First Parish Bedford UU

“Wake Up!”

A sermon by Rev. John E. Gibbons

delivered on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010

at The First Parish in Bedford, Massachusetts

I suppose, as a preface to my sermon, this is something of a text – a reading from the writings of Unitarian minister A. Powell Davies. Davies was an enormously influential minister in the 40’s and 50’s at the All Soul’s Church in Washington, D.C. (where, as I mentioned last week, they receive the offering in bushel baskets) and he inspired the founding of most of our churches in the D.C. area, including the one in Paint Branch, MD where Diane Teichert now serves. Davies said this:

"Why should any of us be confined within a single area of religious culture? When I read Amos and Jeremiah, I say 'Would to God I were a Jew.' When I read the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I say 'Would I were a Galilean.' When I read the 13th of 1st Corinthians, I wish with all my heart that I might be a Christian after the manner of the Apostle Paul. When I think of Buddha and his Eightfold Path, I say, 'I, too, would be a Buddhist.' And when I remember the trial of Socrates, I say in awe but with exalted spirit, 'Oh that I might be so brave a humanist.' And thus at the end, there is nothing I can say but that, like Emerson and Channing, I want to live with the privilege of the illimitable mind.”

For most people who celebrate Easter, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the unique sine qua non of faith: A Christian, quite simply, is one who believes in the resurrection and accepts Jesus as one’s personal savior.

If one is unsure of the resurrection or regards Jesus as an ethical teacher rather than as the uniquely divine son of God, then (our orthodox friends would say) one simply is not a Christian.

It is for this that Unitarians have been convicted of heresy, burned at the stake or, in the more polite modern era, denied membership in the National Council of Churches, and regularly denounced as a cult or, alas more likely, dismissed as but a social club.

That we have a different or puzzled view of Easter, however, is not a sufficient excuse for me to wrap this sermon up early, go to the bunny rabbit service at 11:00, then high-tail it to drinks, dinner and Opening Day.

There is a universal experience of Easter, and it is one that has been described by Christians, Jews, Muslims, humanists, pagans and people of every faith, belief and disbelief.

There is a universal experience of Easter that is available to those who would – with A. Powell Davies, Emerson, Channing and so many other wide-minded women and men – want to live with the privilege of the illimitable mind.

The universal experience of Easter is the universal experience of waking up, awakening as from a slumber, having one’s eyes opened, one’s awareness stretched.

This morning a stone was rolled away from an empty tomb and, for those who witnessed and experienced this, down through the centuries unto now, life can never ever be the same again.

Whatever the creeds and theologies and jargon, that is what is celebrated in churches today.

The Christian experience (I don’t much care about Christian or any other beliefs)…the Christian experience is one of waking up to a new reality, transformed by the deathless example of Jesus.

Now I am relatively certain that all of you are, to greater and lesser degrees, awake...not deeply asleep. Puritan churches, you recall, gave a job to the tithingman who watched over the congregation and, with a long knobbed pole and a squirrel tail, whacked those who would nod off!

Staying physically awake is, actually, something deserving of high praise. The difficulty in doing so, of course, is often caused by a lack of sleep and, quite seriously, I also have thought of preaching a sermon in praise of sleep; but that’s for another time for the universal experience of Easter is awakening.

Sometimes, you know, I have spent time at the Zen Mountain Monastery in upstate New York. I go there when I get sick of all our talk talk talk noise and the sound of my own voice; and there we sit in silence. For long periods of time. This silence is punctuated rarely but occasionally and unpredictably by a meditation monitor: “Wake up!” she instructs, the Zen tithingwoman. She makes sure we are not physically falling asleep but, metaphorically, she is also reminding us to be awake.

Call me a Unitarian Universalist heretic but, when I think about the awakening meaning of Easter, I find myself thinking about… Buddha.

Do you recall his life story? Said to have been born with his eyes open, his was a royal family. He was Prince Siddhartha and three palaces were built for him: one for the hot season, one for the cold season and one for the rainy season (that last one had sump pumps and French drains). He lived a sheltered, luxurious and beautiful life within the royal compounds; and he was not allowed to leave.

As a young man, however, he could not contain his curiosity and the royal charioteer took him outside the walls. Afraid of what his son might see, his father the king ordered that his son see nothing but beautiful things. Nonetheless, Siddhartha caught a glimpse – first of a poor man, then of a sick person, then of a funeral procession, and last of a holy man, an ascetic.

To see these with his own eyes was, for Siddhartha, an awakening. He renounced his life of riches; he became a begging monk but that too did not satisfy him. Ultimately, having experienced both luxury and deprivation, he achieved what he called “the middle way,” a way that acknowledges life’s suffering but offers liberation through right views, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration – the “eightfold path.” He became the Buddha, literally “the awakened one.”

Easter is awakening.

For Jews as well, Passover is an awakening. We were slaves in Egypt but Moses was awakened by a vision of the promised land of freedom.

