CULL THE DEPTHS OF LOVE
James Ishmael Ford, Anne Bancroft
Easter Sunday, 27 March 2005

Anne
A few weeks ago, in one of our Children’s chapel services, I read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. Many of you may be familiar with this sort of sweet tale of the relationship between a boy and a tree, and how – as the boy grows older and has less time for the tree and more needs of his own – the tree gives all it has to give, first its apples to sell, then its limbs to build a home, then its body to build a boat - down to the stump of its trunk, in order for the boy to be happy. My hope was that the children would be at least somewhat familiar with the story, because the point of the chapel was not about what was implicit in the book, but about the importance for us to step back a little and consider what a story really might have to offer. What do we like about it, and what don’t we like? For example, you might read this book any number of times before thinking to yourself – hey, what about that boy’s manners? He never once said thankyou to the tree! The title is “The Giving Tree,” when it might be more accurately called, “The Ungrateful Boy,” and not such a sweet tale after all!

Again, my goal for the children was not so much to tear apart Shel Silverstein’s effort at a story about giving as it was about taking the time to think about the stories we hear, and how they ring true for us – or don’t. What value do they offer? How do they help us to live better?

This morning we find ourselves considering again the Easter story, of life, death and resurrection, a story so powerful, and so pivotal in our Western culture. It is serendipitous that it comes up annually, giving us the chance to unpack it with yet another year of wisdom garnered. Given that we all bring our personal experiences to bear on how we internalize stories, I wonder if there are new perspectives on this familiar theme that you have brought today that you did not have last year.

My mind is awash, this year, in the details of the Easter story. I am taking Introduction to the New Testament, and am immersed in the plethora of scholarship about first, second and third century Christianity. It is truly amazing stuff. I am learning that the normative Christianity of today had very little foothold, really, in the first century. There was and is no consensus on who told the story the right way, nor on whose version of Jesus’ life should be included in what would become the official story book. One scholar ironically points out that, “Jesus might not just marvel at the rich diversity of meanings ascribed to him by distinguished scholars. Rather, most likely he would have an identity crisis and fall into deep depression.” As the writer’s grandmother often said in response to atrocities committed in his name: “Poor Jesus, he would turn over in his grave if her were still there!” And, all this studying is important scholarship to the degree that it helps us understand the evolution of the Christian faith better. But when I finally put my books down, I am still confronted with the question: what does the Easter story mean for me? How does it help me live better?

I think it’s important to qualify that, for me, this story is not an experienced theological reality. I consider the Christian story of Easter from the outside looking in, if you will, as I imagine many among you might. I do not think of Jesus as my personal savior, nor do I believe in his reappearance on Earth, except in the hearts and minds of those who loved him. Nonetheless, I am touched by the nuanced concept of resurrection, and how his path lead us to that concept. If death is a disconnect – one that we might experience literally through the death of a friend or loved one, or metaphorically, as divorce is a death, or job loss, or the end of an illusion - then resurrection is the chance to heal, to re-bind, to connect again. Everything changes us – every event in our lives, small or large, takes us to a different place, but this story reminds us that those changes need not define us negatively. The promise of Easter is the assurance of our human capacity to say boldly, as did the poet Dylan Thomas: death shall have no dominion.

Again, in normative Christianity, the victory over death is a function of Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection. But for me the aspect of the Easter story that makes the message of healing available is not through the crucifixion, but through the radical path of love that Jesus traveled, that he intentionally chose to travel. The fact that his message was more important to him than what it might cost him in his effort to deliver it is the key to the power of a resurrecting love. I am a neophyte in the land of New Testament scholarship, but what I’ve learned is that the cross and resurrection focus are Paul’s contribution to the development of Christianity, not Jesus’. Paul is the born again Jesus-follower of the mid-first century, who did claim to experience Jesus resurrection personally, who never knew him in life. When we focus on the divinity of Christ – that Paul and others taught long after his death - we risk losing sight of the humanity of Jesus. When we remember that he was human, we can see his potential in ourselves. There are others in history who have lived such teaching lives, but let me suggest it is the behavior in relationship that Jesus taught that caught hold in those early years, and it is within our ability to choose that same radical path of love, to forgive the deaths, the disconnects, that we experience, and to mend in joy and celebration.

Love is the resurrection. Love is the yeast, the healing, the helium, the reconnection, the earthly return of spring.

If we turn away too soon from the Easter story out of fear or cavalier disregard, we risk missing a valuable lesson. It is a story in which we might recognize that, in all likelihood, we have not begun to cull the depths of what love can be.

James
Easter continues to be a conundrum for me. While I too am one looking at this ancient festival from the outside, it is the story of my people. While I don’t believe it as some historical truth this story has a place in my bones, it lives within my dreams. No doubt this story that informs so many within our culture is powerful. While our Unitarian Universalist tradition quite correctly, I believe, gives vastly more attention to the path of Jesus the rabbi; there is clearly something to this story that is worth reflecting on.

