to take them to Greece. They paid an exorbitant sum to smugglers who eventually led them to a small dingy with a small motor. There were 20 people crowded into the small boat. They began their trip. In the middle of the night a larger boat starting ramming the small boat, causing everyone on board to fall overboard and causing the small boat to disintegrate into pieces. They were left in the middle of the ocean with just a few lifejackets. Page 4 of 5
Doaa could not swim and Baseem knew this. She was terrified. Baseem brought her a floating ring and put it around her. Many people around them were already dead. Someone brought Doaa two babies that had been taken from their dead parents. One child was two and the other an infant. Doaa held the babies to her chest and tried to keep them warm with her body. Baseem swam around them looking for a piece of driftwood to hold onto. Hours passed and Baseem was tiring. The water was very cold. Eventually, Doaa watched as Baseen floated away, unconscious. There was nothing she could do. She wanted to die herself instead of living without her husband. But she had these two babies that she was keeping alive. She knew that she couldn t give up because then those babies would die. She held onto life for them. After three days in the water, holding onto the babies, a Greek rescue boat found them and pulled them to safety. They couldn t believe that this woman had held onto these two babies, saving their lives. The infant was very near death, however, and died on the way to shore. Doaa felt devastated. She herself was very ill and was put into a hospital when they reached shore. The two year old child survived. Doaa felt that there was a reason why she had lived and it was because she needed to save this child. The child was later claimed by some relatives who came from Egypt to claim her. Doaa later was granted special asylum in Sweden which is where she and her husband had been headed. And due to her heroism, the international refugee agency granted asylum for Doaa s family to join her in Sweden. We ve heard many stories like this. Of refugees who have survived great odds. Difficulties that we can t even imagine they have overcome. These are truly resurrection stories. Stories that say that life is sacred and that the spirits within us can find new life. We rise again. The human spirit is resilient. It can rise again to overcome great obstacles when it finds the meaning within life to keep going. Michelangelo depicts the triumph of love over our loss so beautifully. The grief of loss and the beauty of a love that can be transformative. Easter is all about how we find within ourselves the strength to transform our greatest vulnerability into our highest ideals. We rise again. Page 5 of 5