A while ago, I preached a sermon titled, “Wherever You Are, It’s Probably Egypt” – and, with tears in your eyes, some of you then came to my office, saying, “Yes, I am in Egypt.” All of us are enslaved to realities from which we need liberation – unhealthy dependencies, hurts, habits, addictions, prejudices, grudges, grievances, self-deceptions….all of us are asleep to realities from which we can awaken.

Easter is awakening.

Pagans and humanists and ye of every faith, belief and disbelief: Easter, we may celebrate together, is awakening.

And so last week on our email listserve I asked, “What has awakened you?” Here are your responses and though you may guess the identity of some, we will present all anonymously for the experiences are illimitable:

(read by Megan)

We recently traveled to New Zealand -- the farthest from home we had ever been. New Zealand is an extraordinarily beautiful country; and it can be enjoyed quietly and slowly as it is also rather sparsely populated.

One night, while staying outside of Queenstown with friends, my sleep still disturbed by jet lag, I awoke at 2 am and looked out the window. The darkness about the house and yard was black-black, and the sky was just exploding with stars.

In the absence of much ambient light, the stars seemed just overhead -- almost reachable. Each star was bright and even twinkling (I am not making this up). No Big Dipper of course, but even though I'm no astronomer I recognized the Southern Cross right off. And the Milky Way. Stars everywhere, pulsing with light.

I woke up my husband --"Come see this! You won't believe it!" He grumbled, but groped his way to the window and then stood there gasping with me. After a bit, we made our way into the back yard, groping through our friends’ unfamiliar house and hoping we wouldn't break anything or set off an alarm.

We just had to be outside, with the night and under the stars. It was very romantic, but more than that -- it somehow put us in our place, made us feel like the transient residents of earth we claim we are but don't usually experience ourselves to be. I felt present on the surface of the earth, for lack of better words.

Something I have long professed -- a belief in good stewardship of the earth (repurpose-reuse-recycle, etc) seemed suddenly righter and truer and more important and worthwhile.

I was literally "awakened" to this in the middle of the night. I went back to bed feeling shivery and full of discovery, with grass between my toes from dancing under the stars in the middle of the night.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by John)

My wife getting cancer awakened more love in my heart. Sounds corny but things either get better or worse when an illness strikes. She is cancer free for 6 years after metastatic breast cancer so love still grows. I was awakened to the preciousness of life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by Megan)

A couple of 'awakenings' come to mind ...

#1: You are not the only one! When I encounter a problem or experience a set-back, I remind myself of this comforting fact. As we grow up I think it takes several years for us to realize that in almost every case there is someone who has experienced this same problem (or worse) before, whether it's a problem with our health, our spouse's health, our kid's health, our house, our car, our computer, whatever ... there is comfort in knowing that others have gone before, that someone out there is going through the same thing, that someone else may have the solution to your problem. (I find the internet to be an amazing source of comfort in this regard….)

#2: Most of the time nobody notices you! This realization is somewhat of a double-edged sword - sometimes you want to be noticed and sometimes you really don't. We all have occasion to wish for anonymity or invisibility. As a kid I used to assume that everyone was aware of me and cared what I said or did. As I grew older, I came to realize that most people are more wrapped up in their own lives than in mine and that most of the time I have that invisibility! That fact can spur me to take action and increase my visibility when appropriate, and it can provide comfort to me when I want to blend in with the crowd.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by John)

Everyday I wondered "What is life for?"

Then I found a lump in my breast.

Healthy people spend a lot of time waiting in hospitals. When you might have cancer you're on the fast track. Ultrasound, surgeon, biopsy, go home and wait, the bad news.

I guess I am a coward because I think I experienced a physical, psychological and spiritual crucible called mortal fear. I trembled, sweated and shivered and my skin crawled. I felt nauseous and my bowels churned. My body went on autopilot. I lay down, turned my face to the wall and slipped into a semi-conscious state. I remembered an expression I had heard.. "so scared you don't know whether to shit or go blind. Yeah. That's pretty much it.

When I came to myself I began to form some vague ideas about what life is and isn’t for. For the first time in my life I was awake. Life is for joy.

Would I get a chance to try out my new idea?

When animals are afraid they can give free rein to their adrenalin and run the other way as far and as fast as they can. We can't do that. We're forced to walk straight toward the things we fear most. An alanon friend told me "Honey, this is life. You need to put on your big girl shoes and walk it through." So I started walking, through 2 surgeries, 16 weeks of chemo and 8 weeks of radiation, MRIs, more biopsies etc. Finally the day came when they said "OK that's it. We'll see you in a year."

When the doors out of the hospital opened in front of me that day it was like when they release an animal back into the wild on one of those nature shows. I hesitated for a minute, then a breeze carrying the smell of summer moved the peach fuzz on my bald head and I bolted out that door.