As Anne and I were discussing Easter for this sermon its difficulties were really obvious. What we quickly also noticed was how it produced spring like tendrils, wrapping around our hearts and minds and pulling us toward something curious. For one thing as we talked we found our conversation constantly returning to love. Indeed, at some point when we realized how our conversation really had taken this specific focus, and how our reflection included healthy and unhealthy approaches to love, Anne said, “We have not begun to cull the depths of what love can be.” I’ve turned that phrase over and over in my mind, giving it different emphasis: “We have not begun to cull the depths of what love can be.” “We have not begun to cull the depths of what love can be.” “We have not begun to cull the depths of what love can be.”

I agree that the Easter story turns on love. But the story also illuminates for us how complicated it can be. On this note I recall walking toward the Fellowship Hall with a congregational old hand, when he mentioned as an aside how while for many of us “God” is a problematic term – having as it does too many possible definitions; for him the most problematic word we here at FUSN use all the time is “love.” He went on to suggest maybe we would want to address that in a forum format sometime. I think that could be a worthwhile enterprise. It is also worth thinking about here, today.

Many of us consider God and love synonymous. I have a slightly different take on this divine love thing. For me love is like the Shekinah in ancient Judaism – distinct from God. God, as a source, can’t be limited. Not only does God have no gender, I think it really has no name at all. I suspect that is the reason the ancients refused to utter the divine name. To utter a name was to limit, to create in one sense an idol.
Love is not that unnamable. Rather love is the first of all created things; perhaps the energy of God in the world. But even that phrasing is a bit misleading. I think love doesn’t exist as an abstract ideal. Love only happens within relationships. It is the energy of relationship.

If love exists only within relationship, then another point is how it isn’t always a good or healthy thing. There is a kind of stranglehold we can get in the name of love; a clinging beyond what is helpful or, can I say, loving? I’m sure we can all think of examples. And, as Anne suggested in her reflection on the Giving Tree, we see an example of an incomplete love. Love as endless giving when applied to human relationships seems wrong to me.

Certainly this is a place where I struggle with the Easter idea of Christ’s unconditional love even unto death. Struggle: I don’t completely reject it. At least in the sense of Christ being something or a possibility within each of us. But I am wary. I talk a lot about how we should not turn away from the unpleasant or difficult. And there’s a reason for this. If we don’t turn, if we keep investigating, we often discover things are bigger than we thought.

As an example let me briefly describe some of my own difficulty, what I’ve had to deal with, and where that not turning away has perhaps opened my own heart a bit. I think many people here know my father was an alcoholic. On any number of occasions in my childhood and adolescence he would get roaring drunk, fall and hurt himself. He also had many difficult conditions as a result of wounds from the Second World War. On too many occasions first my mother then I had the task of holding him in an upright position so he could breathe. During these times he would relive a horrific experience at a battle in Italy. I’ve heard that story enough times that it has seeped into my mind and occupies my dreams. His horror has become one of my memories.

The focus here is on love. As a child I sat with my mother as she held him up. As a young adolescent that task often fell to me. I felt proud and loving and important. If he had cut himself in his falling and there was blood and it covered me, I felt all the more important. And a good disciple of Jesus, loving in the face of hurt.

By the time I was in my middle adolescence my feelings shifted. At the time I thought love was dead. But I kept doing the job. I continued to hold him, but I felt disgust and a growing hatred for those consequences for our family in this apparently endless cycle of drink and hurt and horrific dreams. Here was where I felt I didn’t have unconditional love. Indeed, that my love had become a sickness. In terms of the Giving Tree I didn’t want to become the stump. I didn’t want to give everything to this obsession and cycle of suffering and regret.

Now Anne has suggested that love is the resurrection. And I think she might be right. Love as resurrection. Love as the significance of Easter. I talk about not turning away from the bad. Well, we also can’t turn away from the good. And in my complicated relationship with my father so much of what I value and is good in my life were gifts from him. A love of the language. Reading anything put in front of me. A knack for telling a story. A fierce sense of friendship, and if somewhat twisted, a belief that honor means something.

These things were all gifts; and I think gifts of love.

But, and this is the Easter mystery. I couldn’t open myself to these possibilities until I surrendered my death grip on resentment and hatred. I needed to take the lessons of misguided love, but not to hold them so tightly I couldn’t see what else was there. The resurrection awaited my willingness to lay things that damaged my soul in the grave. The resurrection awaited my willingness to be surprised by joy, to accept the gifts that were being offered. As Dylan Thomas sings.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

Like love and God, death has many definitions. There is that ending of our individual lives that occupies many minds and hearts. But there is also something that happens in our living hearts when we let go of our clinging, and allow the mystery of the world to reveal itself. In that moment when we forget to grasp after our resentments and crush our hurts to our hearts, something precious and beautiful appears. It is an Easter moment. It, I really believe, only appears when we face another. But, as we do, the energy of God dances across the world, and love manifests. Once again, love proves itself against death. This is the Easter story for each of us: love abides, awaiting only the next moment to rise up.

Anne
The Rev. Gordon McKeemon has suggested that a sermon does not end with the service. In your minds and hearts, hopefully, is the lingering presence of a challenge. Where are your Easter moments? How does this story help you to live better? As you celebrate your day together, may you be reminded to consider: as you have culled its depths, how has love lifted you up?