That was five years ago and I have had a lot of joy and many small awakenings since then. Some pleasant and some not so. Some are gradual and some are downright inconvenient. I'm grateful for them all and I hope they keep coming.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by Megan) 

From my mother-in law: what woke her up was (John’s) sermon when (he) said "I have never regretted being too generous" (apropos given we're in Canvass Season!)

??

From my husband: at our first orientation to Kindergarten the school principal was talking about all of the things that would happen at the Davis School and in Kindergarten. He suddenly realized, "our child is now a cog in the wheel rather than the center of the Universe.”

??

From me: one of the first was that I could disagree with my parents and convince them to my position. Later, that it was okay to make demands about how I expected to be/not to be treated (can you believe I used to be a doormat??? Go ahead and guffaw). Then, years later, that a serious illness really COULD be a blessing.

Now that I am well seasoned, generally it's a small bladder that wakes me up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by John)

In the sense of a spiritual awakening, the only event that would come close was my discovery of the beauty of classical music when I was in my teens.

 In the sense of a creative awakening, a discovery, the "ah ha" moment, I never had any that amounted to much.

 In terms of how I place myself as a member of human society, I have had two "social" awakenings. The first of these was when I was in my early thirties, during the Vietnam war. As I began to see the fallacies of my country's entry into that part of Asia, I was reluctant to join the protests because I had served in the military and held the usual patriotic attitude: "My Country, right or wrong". I held to the logic that a nation was the highest and strongest human political institution, and that in terms of simple survival, the strongest nation would be the one whose citizens gave to it their highest allegiance, over that of class, tribe, family, or self. My awakening then was to the fact that our constitutionally anointed leaders had brought the whole country into a highly immoral conflict, one that would do great harm to our country. Thus, the only moral acts would be those of civil disobedience and protest.

My other significant awakening had to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 1948 I applauded the creation of the state of Israel, as the least that the world should offer the Jewish people given how little the US and other countries had done to protect them from the Holocaust. As conflict with the displaced Palestinians stretched into decades, my feelings evolved into more of "a pox on both your houses.”

I felt no motivation to inform myself about the rights and wrongs of either side, until I read Jimmy Carter's book "Peace, not Apartheid in Palestine" in 2006. Stimulated by vastly contradictory information I found on the Internet, I decided to go to Palestine, a place in which I had never had any interest, to see for myself.

What I saw awakened me to the reality of what Israel was doing to it's own Arab citizens and to the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in the name of maintaining a pure Jewish state. I came awake to the fact that as a citizen of the US, I was helping to subsidize the Israeli violations of international law and basic human rights.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by Megan)

There are 3 events which have stuck with me.

The music teacher saying "Yes, you can be taught to sing."

(My niece’s) birth.

And an incident about 30 years ago. I was walking home from work and there was a big tree which had turned color for the fall. The sun was shining on it. I was just looking at it and reveling and feeling 'gee, it is great to be alive'. It was the first time I can ever remember having that feeling.

I think I will have to add a fourth - coming up to the finish line at the Olympic triathlon last year. And realizing that I had really done it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by John)

I woke up and my cancer was gone (so was my prostate!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(read by Megan)

Several things that have woken me up this past year:

- Anusara yoga - this is an amazing mirror of spirituality in the yoga tradition

- reading Thich Nhat Hanh's study of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra where he explains that to understand what it is meant by the phrase 'being empty', one first needs to ask 'empty of what?’ and as a corollary 'what is empty of what?’

- watching one's kids grow up

- the amazing beauty of it all, and for a couple brief moments that seem to not be repeated frequently enough at all, understanding that it does not end with the death of the physical body.

Conclusion by John

Easter is the universal experience of awakening, awakening to beauty and to ugliness, awakening to the reality of things as they are…and as they yet may be, awakening to the privilege of life with an illimitable mind.

And, last, Robert Francis’ poem, “Summons”:

Keep me from going to sleep too soon

Or if I go to sleep too soon

Come wake me up. Come any hour

Of night. Come whistling up the road.

Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.

Make me get out of bed and come

And let you in and light a light.

Tell me the northern lights are on

And make me look. Or tell me clouds

Are doing something to the moon

They never did before, and show me.

See that I see. Talk to me till

I'm half as wide awake as you

And start to dress wondering why

I ever went to bed at all.

Tell me the walking is superb.

Not only tell me but persuade me.

You know I'm not too hard persuaded.

Prayer by Megan Lynes:

Spirit of Life and Love,

We give thanks this day for the Wake Up call that is our life.

We give thanks for stars in the night, lumps removed, trees ablaze, and the fear of isolation lifted. Yet again, though we thought it impossible, we have been taught to sing!

“Grateful for the darkness that has nourished us, we push away the stone and invite the light to awaken us to the possibilities within and around and among us - possibilities for a new life in ourselves and in our world.” (Sarah York)

Today we rejoice in light and gladness!

May it be so.

Amen.